Her Idea on Childcare Drives the Conversation, 25 Years Later

All Our Kin CEO Jessica Sager ’99 cried when she got the call.

The caller told Sager that she and co-founder Janna Wagner had won a Heinz Award in the Economy, a $250,000 prize given for “significant contributions to building a more dynamic, inclusive and sustainable economy.” For Sager, the award’s category validated the argument that their nonprofit organization had been making from the beginning: that family childcare businesses are an economic driver. 

Sager made the same pitch as a law student when she convinced the Liman fellowship program at Yale Law School to support her vision. And it’s the pitch Sager still makes today when she talks about All Our Kin, which champions the early childcare educators who run childcare programs in their homes — a substantial yet often invisible source of the country’s paid childcare. The organization trains, supports, and sustains these providers as educators and business owners.

“When I learned that we were getting this prize and getting this prize specifically for economics, you know, honestly, I burst into tears,” Sager said. “This is part of the case that I made to the Liman committee back in 1999. But it is only now that that case is being taken seriously.”

Now celebrating its 25th year, All Our Kin has grown from a local New Haven nonprofit to a national network. The organization has also become an important voice in the national conversation about childcare policy, using data it has collected to marshal support for investing in the childcare system.

One of the things that I learned in law school is sometimes the role of a lawyer is to be the person who makes other people’s work possible.”
—Jessica Sager ’99

The law that changed everything

Sager came to Yale Law School to become an advocate for children, inspired by her time as an undergraduate intern at an arts education organization in New York City public schools. In her first year of law school, the Bipartisan Welfare Reform Act of 1996 made sweeping changes to how parents kept their eligibility to receive government financial assistance. Parents, including those with young children, were now required to enter the workforce or job training programs within two years of receiving benefits. 

While in law school, Sager was a summer intern with the organization founded by Shelley Geballe ’76 now known as Connecticut Voices for Children. Her assignment was to talk to parents in New Haven to find out how the new law would affect families.

“That’s when it really dawned on me just how disastrous this law was,” Sager said. “And specifically the fact that we didn’t have safe, adequate childcare for all the babies and children that were going to need it, let alone the loving, nurturing, developmentally appropriate care that we know children need.”

Sager looked at the law itself. Parents were required to attend job training programs, but nothing said the programs themselves couldn’t also be childcare. Using what she learned in Yale Law School’s Nonprofit Clinic, Sager had an idea: a laboratory school where parents could take care of their own and others’ children while simultaneously training for careers as early childhood educators. The idea addressed an immediate need for parents to comply with the law and to care for their children. It also acknowledged recent research that showed the first three years of children’s lives as critical to their development. 

Eager to pursue her idea after graduation, Sager fleshed out her vision in a paper she wrote under the supervision of Jacquin D. Bierman Professor Anne Alstott ’87. The paper identified and analyzed every regulatory agency the organization would encounter — information that proved indispensable later, Sager said.

Not a legal idea — until it was

Her time in law school coming to an end, Sager still needed funding to get a new organization off the ground. When she pitched her concept to foundations offering law fellowships, Sager was told that her project, while interesting, was not a legal function. With graduation just three months away, Sager approached Arthur Liman Professor of Law Judith Resnik. She invited Sager to make her case for a Liman fellowship, a program begun in 1997 for graduates pursuing work in the public interest. 

Sager set out to persuade the fellowship committee by talking about the community economic development movement in lawyering. She emphasized lawyers’ role in building small businesses and communities. She explained how All Our Kin would provide an avenue for parents to become early childhood educators, which would in turn make childcare more available to others in the community. She argued that establishing a structure to train and support these parents was indeed a job for lawyers.

Sager’s interpretation made an impression. She got the fellowship.

“Twenty-five years ago, Jessica Sager — just finishing law school — was one of the most astute readers of new laws changing eligibility for federal benefits,” Resnik said. “Jessica saw what others did not.”

