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Status Report: Labor 2021

Child care challenges continue

Joseph Abraham
Posted 8/24/21

Status Report: Labor 2021 is a new Sullivan County Democrat series looking at different issues facing local residents and employers in the region.

SULLIVAN COUNTY …

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Status Report: Labor 2021

Child care challenges continue

Posted

Status Report: Labor 2021 is a new Sullivan County Democrat series looking at different issues facing local residents and employers in the region.

SULLIVAN COUNTY –– Jeffersonville resident Amanda Gruenke, having earned her Bachelor’s degree in history, and Associate’s degree in education, aspires to one day become a history teacher. But her priorities changed in 2015, when her son Matthew was born.

As a single mother, Gruenke opted instead to work nights as a waitress, because the cost of child care was too expensive and she needed to watch her son during the day until her mother got home from work.

When Matthew started pre-k, before the pandemic hit, Gruenke began looking into the possibility of continuing her own education.

But in January 2020, she needed knee surgery, and simultaneously, Matthew began remote schooling as the pandemic changed the world as we know it.

Her knee ended up not healing properly, and she was told by a doctor that her waitressing career was over.

As businesses began to reopen last spring, many employers had and still are having a difficult time finding people to work. Many employers believe increased unemployment benefits disincentivize potential employees.

But that isn’t the case with Gruenke, who actually made more by working than what is offered through unemployment. She hoped to re-enter the workforce, but once again needed to stay home with Matthew (now age 5). Also, she was now unable to waitress, and other good opportunities to work nights were scarce.

While recovering from surgery, she babysat another kindergartner who was excellent with their remote schooling, because they had no problem looking at Gruenke like a “teacher.” At the same time, Matthew was struggling, finding it difficult to differentiate his mom’s role in his education from their personal relationship.

It also took a toll on Gruenke, who was diagnosed with depression.

“It was a battle everyday,” she said of remote schooling, “and it put a strain on our day-to-day relationship.”

Gruenke said if schools were to go remote again, it would be helpful if there were places kids could go to learn and work on assignments, since being at home, in their own comfort zone, didn't work for kids like her son.

Now that Matthew will be returning to the classroom, Gruenke looks to get back into the workforce, and ideally would like to work in a school so the hours are the same as her son’s. She also plans to enroll at a nearby college to obtain her Master's degree.

Reflecting on the past year, she said, “It was mentally draining. I love being a mom with all my heart, but being the only person, all day every day, making sure Matthew was doing his schoolwork, was a lot. So much falls on a mom in the household. We never put ourselves first.”

While Gruenke’s knee troubles made her situation especially unique, access and the affordability of child care in Sullivan County is not a new problem.

State of child care

According to Donna Willi, executive director of the Sullivan County Child Care Council, which has been providing child care resources and education to parents and child care providers for over 30 years, the severe lack of child care that’s existed in the county has been amplified due to COVID.

Willi said since the pandemic started Sullivan County had two longtime providers decide to retire – two that closed to protect their own families and are just reopening now, and one that decided not to re-open at all.

“Although these numbers seem small overall, for Family Day Care (one adult to eight children in one’s home), it represents 25 percent and for Group Family Day Care (two adults to sixteen children in one’s home), 27 percent of our child care spaces in those modalities which most Sullivan County parents prefer,” said Willi.

In the past 12 months the county has gained three Day Care Centers, but two of these new programs offer no infant or toddler spots at this time, and one only offers care to children three years and older, Willi explained.

She said infant/toddler care and nontraditional (evening and weekend) hours are the highest need.

“From April 2020 to April 2021 we received 177 requests for child care, and of those, only 21 or 12 percent have actually found care,” said Willi. “From April 2021 to July 2021, we received 57 requests for care, and of those, 11 or 19 percent have found care.”

Willi added they’ve experienced a “severe” decline in calls requesting care due to the lack of child care openings. There are also parents making their own informal arrangements that the Sullivan County Child Care Council is unable to document.

When asked about the pandemic’s effect on child care, based on conversations with parents, providers and others over the past 18 months, Willi said that due to schools going remote because of COVID, many of the child care programs shifted from infant / toddler / pre-school aged to school aged, leaving parents of the younger children fewer child care options than ever.

“Many parents that were able to work from home were also trying to juggle caring for their young children and working, which creates an extremely stressful environment for parents and children,” she said.

Also, educational neglect cases in Sullivan County have increased during the pandemic due to a lack of knowledge and / or access to technology.

Further, teachers account for many Child Protective Services reports annually. However, Willi explained that since they did not see each of their students face-to-face on a daily basis, many of the kids that may have been abused or neglected either had no one available to turn to for help (i.e. their teachers or school counselors) and / or were left undetected.

Lending a helping hand

Since March 2020, even with their staff working remotely, the services provided by the Sullivan County Child Care Council to the community have not been interrupted.

Willi said their main function is “child care resource and referral,” but their services shifted to mainly [providing] resources to support the child care providers and essential working parents who were able to continue to work throughout the shutdown.

They facilitated several grants from the State Office of Children and Family Services (OCFS) by dispersing PPE and other COVID related supplies, funds to make changes to programs required by DOH due to COVID, like room dividers, more tables and / or electronics and paid for the child care costs for many of the county’s essential workers.

OCFS also just released funds to help stabilize child care programs across New York State. As of August 18, $1,657,200 has been approved to disperse to eligible Sullivan County child care programs.

Willi said that additionally, they are currently working with many community partners to offer business training and other support to strengthen the current child care workforce as well as model child care to the community as a viable small business in hopes of creating more child care options for working families.

Changing the perception

Commissioner of the Division of Community Resources, Laura Quigley, said the county recently put out a survey to see what was preventing people from going back to work.

She qualified that they didn’t get a large number of responses, but of the ones they did receive, the majority mentioned the lack of child care.

As things continue to open up, Quigley said it will be interesting to see how many people who made adjustments to their lives during the pandemic, will not go back to work and remain in their current routines. She said there has been a serious child care issue in the county even before the pandemic and her experience tells her this will remain a big issue moving forward.

Another challenge is that federal relief offered during the pandemic, so far, is only supportive of existing providers and not startups.

Recently, Quigley had a meeting with the county’s economic development partners on changing the perception of child care providers.

“At the end of the day, child care providers are small businesses,” said Quigley, “but people don’t look at it that way. They are small business owners so let’s treat them like that, and figure out how we can encourage more small business ownership by becoming a child care provider.”

Quigley said that some of the same resources used to create more small business ownership should be used in helping to alleviate the local child care issues.

“That’s the attack we have to take,” she said.

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