264: Awareness months and connecting with community

In this episode of Child Care Conversations, Kate and Carrie chat about National Breastfeeding Awareness Month and how you can support breastfeeding families in your center. They share smart, doable tips, like creating comfy breastfeeding spaces, hosting community groups, and connecting with local media and doctors. Plus, they talk about using themed awareness months to boost your curriculum and marketing. It’s all about building community, supporting families, and making your center stand out. If you’re looking for fresh ideas and a little encouragement, this episode is packed with both! 

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Transcript

Marie 00:00:03  Welcome to Child Care Conversations, the podcast where early childhood leaders like you get real world strategies, honest talk and a whole lot of support. Whether you're running one center or many, we're here to help you lead with confidence and clarity. This episode is brought to you by our summer partner Child Care Business Growth, your go to solution for filling spots, increasing revenue, and scaling your child care business without the burnout. We're proud to partner with a team that's as committed to your success as we are. Learn more at Child Care Business growth. Now let's get into today's conversation. One we think you're really going to love.

Carrie 00:00:48  Okay, I have a question for you. What are you doing this month for Breast National Breastfeeding Awareness Month? We're going to give you Five or more ideas of things that you can do to support your parents of very young children and your community as a whole, taking advantage of this national month, and also how you can use those themed months in your curriculum, in your marketing, and just part of your program.

Carrie 00:01:20  Okay.

Kate 00:01:21  All right. Well, Carrie, I, I'm so excited that you brought this to today's episode, because one of the things that we talk to every director about, whenever we can get them still long enough to listen, is how are you using your building when you're not in class? And to me, this is the perfect, absolutely perfect example of something that your building should be a host for, which is, like classes or that kind of an organization that is a nonprofit organization that's looking for meeting space because here are absolutely. Okay, maybe not absolutely, but most likely clients that you would like to have in your program.

Carrie 00:02:13  Yeah. If you have infants at your program, there's probably some lactating moms involved somewhere, right? There's some some at least potential for breastfeeding. And I know some centers are all kinds of supportive of breastfeeding and others are like, yes, we will take breast milk. and so if you are the type of program that is like, woo hoo, we're going to do everything we can to support mothers and children with breastfeeding.

Carrie 00:02:41  Then this is a month to highlight and do some public awareness about how, you can go back to work and still be a breastfeeding mother.

Kate 00:02:56  Oh, I love that, Carrie. So when Carrie talks about public awareness, this is a couple of different things. This is actually sending out press releases to your local news newspaper, maybe to your HOA. But definitely make sure that your local pediatricians, your local obstetricians, make sure that all of those folks know that your program is supportive of that. Now, if you're not really sure what it means to be supportive, do your research and make sure that you can figure that out.

Carrie 00:03:30  Yeah. So one of the possibilities on that is to reach out to your local TV station and offer to give them a tour of a breast, you know, the space that you have set aside at your program for breastfeeding families. Okay.

Kate 00:03:46  Wait wait wait wait.

Kate 00:03:47  Wait wait wait wait wait wait. What do you mean by set space aside?

Kate 00:03:52  Do I have to do that.

Kate 00:03:53  I mean, I don't know if I have an extra room for that.

Carrie 00:03:57  I mean, do you want to be in compliance with federal law?

Kate 00:04:02  What do you mean? Carrie? I own another business, and I don't have that.

Carrie 00:04:06  Every business has to have space where a breastfeeding mom could nurse their child or pump milk for their employees. So you have to have it. some people do it by just having, a corner of a room with a comfortable chair. Some people have it by putting, chair sofa in a large, handicap accessible bathroom so that it's. Yeah, they may be in the bathroom, but they're not sitting on the toilet while trying to to, pump breast milk. But in a lot of childcare centers, it is the rocking chair in the infant room, right? That is a breastfeeding friendly space. Okay, so.

Kate 00:04:49  Wait wait, wait.

Kate 00:04:50  Because I think what you just said could be an awesome advocacy tool. Public awareness. Get on your soapbox kind of thing. If you are a child care owner or director who finds this valuable.

