When Christina Brizuela’s daughter started kindergarten, she wanted to go back to work. But the cost of daycare for her 1-year-old son made that prospect a poor financial choice for her family.
Then she found a school that was hiring — and offering employees low-cost, on-site daycare. Soon the Lake County mom was employed and happy.
“Being able to work and know that my child is here is absolutely amazing,” said Brizuela, a teacher’s assistant at The Key to Learning, a private school in Clermont.
The Children’s Movement of Florida, a nonprofit advocating for early childhood education, would like to see more businesses follow The Key to Learning’s lead and offer benefits to make it easier for parents to work. The organization sees the effort as a way to help Florida’s families and its businesses.
Childcare-related employee turnover and absenteeism cost Florida employers an estimated $3.47 billion a year, according to a report from the Florida Chamber Foundation. And the high cost of childcare — about $12,600 a year in Florida — keeps some parents out of the workforce all together.
Since 2021, the nonprofit has been helping businesses adopt family-friendly work policies as part of its Bosses for Babies initiative. This year it recruited its 110th business into the program.
In Central Florida, participants include The Key to Learning, a large hospital, a hotel chain, a chamber of commerce and a restaurant. The bigger employers offer more extensive services but all are trying to remove barriers parents of young children often face in the workforce.
“We’re celebrating and highlighting these organizations as a way to hopefully inspire other organizations to do the same,” said Ric Banciella, director of business engagement for The Children’s Movement.
It is critical that employers adopt policies that make working more manageable for parents with young children, Banicella said.
“By doing that, you’re supporting today’s workforce, which in turn is supporting their kids, who are supporting the workforce of tomorrow,” he said. “Because fifteen years from now, who are you going to hire?”
The organization’s “Guide to Family-Friendly Workplaces in Florida” outlines benefits employers can adopt, from expensive measures, like providing childcare, to lower-cost ones, like creating a lactation room for nursing mothers.
“Long-term, it’s a great thing because you’re making Florida a more receptive place for young families,” he said.
At the Crooked Bass Tavern in Polk County, owner Tammy Bracewell offers her employees flexible scheduling and a place for school kids to do homework and play after school, if needed.
“I worked at restaurants that have told me: If you don’t find a sitter, don’t worry about coming back,” said Nikki Townsel, a bartender at the Crooked Bass, located in Babson Park.
But Bracewell allows Townsel’s 11-year-old son, who gets out of school at 3:15 p.m., to sit at a table in the restaurant and do his homework or play in the game room until his grandmother can pick him up at 5:30 p.m. That means his mom can work her shift without having to find a babysitter for a few hours.
Bracewell also texts her workers each week before she makes the work schedule, checking on any upcoming family commitments, and closes the restaurant on most holidays so employees can be with their families. These benefits help her retain good workers, she said.
“I’ve had employees say to me, I might be able to go somewhere and get a little bit more money. But the first time my child is sick, I have to miss work,” Bracewell said.
Left to Right, Bo, 1, and teacher Kaitlyn Gingrasso, at the daycare for teachers’ children at The Key to Learning K-12 school in Clermont, on Tuesday, Sept. 2, 2025. (Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda/Orlando Sentinel)
Nemours Children’s Hospital, which employs about 3,000 people in Florida, is one of the largest companies in the Bosses for Babies initiative.
The hospital offers a host of benefits, including six weeks paid paternity and maternity leave and scholarships for summer camp. It also helps employees become parents with generous benefits for in vitro fertilization and adoption.
These are costly benefits, but hospital officials say they help attract, and keep, high-caliber employees.
“It cost about $40,000 to onboard a new associate. So anything we can do to improve retention is an incredible financial benefit,” said Jacob Horner, associate vice president of state external affairs for the hospital.
But employers should not feel that if they cannot afford expensive options they cannot do anything to help employees with young children, said Makayla Buchanan, who was the director of early learning and literacy for the Florida Chamber Foundation, before accepting a job as chief of staff at The Children’s Movement last month.
“There’s a menu of options, so you can do something about this. You don’t have to swing big enough to hit the homerun,” Buchanan said.
During the summer, for example, the foundation operates on a condensed, four-day, 10-hour-a-day schedule, so employees have three-day weekends with their kids.
Mercy Nyman, owner of The Key to Learning, a kindergarten-through-twelfth-grade school, has eight employees with kids at her in-house daycare. She charges $80 a week, a fraction of what the employees would pay for childcare elsewhere.
It cost about $45,000 annually to operate the facility, she said, but she views it as money well spent.
“People actually end up coming to work for me just because of the childcare,” Nyman said.
That was true for Brizuela, who said private daycares would have cost her more than $200 a week and eaten up too much of her pay. She could have worked from home helping her husband with his business but then her young son would have been shortchanged.
Now she is pleased she can earn a paycheck and her son gets quality care, she said.
“At the daycare, he has his friends. They play. They do activities. I always get his artwork,” she said. “He’s learning.”
