What We Champion
Illinois Action for Children advocates for policies that benefit children and build the strong families and communities they need. We believe supporting children means supporting families, educators, and care providers, and making sure their voices are heard. We also believe excellent child care and early learning can change lives and be achieved in all zip codes across all care types.
Our pledge to equity and justice
We pledge to center the following principles and corresponding core values in our work to realize a child care and early education system that lays the foundation for racial and economic equity for all.
- Prioritize equitable outcomes for Black, Latinx, low-income, and rural children and families.
- To support children, we must support their families.
- Racial, economic, and gender justice must be prioritized to advance the entire system.
- The system must work for families and providers.
- Parent choice should be supported and respected, and priority should not be given to one setting or provider type over another.
We elevate the voices and experiences of parents and providers.
As we leverage our own expertise, independent research, and strategic partnerships to advance services and support for young children, we also prioritize grassroots engagement. We know it’s critical for parents and provider voices and experiences to be heard and understood. Through calls to action, witness slips, organizing providers to comment on policy proposals and other activities, we engage providers and families in legislative advocacy.
Our policy and advocacy work has real impact.
We have secured annual increases in early education funding streams and defended programs for vulnerable families. We successfully fought rules severely restricting eligibility for the Child Care Assistance Program, ultimately leading to legislation that fully restored access to the program. We helped win passage of major legislation like PA 100-105, which protects our youngest learners from expulsion in licensed child care and state-funded preschool.