Kate 00:05:03  Does your Chamber of Commerce host different workshops every month, or even some sort of opportunity for people to stand up and talk for ten minutes? What a great little ten minute. Do you know you're supposed to kind of thing? Because I would suspect that a lot of, restaurants, hospitality industry, places where there might be a lot of females that are employed there may or may not realize what they actually need to have. And this could become you become the champion in your community for friendly breastfeeding practices so that you don't have staff who are hiding in the coat closet or trying to pump on the toilet or anything like that. People.

Carrie 00:05:58  People are trying to pump breast milk in their car on their lunch break. They're trying to eat and and, you know, be hooked up to a battery powered breast pump. I mean, it's a it is a big challenge. I mean, I've dealt with this with parents for, you know, decades. And they have much better breast pumps than when we had to do it manually, or it felt like we were being hooked up to the same thing.

Carrie 00:06:22  A cow would be hooked up to. It made a lot of noise and it was very big. But still, you have to have. And I'm pretty sure it's a federal law. It could be a state law, but I don't think that sounds like something the state of Texas would have done. so I feel like it has to be a federal law. I know it was an employee law that I had to comply with.

Kate 00:06:43  Well, so one thing with that, Carrie, is does there also need to be the ability to have refrigeration or some someplace for that breast milk to be stored too.

Carrie 00:06:51  Yes, yes. And, it's one of my favorite things to see on, memes on social media is the, you know, somebody putting a note in the office fridge saying, hey, to the person who stole what they thought was my creamer. That was my breast milk. I hope you enjoyed it.

Kate 00:07:13  Oh.

Carrie 00:07:14  Yes. That's another part of it, both for general workplaces and at your child care center.

Carrie 00:07:20  But it's a great opportunity also to do some training for your staff on the proper storage and treatment of breast milk.

Kate 00:07:30  Okay. Wait wait.

Carrie 00:07:30  Wait. How long can it stay out at room temperature, etc.?

Kate 00:07:33  So we've now given you suggestions for public relations PR material. We've talked to you about how to get your community involved, how to market to prospective families Emily's who might have, you know, lactating moms with children that accompany them. So and you're telling me that we can also flip this into staff training and all because this one month is breastfeeding awareness month. Are there any other months like this? Carrie?

Carrie 00:08:04  Oh, come on, every month has probably 12. I don't even know what all the ones are for August. Well, this is just one that that hit me like there's breast cancer Awareness month, there's heart health awareness month, there's autism awareness month, there's ADHD awareness month. There is.

Kate 00:08:19  There's women's.

Kate 00:08:20  Health.

Kate 00:08:21  You know, there's women's health. So there is a health one every single month.

Kate 00:08:25  Just so I will tell you that. and a lot of months have at least two that are health related. you can also look in those specialty months and find things related to animals. And so if you want to pull those into your curriculum, which is a little off topic, but if you are ever looking for those Specialty months. We have always we actually know actually I know and we'll make sure that we put it in today's show notes that there's actually some we have some episodes specifically on specialty months and specialty days. But when you're trying to come up with your social media, I know that sometimes this is kind of some work. So I do want to plug real quick this quarter sponsor child care business Growth, who will absolutely help you come up and generate ideas for your social media, how to attract and engage with your parents. And so if you are inspired or interested in doing specialty month campaigns, let child care business growth know and let them work that into your longer term plan for social media and marketing.

Kate 00:09:32  Make it all work together. What a great opportunity!

Carrie 00:09:36  Yep, I went and looked while Kate was talking a little bit about what are some other months coming up? so September is National Guide Dog Month. I think that would be great for curriculum and maybe a field trip in having a guide dog come into the school National Preparedness month. Also, prostate is the health issue for the month. Hispanic Heritage Month October is of course Black History Month. it is also Disability Empowerment Month. So that goes with the Health and National Work and Family Month is October, November is academic writing month. So that's my month. Thank you very much. National Novel Writing Month and, Native American Indian and Native Alaskan Heritage Month. And COPD is the health for that month. December doesn't have a whole lot listed.

