Women’s Business Center Partnership with Office for Children
The Women’s Business Center of Northern Virginia (WBC) is a program housed at the Community Business Partnership, a nonprofit organization headquartered in Springfield, VA. The WBC mission is to help women, people with low-income, people of color, people with disabilities and others to start and grow small businesses.
For over 20 years, the WBC has served as a resource partner to the Office for Children in support of the regulated family child care providers in Fairfax County. The WBC provides a growing array of business-related workshops including Professionalism, Contracts, Record-keeping and Taxes and more, with most classes offered in both English and Spanish. The curriculum is being expanded in January 2022 to include one-hour sessions on Business Insurance, Improving Your Credit Profile and more.
“The OFC classes are ones that we look forward to. We purposefully engage the audience in conversation. There is so much experience and wisdom among the participants, and we encourage them to join forces whenever possible.” — Cindy Butler, WBC Director
Providers who attend any of the WBC sessions in partnership with OFC are also eligible to register for free at some of the CPB classes that are open to the public. Check https://cbponline.org/classes-counseling/class/all-classes for examples of upcoming classes.
The WBC also provides free one-on-one counseling sessions. These sessions are helpful when you have a specific question that was not answered in a class; you need help with a specific task, such as financial management; or you want to brainstorm with someone about marketing and growing your business. To request a counseling session, please go to https://cbponline.org/counseling. Once your information is received, you will be contacted by a business counselor to schedule your session.
During the pandemic, professional development and counseling sessions were conducted virtually and will remain so for the foreseeable future.
For more information about the program, visit https://cbponline.org/. You can email them at wbc@cbponline.org.