Hello folks! Our partner Young Women’s Freedom Center is planning a training series this spring and will need childcare, and our partner Trabajadores Unidas Workers United continues to have regular monthly shifts. Meanwhile, our membership is way down since pre-pandemic times. So: we’re gearing up for a new member drive!
You can now sign up for our interest list via this snazzy new form: bit.ly/BACCinterest. You can also help spread the word with these new versions of our flyer:
Young Women’s Freedom Center is #buildingpower with those most impacted by unjust systems to end cycles of violence and incarceration and build alternatives.
La Colectiva is #buildingpower among domestic workers locally and nationally while running a functioning worker’s cooperative.
Both groups need in-person childcare to make this happen! (Shortly. When the omicron surge subsides.) BACC is recruiting for the following shifts:
Young Women’s Freedom Center:
Mondays, 3:30 pm to 5:30 pm, At The Port, a coworking space in the Kaiser building in downtown Oakland/Lake Merritt
Thursdays, 4 pm to 6 pm at YWFC’s office on Folsom in the SOMA district, SF
La Colectiva:
Wednesdays, 5-7 pm at their office on Cesar Chavez in the Mission district, SF
Not a BACC member yet? No problem! We’re running our first (virtual) orientation for new members in over 2 years. Current members are encouraged to attend to brush up on BACC protocols and meet new folks. Please help spread the word! RSVP to bayareachildcarecollective@gmail.com. (Want to join BACC but can’t make the date? Email us and let us know!)
BACC has largely been on hiatus—with occasional virtual childcare shifts—throughout the pandemic. With the availability of vaccines and boosters, some of our partner groups have begun to meet in person again and have childcare needs, and so BACC is emerging from our hiatus (slowly, with delays due to recent surges). Here is our COVID safety protocol.
In the spring of 2019, BACC Core was called in by a partner group to create a strong protocol for boundaries and consent. BACC Core teamed up with Beth Reichmuth, BACC member and facilitator from Kidpower International, to create the BACC Boundaries and Consent Protocol. Our intention was to create guidelines to protect children’s safety, foster a culture of consent, and offer guidance to our members, including inexperienced childcare providers. We adopted the protocol in November 2019, asking all current BACC members to read and agree to it, and integrated it into our orientations for new members. After a long COVID-induced hiatus, we are finally releasing the document publically! Along with Beth, BACC Core members relied on input and feedback from many other BACC members, social justice organizers from our partner groups, and fellow childcare wizards from the intergalactic conspiracy of childcare collectives. Thank you deeply for your participation in this process.
And here’s the link to the guide on google docs. From the introduction:
As radical childcare collectives, we join the millions who are heartbroken and horrified at the continuing examples in a long history of state violence against people of color, and specifically, against Black communities. We bear witness to the devastating effects of this systematized racism, especially on the youngest in our communities.
George Floyd was a father and grandfather, and his younger daughter was six at the time of his murder. Korryn Gaines’ son bore witness to the murder of his mother by the police. Alton Sterling leaves five children without their father. Philando Castile worked with young people. Lavish Reynolds’ daughter bore witness and comforted her mother when her mother’s boyfriend was killed by the police. Eric Garner had five children and three grandchildren. Tanisha Anderson had a daughter. Michael Brown was a teenager. Trayvon Martin was a teenager. Tamir Rice was a child. Aiyana Jones was a child. And this list is far from complete. These appalling acts will continue if we let them. In this context, childhood is a privilege available only to a select set of children. Children not afforded this privilege learn to be fearful from the earliest of ages, monitoring their bodies and movement, clothing and speech, in a way that no person, let alone a child, should ever have to do.
In our childcare work, it is made apparent to us that raising a Black child in this racialized atmosphere is in and of itself a revolutionary undertaking, an act of defiance against a world that says there is no place for them here. For people raising white and non-Black children, bringing them up with race-consciousness is a critical step towards challenging this violence. To this end, we have begun to collect resources that are helpful in this work. This list is a living document, and we encourage you to explore it, and add to it any resources that could aid all of us in this collective journey.*
We do this work because we believe that another world is not only possible, but coming into formation through the powerful leadership of Black organizing spaces like Black Lives Matter. It is the world that all of us long for: where all children can enjoy being children, precisely because Black communities are no longer subject to the oppression that has had such heavy impact for so long.
