While the state has had a net loss of 5.3% of licensed programs since February 2020, the net decrease in student enrollment is 2.2%. The likely explanation for that gap: Of the 280 net programs lost since February 2020, the vast majority (238, or 85%) have been family child care homes.

“I don’t find it surprising, as a former home-based child care provider,” said Laterria Lassiter.

The United States is experiencing a child care crisis. MDC, an organization based out of Durham, NC, advancing systems change for equity in the South, is working to support home-based child care providers beginning in North Carolina as one way to change the systems that brought about this crisis.