Editor’s note: Steven Lynn is the chair of the First Things First Board.
First Things First (FTF) recently published its State Fiscal Year 2024 Annual Report, Impacting Young Lives Throughout Arizona. I am pleased to share the information in this report because it highlights the outcomes of First Things First’s work in collaboration with partners statewide.
Ensuring babies, toddlers and preschoolers get a strong start and supporting working families is the key to our state’s success. Investing in quality child care is one way to do that. It’s also an investment in our future. We’ve heard from business leaders that recruiting and retaining workers is their number one challenge and that finding affordable, high-quality child care is a significant barrier for current and potential employees. We will continue to help businesses and families find solutions because we know that if child care works, Arizona works.
Today’s young children are our state’s generation next — the generation that in just a couple of decades will be entering the workforce and starting their own families.
Providing quality early child care is our best opportunity to form a solid foundation for success from the start. We have a shared responsibility to ensure all children have the tools they need to learn, grow and succeed.
The report provides information about home-based support that keeps families engaged in their child’s health and education, and it also highlights how family resource centers, along with many other FTF-funded programs, contribute to a family’s well-being.
Now that pandemic relief funds directed to child care over the last three years have ended, we are starting to see the impacts such as child care providers shutting their doors permanently and families losing scholarships for their children to attend quality child care. It is vital that business leaders, community leaders and policymakers work with early childhood partners like FTF to continue to make the case for quality early childhood investments.
We also continue our spotlight on the latest group of FTF’s regional council members who have reached 10 and 15 years of service. It is the work of our dedicated community volunteers, along with FTF Board members, staff, grant partners and early childhood advocates that have made the successes of the past year a reality.
As always, we appreciate your partnership in those efforts, and look forward to the day when all children in Arizona are ready for school and on the road to success.
