Link to Design Brief: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KKhU7yqkJVEZOt3FTZ1Ve9vx2HsBMUU42piTr8W0-5I/edit#heading=h.g7ghxkjezuo3

Link to Slide Show: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1PgZpOWncRB-LW6e8fKCAr6qDtF4asFEkbSkUTnf6LXE/edit#slide=id.g723630543_3_0

Massachusetts has some of the most expensive child care in the country and has some of the most vast income inequality in the United States. That coupled with limited spots in child care centers, swaths of child care deserts, strict laws around child care, and hefty fines for informal child care leaves in-state child care unaccessible and acts as a barrier for wealth accumulation.

Lower income families and single parents must either stay home, find inexpensive child care centers, or find other means for care. Mothers in the Roxbury, Dudley, Dorchester neighborhoods have explained that you “get what you give” suggesting that quality care is achieved when price is high. However, many families from these communities have found a system that provides personal quality care at the cheapest price: Family Child Care Centers.

Project Hope provides a variety of programs to assist the community, particularly women within the community. For example, they provide 11 families with shelter, the provide adult educational services, workforce development and employer partnerships, and offer a speakers bureau. They have a program dedicated to helping women with child care talents to start these Family Child Care Businesses in the Roxbury neighborhood. However, they struggle to get the community involved or to get them to take advantage of these programs unless they are already affiliated with Project Hope. Many of the mothers who came to Project Hope for assistance in times of struggle now are family child care business owners. However Project Hope feels that they have many more services to offer the entire community, not just those who are already engaged with the nonprofit. They hope to spread their services of promoting Family Child Care Businesses throughout their greater community.