Kate 00:10:40  Well.

Kate 00:10:41  It might depend on what search engine you're using because most months do have two. So again, make sure that you have some fun if you're looking specifically for specialty months with kids or families. if you write fun specialty months that are Stem related that have science, technology, engineering and math, you'll find those, a lot of times there's definitely specialty days, but almost all the time those specialty days wrap around a specialty month.

Kate 00:11:09  So, Carrie, if we were asking folks if folks were listening to this and they're a little bit intrigued, or they're like, where do I even start? what might be the process if they want to host a nonprofit organization in their building for these moms, what might be the very first thing they want to do?

Carrie 00:11:30  You want to find one that is aligned with the culture at your center. So if you are a very nature based Program, all wooden furniture, maybe a montessori program or another program that's going to match well with the culture at La Leche League. Then reach out to La Leche League. If, on the other hand, you are a program that has a lot of twins or triplets reaching out to the Mothers of Multiples group. Right. So finding a group that matches the philosophy of your program, the culture of your program, and reaching out to them and saying, hey, I was wondering how we could support you. We have meeting space in evenings or weekends, if that would be helpful to you.

Kate 00:12:19  So, so it's more so. So you're talking about even the step further. So in other words, if you guys are listening, it's do your research. Know what kind of groups might work in your community. Reach out to them. A lot of them have instructors on their website or regional points of contacts on their website. Now, if you're going to have an adult meeting, make sure you have some adult chairs that are a little bit, maybe more than just a folding chair that you picked up at Costco, and make sure that you have thought through what they may need, or ask them, you know, do you have a place for them to get some water? Are they going to want snacks? And if so, do you want to make sure that they understand that you've asked them to kind of haul out whatever they hauled in? So, you know, because if you're maintenance people leave at 6:00 and the event starts at seven and you've given them a door code so they can come and go, but you'd really like them to take any of their snack trash with them so that your house so that your program doesn't smell like whatever there they might have had as a snack.

Kate 00:13:23  so just something to kind of remember. And then I think all of that is really great, but take it that step further. Check in the first few times they come in, and then after that, check in once a month. Make sure it's working for everybody. But don't just leave it there. Make sure that you're engaging with these families and so ask if you can. Every once in a while, show up and kind of offer to give a tour of the program. maybe five minutes before a meeting or ten minutes before a meeting. Or even better, always be there to greet everybody when they come. And make sure that you learn the names of the folks in that group, even if you are not an active participant in the group. Carrie, what else do you think might be the one thing that we have left to tell them related to this topic?

Carrie 00:14:12  I think there are so many opportunities to connect with your community, and that will bring more people into your program, or support the families who are already in your program.

Carrie 00:14:24  And this is just one way to sort of come up with new ideas for how to reach out to the community as look at what kind of month is this, you know, is it the Native American Heritage Month? What are we doing to support the the members of that community in our school? Is that a good match for our program? Maybe you become you know, you've got walls and walls and walls at your program. Maybe you become a gallery space for artists for whatever type of month it is. There's all kinds of ways you can do that. It's all about making sure that we're having a broad approach to our program, and not totally being focused in just on the kids in the building, because the kids in the building are part of a wider community, and we want to support the wider community because, again, we live in the big bad world, right? We have to, help the kids know about what else is out there. And this is a great way to do it.

Kate 00:15:30  Absolutely.

Kate 00:15:30  So if you learn learned something new, please feel free and share the show. depending on your podcast app, go leave a review. And thank you so much for joining us. We look forward to seeing you O in a few days.

Carrie 00:15:46  Talk to you soon. Bye bye.

Marie 00:15:49  Thanks for tuning in. We love bringing you real talk and fresh insight from the world of early childhood education. Be sure to follow us on social media to stay connected and catch all of the latest episodes. And if you're planning a conference, training or special event, Kate and Kerry would love to speak to your audience. You can learn more about their keynote sessions and workshops at Kate and Kerry. If you learned something today. Share the show and leave us a review below. We'll see you next time on Child Care Conversations.