Support — and struggle

In the meantime, Sager convinced her friend Janna Wagner to join her as co-founder and provide the expertise to build out the organization’s programming. Wagner, a Yale College graduate and New Haven native, had spent time teaching in the South Bronx and had recently completed a graduate degree in education. 

Sager and Wagner welcomed their first class that fall, working in donated space with a coat of donated paint and donated toys in a New Haven public housing complex. Parents spent part of the day learning about early childhood development and the rest of the time caring for each other’s children.

Students and faculty at the Law School continued to provide support. The Nonprofit Clinic and the Community and Economic Development Clinic provided legal services to help All Our Kin file IRS paperwork and write its bylaws. The late Nathan Baker Clinical Professor of Law J.L. Pottenger Jr. ’75 became a trusted advisor for All Our Kin. Resnik was a booster for the fledgling organization, making introductions to policymakers and potential supporters. 

Despite these resources and encouragement, Sager said the early years were a struggle as the organization worried about making payroll and fought ugly stereotypes about the people the organization served. 

“Everything that we did at All Our Kin was in-kind and by the seat of our pants,” Sager said. “Having a community like I have at the Law School was very helpful to me. But still, it was lonely. It was difficult.”

Jessica saw what others did not.”
—Professor Judith Resnik

Data fuels a breakthrough

As the first graduates started opening new childcare programs in their homes, All Our Kin decentralized its operations. The organization moved from the lab-school model to supporting the parents where they worked, sending its trainers out into the community. These new business owners were enthusiastic about being part of a professional network after working in isolation. But convincing funders and policy makers was still a challenge.

“We realized that if we were going to make policy changes, we needed data,” Sager said. 

The organization commissioned two studies. One showed that every dollar that All Our Kin invested in its family child care educators put about $15 to $20 back into the local economy. A second study found that providers trained by All Our Kin scored high on assessments, correlating with positive outcomes for children in their care. 

The data helped secure funding that allowed All Our Kin to expand beyond New Haven to four locations in Connecticut, and, in 2019, to New York City. As word of its success got out, All Our Kin fielded calls from around the country. Rather than open new sites in other states, it showed partners around the country how to replicate its programs, customizing them for their area. The organization now has partners in 31 states and reaches more than 12,000 educators and 90,000 children nationwide.

Reaching the next childcare advocates

Seeing progress over the years keeps Sager going. One recent near-win was in the 2021 Build Back Better bill, which would have been put $400 billion in federal funding toward childcare. Though the bill ultimately failed, Sager said that bipartisan support in the House and the specific inclusion of family childcare — supported by data from All Our Kin — shows that the message is getting through.

Day to day, however, it’s her colleagues and the educators themselves who inspire her most. 

“Once I began working with parents and educators and I saw their incredible dedication to the work, their love, their patience, their thoughtfulness, their caring for children — that really got me so fired up, the idea that I could use my legal tools in service of what they were offering to children and communities,” she said. “One of the things that I learned in law school is sometimes the role of a lawyer is to be the person who makes other people's work possible.”

As All Our Kin has grown and expanded its leadership team, Sager been able to focus more on public speaking and outreach, something she said she will be able to devote more time to after receiving the Heinz award. 

One way Sager is reaching future leaders is through a Yale undergraduate seminar in Education Studies she co-teaches with Wagner, “Child Care, Society, and Public Policy.”

As a final assignment, students are asked to propose a solution to one of the childcare system’s challenges. Sager is heartened when students come back with new thinking on the issue, finding connections between childcare and challenges like housing, climate change, and immigration. 

All Our Kin’s influence on students is one of the organization’s important legacies, according to Resnik. Yale Law School’s Arthur Liman Center for Public Interest Law also offers summer fellowships for undergraduates, including one designated for the organization. 

“Each year the students report it changed their lives to be part of the project and to learn from Jessica,” Resnik said. “Thus, Jessica’s work is intergenerational in all its facets. We are all the beneficiaries.”