The child care crunch probably doesn't directly impact those reading this, but may impact some of our family members.
During the pandemic schools are trying to figure out how to safely re-open at a time when many day care providers have closed due to the quarantine.
"Under COVID-19 orders, 50% of providers recently surveyed reported their center was completely closed, and most of the providers who did remain open were operating at less than 25% capacity. And 1 in 3 jobs in child day care centers went away, likely for good. Additionally, many schools will reopen this fall with staggered or part-time schedules and at least 60 private schools have permanently closed, displacing more than 8,000 students."
"We now see a looming crisis for schools and child care. If it's left unaddressed, it will exacerbate the economic crisis caused by the pandemic by preventing parents across the country from returning to work, and continue to widen the socioeconomic gap."
"...We should begin by addressing the shortage of child care options by working to keep existing providers in business and encouraging new child care providers, including home-based providers, to start up in as safe and healthy a way as possible. Any additional financial relief considered by Congress to businesses to aid in the economic recovery should prioritize child care providers and schools. "
From this article on MSN by Adam Bulger; “Covid-19 really has devastated the childcare system,” says Mindy Bennett, Deputy Chief of Partnership of the national child care advocacy organization Child Care Aware of America. The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act passed by Congress included $3.5 billion for child care providers. Despite that aid, an estimated 4.5 million child care slots have been lost permanently during the pandemic. "
"...But there may be a solution hiding in plain sight: Home-based child care centers. These centers, where small groups of children are cared for by the families who own and live in the building they oversee, could be the answer for which so many working parents are searching."
"Family childcare is a more home-like environment,” Bennett, a former home-based care center operator, says. “It may represent your home beliefs and culture more than a center.”
"...With fewer children, home-based care centers require less staff than larger day care centers, so children may see the same faces year after year and caregivers have deep knowledge of the children’s needs and learning styles. Parents can also have more direct, personal relationships with the person caring for their children."
The child care crisis can represent an opportunity for women who want to work from home. Of course being a day-care provider isn't for everyone. You need to have a love for children and a lot of patience. And additional background in education (or related field) also helps. If you seek to be a licensed provider (strongly recommended) there are requirements to be met. Licensed providers must go through training according to state regulations and pass a background check. Usually they must be CPR certified.
There are perks for those who are licensed providers. They are able to participate in the USDA food program, which partially reimburses them for food expenses. And also requires balanced nutrition for the children and detailed record keeping. Most providers find it worthwhile, and it is a selling point for parents for the provider to be a participant.
Usually the income from being a licensed, in-home provider is better than if one is an employee of a child-care center.
Usually the income from being a licensed, in-home provider is better than if one is an employee of a child-care center.
I was an in-home day-care provider myself at one point when our children were small, and my daughter in law has been one for several years. She has continued to operate through the quarantine since most of the parents of the kids she cares for are in the "essential worker" category.
Whether it is child care or schools or a combination of schools-to-child care, we have a huge problem. Alex Azar told governors he didn't want to see any schools not opening simply because they can't meet CDC guidelines (in other words, "open even if you are not safe"). Well, that is because you can't get people to go to work if they don't have some place to leave their children. In short, we can't restore an economy (in time for the election) unless the workforce has a place to put its children.
ReplyDeleteBut, of course, that overlooks the teachers and child-care providers who are medically at risk and are given the choice of: Protect yourself or put yourself at the mercy of third-graders' ability to socially distance: In other words be a kamikaze for the economy (and the Don).
Other countries are developing solutions for safety in schools, including clear, plastic visors that cover the face, but have ample space for breathing. See Japan for example. This administration really doesn’t care about keeping people safe or it would order millions of visors. Clear plastic dividers between desks, etc, Just like tests - the tests that never were made available. The sheer incompetence is breathtaking. The refusal to learn from the experience of others is the height of arrogance. IOW, what we have seen from trump for 3 1/2 years now.
ReplyDeleteWe used home-based childcare for our children, until we reached the point where my wife left her job and stayed home full-time for a while - by then, our older children already were in school.
ReplyDeleteOur experience was that, on the whole, home-based child care worked pretty well. The only drawback was that the women (they all were women) were not in it for the long haul. We used at least four of these services for our children, so I guess we changed providers every 1-2 years. There is more continuity at a daycare center - the business stays open even when a particular worker moves on. We utilized a home-daycare service - essentially, a network of moms. The service added value by pre-screening the providers for us, and by having backup providers for the occasions when our primary providers went on vacation or exited the business.
Most of the women we utilized were moms who also were caring for their own infants, toddlers and pre-schoolers. So one of the things we were sensitive to, or tried to be, was a disparity in treatment between the provider's own children and our children - our children always were at risk of being "second banana" in the providers' households. Some mom/providers handled this aspect of it better than others.
Over the many years I did baptism prep, one of the hot topics for the young couples we worked with was childcare arrangements. Most couples these days don't rush to the church to get their children baptized a few days after birth, as my own mom did. A typical infant in our church gets baptized somewhere between 3-12 months of age. Often, that is right around the time the parents' maternity benefits are running out and the mom has to either go back to work or decide to stay at home (something which most young couples around here can't afford). It's a wrenching decision for all of them. The two most common arrangements for these couples were the daycare facilities, or having the grandparents care for the kids. I don't know how much of a long-term plan the latter is.
ReplyDeleteI worked and my wife did most of the child-raising. Just as she was able to start working part-time nights as a nurse, we had #5, 13 years after #4. So she never did get back to it full time. That was approximately the arrangement my parents had, without the trailer; my mom went back to work while I was in high school. I doubt many couples today would do that even if they thought they could, though with their smart phones needing replacement every year, they probably never could afford it. My youngest grandson, 4, in Los Angeles is probably going to cost $30,000 a year for grade school.
DeleteOne advantage of the in home caregiver is that she is working with a smaller number of kids than the daycare centers, so maybe less chance of the kids or adults catching Covid.
ReplyDeleteI found that while doing daycare worked for me for awhile, it ultimately wasn't something I wanted to keep doing in the longer term. It was really hard to be totally fair and not favor my own kids, though I think I did a reasonable job of it.
Worth noting, too, that the schools themselves are daycare facilities for school-age kids before and after school hours. At least they are around here. Parents have to drop off their kids by 7 am or earlier in order to start their commutes, and may not be able to get the kids until 5 pm or later.
ReplyDeleteThat's true, a lot of schools have before and after school daycare. Our parish school does. It is a factor in keeping enrollment stable.
DeleteDuring the shelter in place period, Ohio created special day care for families of first responders, and medical people. Creating physical beds with their equipment for greater hospitalization would have been useless unless there were the personnel to staff them. And those people had to have safe child care. It helped that all the families were in the same boat and could rely on all the other families to do their part in keeping everyone safe.
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