Good Jobs Mean Good Care: A Case Study of the Cooperative Childspace Daycare Centers

Philadelphia’s Childspace is a pioneer, one of the first—and still one of the few— worker cooperatives in the child care sector. With support from the Center for Public Partnerships and Research at the University of Kansas and in order to build on growing interest in building a more resilient child care sector, Capita has now written a case study of Childspace’s business and unique cooperative ownership structure.

Cooperatives — businesses in which ownership and governance are shared by staff and/or clients — have a long history in the United States and around the globe yet only the tiniest footprint in early childhood. The democratic ownership and governance structure of cooperatives is designed to advance the social, cultural, and economic interests of their members and as such, has significant potential to better support the development and aspirations of historically underpaid child care professionals while delivering better outcomes to the young children in their care.

When a crisis like COVID-19 hits, cooperatives are better able to respond, because they have systems in place instead of a lone administrator desperately trying to pivot, make difficult staffing decisions, or determine how to cut costs. Founders Susan Kavchok and Teresa Mansell believe Childspace would not have survived COVID-19 had it not been a cooperative. Its members’ diverse perspectives enabled responsive decision making that would not have been possible in a traditional business structure with a director making decisions on her own.