Better child care access may be on the way courtesy of the Southwest Initiative Foundation.
SWIF recently announced it’s receiving a Minnesota Department of Human Services grant for programming and child care staff in a push for increased access. The grant is worth up to $150,000 through the next two years.
According to SWIF, nearly 5,000 of the approximately 20,000 children in Minnesota are without child care services. The problem has been gestating for years as baby boomers retire and employers are unable to find workers to replace them.
Furthermore, according to Jodie Maertens, SWIF youth and family officer, the business of child care has high turnover: fewer and fewer providers are starting, and those that do are moving on after only a few years. SWIF wants to combat that shortage.
To start, it will partner with First Children’s Finance and Child Care Aware to provide business education and gap analysis so communities can conduct conversations about sustainable child care, Maertens said. Child care can be an expensive business, she said.
“We want to enhance child care in a sustainable and appropriate way,” she said.
SWIF’s partnership with Child Care Aware will be used to focus on building startup programs to help new providers become grounded.
“We want to make sure that those offering services can make a living doing that and can be a reliable entity (whose employees) are consistent at work,” Maertens said.
Furthermore, SWIF will seek to improve staff training opportunities in the 18 counties in southwest Minnesota. Landing these opportunities is particularly difficult, as garnering attendance and finding appropriate space can prove problematic.
“A lot of times, training sessions are not scheduled in close proximity with where trainees live, or not enough people are able to attend sessions so they’re canceled,” Maertens said.
In response, SWIF is looking at ways that child care providers can partner with businesses to provide training spaces. If a business is able to lend a space for free, that’s one less expense the child care provider has to pay to train its employees.
“A room can be $50 or $300,” Maertens said. “It can be difficult to afford.”
Low training rates is one of a few factors causing care provider shortages. The DHS funds will mainly be used to take aim at community-specific needs. The solution for shortages, Maertens said, is not one-size-fits-all.
“It’s been trending this way for years,” she said. “It’s different in every community. We’re focusing on the economic development side of child care services. We’re working with business leaders and community leaders to make sure they understand that they also need to be concerned about the shortage.”
A lack of child care in a community can impact its economy, Maertens said.
“That new dentist who wanted to open a practice in a community might have to find a different community that has child care services,” she said. “People who lose their child care providers are leaving to find places that have it. At the bottom line, it affects businesses.”
Though the new funding is a one-time fix, SWIF hopes to invest in solutions that will leave a lasting effect.
“We can’t go into a community and choose a solution,” Maertens said. “It’s gathering people around the table and finding out what the community needs and can afford. It can be a slow process. I can’t say it’s going to be a situation where, three weeks from now, we have 100 new slots open up for families. It’s not a quick fix.”
In May 2018, the Minnesota Senate passed several bills to loosen regulations for day cares that eased background checks for personnel in an attempt to strike a balance between safety and privacy, according to the Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes. The bills were passed after state lawmakers spent the previous two years compiling a 57-page report recommending policy changes.
The child care provider shortage is not over, however.
“It’s going to need more time and attention from the state and federal governments,” Maertens said.
To find out more about what SWIF is doing, visit swifoundation.org.