In struggle and solidarity,
The Intergalactic Conspiracy of Childcare Collectives
The ICCC is a loose network of childcare collectives across North America (though intergalactic in our aspirations!). As childcare collectives, we support the participation of families in movement spaces by providing childcare and children’s programming that furthers a vision for collective, intergenerational liberation. Learn more about the many childcare collectives that make up our network!
We have been trying to troubleshoot a problem, so far to no avail– if you email us via the link on our website, we cannot see your email address and thus cannot reply.
So this is a message to Deanne who recently inquired about our orientation– we’d love to have you join BACC. Please try sending another email to bay area childcare collective at gmail dot com (without the spaces).
Join the Bay Area Childcare Collective (BACC)! This is our first orientation for new members since last March; we have been working on a new CONSENT & BOUNDARIES protocol and training for our members, and it’s now ready to share! In the meantime, our partner groups — La Colectiva, Causa Justa :: Just Cause, LeftRoots, Young Women’s Freedom Center, Young Workers United and others — need our continued volunteer power to keep their programs running and accessible to parents.
BACC MISSION: We are committed to offering free, play-based childcare and childcare resources to grassroots liberation groups composed of and led by people who face multiple oppressions, particularly low/no income immigrant women and women of color. Our priority is to support groups that have many mothers and other caregivers in their membership.
WHY JOIN?
Plug into urgent & long-term local grassroots organizing for racial and economic justice! Our partner groups build power in black and brown Bay Area communities while fighting against displacement, fighting for immigrant rights, facilitating community visioning and more!
*Support undocumented and low-income mothers and other caregivers’ voices in the movement.
*Kid-time! Play, create, sing, discuss, read, move, build, and grow your soul with kick*ss bay area kids.
*We are also looking for PAID PROVIDERS to join our paid provider network and receive ~1-3 gig referrals per month (no commitment)
BACC COMMITMENT:
*Pre-orientation readings (~30 mins – 1 hour)
*New Provider Orientation (3 hours)
*One skill-building activity every six months
*One (2-4 hour) childcare shift per month for at least six months (FOR GENERAL VOLUNTEER BACC MEMBERS)
*No shift commitment to join our PAID PROVIDER NETWORK and receive referrals for paid childcare gigs from local social justice groups
ACCESSIBILITY:
Contact us with all accessibility needs and questions for this event and for providing ongoing childcare with BACC: bayareachildcarecollective@gmail.com. Virtual orientations are available.
RSVP to bayareachildcarecollective@gmail.com
CAN’T MAKE IT BUT WANT TO JOIN?
email us and we’ll get in touch with other options! bayareachildcarecollective@gmail.com
Don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any questions!
In Community,
Alison, Amber, Encian, Helena, Lauren (Lo), Natalie
(the Bay Area Childcare Collective Core)
Design by the brilliant Lex Non Scripta — lexnonscripta on instagram
BACC members– download, print, and bring it to your shifts with you! Hang it on your wall! Here’s a link:
Join Bay Area Childcare Collective!
BACC members provide free childcare for grassroots organizations in the struggle for liberation. We see childcare as a form of activism and recognize mothers and caretakers as vital leaders of every movement.
Come play with kids with us and feed your soul while supporting the leadership of black, brown, & undocumented mothers in the struggle for liberation. Let’s get organized and get ready.
Join us on Saturday, January 20th from 2pm-4pm at Berkeley Public Library Main Branch, 2090 Kittredge St Berkeley, 3rd floor meeting room (5 min from Downtown Berkeley BART).
Our orientations are a two-hour crash course covering 1) why we do what we do / the need for childcare & family-centered movement spaces, 2) childcare practice 101, 3) how BACC works logistically.
RSVP to bayareachildcarecollective@gmail.com. Please bring contact info (email or phone #s) for two references, one of whom may be a close friend or relative.
** We are also seeking interns for the Spring! If you have any interest in interning with BACC please contact us**
A BIG happy New Year to all continuing members we appreciate all that you do ❤
bayareachildcarecollective 
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