Visit us at our headquarters in the East Side of Saint Paul, or at our offices in Minneapolis, Willmar, and Austin.
Office hours. Monday - Friday: 8:30 am - 5:00 pm. Saturday-Sunday: Closed - Click here for holiday closure dates
Visit us at our headquarters in the East Side of Saint Paul, or at our offices in Minneapolis, Willmar, and Austin.
Office hours. Monday - Friday: 8:30 am - 5:00 pm. Saturday-Sunday: Closed - Click here for holiday closure dates
The Incubator is a first-of-its-kind model in Minnesota that supports Latina entrepreneurs to launch licensed family child care businesses outside their homes. By sharing space and receiving business training, coaching, and culturally relevant support, providers can build sustainable programs while expanding access to bilingual, culturally affirming child care.
The Incubator is a first-of-its-kind model in Minnesota that supports Latina entrepreneurs to launch licensed family child care businesses outside their homes. By sharing space and receiving business training, coaching, and culturally relevant support, providers can build sustainable programs while expanding access to bilingual, culturally affirming child care.
CLUES has developed and is testing an innovative model of shared space to launch Latina-owned family child care microbusinesses within its newly remodeled CLUES Family Wellness and Childcare Programs Hub in Dayton’s Bluff Neighborhood in St. Paul.
The CLUES Family Child Care Business Incubator pilot aims to launch Latina-owned child care businesses, where the operating provider will receive culturally and linguistically relevant wrap-around services, as well as a cohort-based business and quality child care training series, to improve the likelihood of their long-term success in the field and of their businesses. Each provider will also receive business coaching and mentorship from an experienced family child care provider. The Incubator will provide the opportunity for four independently owned and managed family child care businesses to operate under a shared roof for up to three years.
Each business, classified under state law as a special family child care home, will allow family child care providers the opportunity to operate outside their own residence, where family child care programs are usually operated. The CLUES model aims to remove barriers to entry into the field, improve retention of family child care providers, and increase the number of licensed Latina and Spanish-speaking child care providers, while providing providers with the opportunity to earn a viable income, thereby planting the seeds for economic mobility and multigenerational wealth.
When the Incubator businesses open their doors for service in October 2025, CLUES will be the first nonprofit in the state and the second in the nation to adopt the incubator approach to addressing the nationwide child care crisis by focusing on the prosperity and growth of child care provider-entrepreneurs.
CLUES Incubator is a community vision and a state innovative model materialized. CLUES began designing its child care incubator pilot in 2022, following extensive research, beginning in 2020, to identify community-based solutions for healthy child development. During the same year, the CLUES Logros Tempranos program to train Family, Friends, and Neighbors (FFN) providers was launched and over the last three years served to identify the barriers for Latino and Spanish-speaking providers from accessing this field of opportunity. Coinciding with a 2021 state law change allowing for up to four special family child care homes to operate under one roof, the ground was set for this type of family child care model in Minnesota. This novel idea, when put into practice, is known as a pod model, and it has really taken root in MN. The CLUES pod is distinctive in its Incubator model, featuring a set period of operation, wrap-around services, and a focus on childcare programs with cultural and linguistic immersion offerings.
While each of the family child care businesses will be independently owned and operated, as required by law, with unique features and distinct offerings, families receiving services from the provider-entrepreneurs in the Incubator can expect a high-quality and caring service, with a focus on cultural and linguistic immersion programming from each of the hosted family child care programs.
Since 2022, CLUES has been building its focus on the child care field, earning its reputation in providing Spanish-language early childhood and child care trainings to providers, supporting them in the navigation of institutional requirements and licensing, in seeking and ensuring policies and practices that address many of the barriers and challenges currently faced by Latina and/or Spanish-speaking child care providers, and setting precedent with the establishment of the public-private partnerships necessary to launch its innovative child care incubator. The department has become a natural partner of CLUES’ other long-standing departments and their services, including Family Services, Community Health and Wellness, and the Economic Prosperity departments. The Early Childhood Initiatives Department was officially established in early 2025 with the hiring of its inaugural director.
The CLUES Early Childhood Initiatives team is proud to introduce the four talented child care providers selected to join our inaugural cohort of Incubator provider-entrepreneurs to occupy its four available spaces.
All four providers are graduates of our Logros Tempranos program, CLUES’ training series for Family, Friends, and Neighbors (FFN) child care providers, in Spanish, which has trained over 115 child care providers over the last four years. By completing the pre-licensing courses offered by this program, each of these providers met one of the key steps towards obtaining a family child care license. Each of the providers selected to join the inaugural cohort also underwent an application and selection process, which considered education, experience, aspirations, and business and financial acumen via interviews and workshops.
The selected providers are currently undergoing the application process to obtain a specialized family child care license with Ramsey County, which would allow them to operate outside of their home, in one of our beautiful, already-furnished, incubator classrooms.
Limited spots available! Contact each provider directly for information and to enroll.
Notice: Each classroom is a family-based child care business that operates independently of CLUES and of the other businesses.
Phone: (763) 238-5849
Email: dfelices26@gmail.com
Facebook: Días Felices Spanish Immersion Childcare
Phone: (407) 820-4525
Email: Holakidsdaycare925@gmail.com
Facebook: Hola Kids Spanish Immersion Daycare
Phone: (612) 293-8441
Email: tramirez1088@gmail.com
Facebook: Semillas Bilingual Early Learning
Phone: (612) 523-8166
Email: semillitaalcorazon@gmail.com
Facebook: Semillita al Corazón Spanish Immersion Daycare
*This is a private CLUES Facebook group to connect and learn about CLUES Resource Child Caregivers program activities and the community, receive tips and support, and connect with other parents in the program. You will be asked to agree to the rules and terms of the group to access.
CLUES staff share their favorite resources related to parenting and child development.
Please contact our team to receive the list of resources and sign up for the monthly newsletter.
FFN Minnesota is here to connect FFN caregivers with local FFN navigators who can provide ongoing support while caring for children. That support comes in many forms: one-on-one meetings with local navigators, training, resource kits and more.
CLUES is one of the grantee organizations that work with the Department of Human Services Child Care Services Division to provide direct support to FFN caregivers so that they can provide high-quality care to the children they care for and provide a caregiving environment that supports early learning, healthy development and improves school readiness.
For more information visit the FFN webpage by clicking the logo below:
CLUES, in collaboration with Familia Solutions, conducted a series of workshops designed to empower parents to be Promoters of Health and Wellbeing in their community. The content of the workshops was designed and tailored to support Latino/a parents to develop a message about health and wellbeing they would share with people in their community. Parents learned about communication techniques, human development, sexual education, and socioemotional development. During the last workshop, CLUES hosted a resource fair with community partners to help participants select resources that would be useful for them and their communities. By the end of the sessions, participants had a strategic plan to share their messages. One of the participants, Rhona Ríos, designed a flyer in Spanish about the importance of socioemotional development.
CLUES is a nonprofit public charity recognized as tax exempt by the IRS under section 501(c)(3). CLUES tax ID: 41-1386986. Our Donor Privacy Policy can be found here.
