Nicole Joy Frethem

Nicole is a mother, a wife, an early childhood educator, advocate and policy expert and a part-time law student. For more than a decade, she has worked to ensure children in Ramsey County and Minnesota have access to high-quality child care arrangements and parents are able to find healthy and safe child care so they can work.

Nicole has previously worked as a child care administrator and early learning coach before transitioning to implementing, developing, and analyzing statewide child care policy at the Minnesota Department of Human Services. In her work, Nicole has seen the importance of all the systems that support families and people beyond the classroom. She is passionate about streamlining human services delivery, partnering with local and state governments to provide better services, and criminal justice reforms.