As we reopen economy, we need to rethink child care to better serve kids and employees

It didn’t take COVID-19 to put a strain on child care facilities.

Those of us who manage these family lifelines knew the system was overlooked and undervalued, long before “coronavirus” and “social distancing” became daily words in our vocabularies. Now, the pandemic threatens to obliterate an industry that will be a linchpin to economic recovery—because of child care’s crucial role in allowing parents to pursue a career.

The crisis runs especially deep in the rural and mountainous areas of Eastern Kentucky, where due to long-standing economic challenges, our small communities will be among the last to recover from the aftereffects of COVID-19.

In early March, non-life sustaining retail establishments were forced to close and businesses deemed essential were allowed to operate with drastic changes to adhere to CDC guidelines. Child care facilities fell somewhere in between, and many were faced with a difficult choice: (a) apply for the chance to remain open and receive federal aid, or (b) shut the doors and apply for unemployment.

In Hazard, New Beginnings Center for Children and Families was approved to operate as a “limited duration” center, meaning we could remain open to provide emergency child care to healthcare workers. Although only two facilities in Hazard received this status, parents found alternative solutions and we did not obtain enough children to warrant a full staff. We had to lay off more than half our employees.

We operated for a couple weeks at about five percent capacity, until we made the tough decision to close. However, our employees insisted that we stay open to serve the children and families who needed us.

We were able to leverage federal relief programs to provide our employees hazard pay. But even with that, the women putting themselves at risk by working were earning about half the pay of their peers on unemployment.

These women are heroes. They stepped up, at great personal sacrifice, to take care of children of healthcare workers. Yet this situation brought into focus a real truth: Our industry has long been undervalued and these vital caregivers simply don’t earn at a level commensurate to the value they provide the economy.

So what changes need to be made?

June Widman and our partners at the Appalachian Early Childhood Network are advocating for a combination of adequate federal funding, coupled with state policies that value child care and route funding to rural communities, not just large urban cities. Because of outdated, inequitable methods when child care reimbursement rates are calculated, these policies harm smaller, rural areas like Perry County. The result is our lower income residents have to pay more out of pocket for child care than their neighbors in another county where typical family incomes are higher.

At New Beginnings, we’re working with the Appalachian Early Childhood Network with support from the Foundation for Appalachian Kentucky, the Appalachian Impact Fund and the Marguerite Casey Foundation to explore how larger programs like ours can partner with smaller centers and family child care homes to provide rural families more options. However, these solutions are far in the future.

As we enter the “new normal,” please ask yourself: What would it look like to rebuild our economy based on truly valuing caretaking? How can we ensure our youngest get their best start in life while also providing parents the opportunity to engage in their career to better themselves and their families? How can we provide the resources needed for families to afford it?

My hope is we can create a new model by adjusting policies to better support child care employees as essential workers in the economy who deserve to make living wages, and by spurring a cultural shift that more highly values the crucial service they provide, so that those seeking jobs look to child care not as just a job, but as an aspirational career choice.

Mary Ann Mullins is the managing director of New Beginnings Center for Children and Families in Hazard.