All Our Kin’s technical assistance (TA) team collaborates with organizations across the country engaged in innovative work to grow family child care (FCC) in their local communities. In this edition of All Our Partners, we connect with Monica Archuleta, Director of Community Programs, and Rebecca Baran-Rees, Vice President of Policy and Community Development, of Growing Up New Mexico in Santa Fe, NM. Growing Up New Mexico has been working with FCC educators for nearly 15 years, and recently launched a statewide staffed FCC network (SFCCN).
Read on to learn about how Growing Up New Mexico and AOK have partnered on providing educator mentor coaching and training to staff and FCC educators leaders across the state.
Network staff and educator leaders who participated in “Grounding Your Coaching in the 3Rs” in New Mexico, August 2025
All Our Kin: Monica and Rebecca, could you please tell us about your roles and the work of Growing Up New Mexico overall?
Monica Archuleta: The organization works to fully support families with young children, from prenatal through age 5, with wraparound supports. We do this in many aspects, ranging from parenting supports in the classroom, encouraging early child development through home visiting, our Bridges to Opportunity program, and the list goes on. Our Escalones program supports home-based educators, and is our only statewide program. We are also a Dolly Parton Imagination Library site for our county.
I manage Bridges to Opportunity and the direct service part of Escalones. In Bridges, we provide supports to families beyond what happens with a classroom teacher or home visitor. We’re there in the moment to enhance and support the relationships between the parent and child. We help navigate stressors and things going on in the home. If someone just moved into the area, we help them find a pediatrician, for example.
Rebecca Baran-Rees: I help oversee the policy side of our work, which is statewide. Covid-era funding focused very explicitly on the child care sector, and Growing Up New Mexico wanted to ensure home-based educators were also able to access these supports. That really boosted our interest in building out this area of work.
Under Monica’s umbrella is also our longest-standing home-based educator program, called the Family, Friend, and Neighbor (FFN) Network. It’s been around for about 14 years. It was the first step towards this bigger piece of home-based care for us, which has really grown over the past four years.
AOK: Can you describe the scope of Growing Up New Mexico’s SFCCN project?
RBR: The Escalones program for home-based educators really represents the full breadth of what we do for home-based educators. It includes four pieces: individualized coaching, networks of support, an intensive business accelerator program, and rewards. The Escalones rewards is a nationally recognized incentive program that essentially pays financial rewards to educators who are making key achievements in their goals to professionalization, ranging from CPR certification to finishing a bachelor’s to getting a CDA.
We think of it both as a cherry on top, and also as trying to say very transparently that the investments you make as an educator require time and money. You’re never compensated for those investments, and this sector asks a lot of our educators. So we want to help lighten the burden a little, and acknowledge the hard work that goes into all of these key steps.
With the SFCCN contract from the New Mexico Early Childhood Education and Care Department, we were able to boost our rewards, our coaching, what’s happening in our networks, and start partnering with AOK. When we first started the SFCCN, we took a big leap in scaling the work we were already doing. We started subcontracting with a couple key organizations in the state, like Partnership for Community Action and Community Partnership for Children. We also beefed up the local peer coaches and network coordinators in a couple other key regions as a really critical piece of this whole capacity-building exercise statewide.
MA: The SFCCN really brings everything that we do within Escalones together. It’s not just one individual participating in statewide network meetings or in THE Accelerator. What has made it special are the local networks that are being formed, and being able to receive individualized coaching from somebody who is within your community, who you might be familiar with. It’s comforting knowing you can pick up the phone and call someone, either locally, or even 400 miles away at another location in the state. We’re here, and we’re happy to take the call and talk you through whatever is going on. The nature of this work is isolating, so educators can now take advantage of coaching or peer support.
AOK: What role do FCC educators play in the work of Growing Up New Mexico and in the establishment of networks in your state?
RBR: From the beginning, we have wanted the leaders in this work to be educators. When someone has walked through this work as an educator themselves and achieved some successful outcomes, they can then turn to their peer and say, “I’m here to support you and be your cheerleader.” That’s a really meaningful relationship which brings reassurance and confidence-building.
Educators are the ones actually living and breathing the systems. They can hold everyone accountable: us as staff, the state, all the systems. So they should be in positions of leadership and have the power to do so.
MA: Because of a lack of trust and support historically, it’s taken a while to grow these networks with home-based educators. But we’re getting there and having some successful in-person events where those in the community can come together and get to know each other. It’s helpful for people to know each other in this very personalized and individualized work.
AOK: What’s the vision of your team? How do you hope your work will impact educators and families in New Mexico?
MA: The big goal, not just for our team, but for families and the state is to empower home-based educators to go further in their professionalism and become registered or licensed. As a team, we also want to educate ourselves on different processes that are out there so we can better support educators. If we don’t understand it, we’re not going to be able to fully support or guide someone.
RBR: There’s a whole host of economic community-level outcomes that result from parents being able to return to the workforce or participate more fully in it. So this work ripples out from the child and family, and then the home-based educators are able to participate in state-funded revenue streams, strengthen their business practices, and continue to improve their program quality, which leads to great things for children in our communities.
We’re now working with 450 educators across the state. These folks are having contact with our team members, attending monthly statewide professional development, or signing up for the Escalones rewards program.
AOK: How did Growing Up New Mexico originally connect with All Our Kin? Could you talk a bit about the education mentor coaching work that we’ve been collaborating on?
RBR: Secretary Groginsky from the New Mexico Early Childhood Education and Care Department suggested that we connect with AOK. Before that, I had first heard about AOK around four years ago when diving into the world of home-based care. I wanted to figure out who was doing this work nationally, and AOK quickly became a go-to organization for me. Earlier this year, we started collaborating together through the “Grounding Your Coaching in the 3Rs” training.
AOK staff member Marina Rodriguez leading “Grounding Your Coaching in the 3Rs” in New Mexico
AOK: Do you have any anecdotes or stories to share that show the impact of the Growing Up New Mexico-All Our Kin collaboration so far?
MA: In terms of the 3Rs, I don’t think I could overuse the word “powerful.” Marina was here in person with our peer coaches and network coordinators for a very powerful two days. When coaches and educators are engaged in a coaching session, there’s a lot of back-and-forth communication. A lot of times that reflective piece just doesn’t happen.
I say this to our team all the time: it’s not our job just to talk, talk, talk and get information out. It’s our job to sit back, listen to you, and learn from you. Because if I don’t stop and listen, then I don’t know how I can better support you.
I think the 3Rs was a bit of a turning point. The team loved this training, and it ignited a whole new fire for them. It really brought everything together. We are excited to be deepening our training and relationship together with AOK for the peer leader group with incoming support from the National Women’s Law Center.
RBR: To underline what Monica shared, it continues to be meaningful for us to figure out the resources needed for these incredibly powerful women to continue to develop and invest in their own leadership. It will take time, funding, and intentionality to find opportunities like the 3Rs for educator leaders. But that's what we have to do, and I think we need to tone-set for how and when the state is looking for engagement from home-based educators. We want to be able to support educators stepping into those spaces equipped with the resources that are really required for their engagement.
We are grateful to Monica, Rebecca, and the team at Growing Up New Mexico for their thoughtful and dedicated collaboration! For more information on AOK’s technical assistance, you can sign up for our newsletter here.