Daycare staffing shortage
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Since the pandemic, childcare has become increasingly challenging, as the number of people providing daycare has decreased.
There is a shortage of in-home providers and staff for the existing centers in Ringgold County.
While the issue isn’t unique to our area, organizations are collaborating and asking for support to promote childcare business and education in our communities.
Ringgold County Public Health teamed up with Quad Counties 4 Kids to kick off a child care discussion on February 13 at the Mount Ayr Public Library.
Much of the discussion was about how to help make daycares successful in the area, with various write offs and training courses for in-home care and our local daycare facilities.
After the 4-plus preschool program moved to the Mount Ayr elementary school a few years ago, the 25 year-old Family Resource Center facility had extensive remodeling, and transitioned to serve children from 6 weeks of age to 3 years old.
The completed project was expected to provide care for at least 30 more children under age 4, and help fill a deficit in our community in 2022.
However, the Family Resource Center has struggled to take on more children due to being short staffed.
“Our current challenge is finding and retaining staff,” says Family Resource Center Director, Rachel Worthington, “If we were fully staffed, that would open up 28 childcare slots.”
The purpose of the remodel was to expand the classrooms to be able to have more children in each of the classrooms, but with the lack of staff, they have yet to fill all the room.
Worthington is hopeful they will get there soon, and the staff shortage is only temporary.
Currently, they operate a nursery for infants aged 6 weeks – 1 year, a room for mobile infants between 1 to 2 years old, a transition room for toddlers between 16 months – 2 years old, a toddler room for kids 2 to 3 years old, and a 3+ Preschool for kids 3 to 4 years old.
This year, they collaborated with Head Start to offer a morning and afternoon preschool 4 days a week with wrap around care, in addition to the other child care rooms.
The funding for daycare is also very complicated, and often misunderstood.
All children have full time contracts year round, and the Family Resource Center no longer offers part-time care.
Daycare tuition alone has never covered all the expenses incurred by the Family Resource Center. Every year the Center applies for grants and any opportunities that arise to help provide funding for utilities, insurance and other necessary expenditures.
The center has traditionally had a waiting list, and an application must be completed and returned along with a waiting list fee to be on the official list.
Once applicants are officially on the list, they are called according to the date their application and fee were returned.
“I receive several phone calls weekly from parents needing childcare, but when I offer our waiting list application, most either don’t want it or never return it,” says Worthington.
The Family Resource Center currently has a few kids waiting to get in to the transition classroom (ages 16 months to 2 years).
They also expect to have several new babies to care for this fall. The fall is typically when other enrolled children are moved up to the older classrooms, and the 3 year old children move over to Mount Ayr Elementary school to attend 4 year old preschool.
The last two years, the Department of Health and Human Services offered a recruitment and retention bonus. During the first year of the program (2/25/22-2/24/23) bonuses were $1,000. Effective 2/25/23, bonuses were increased to $2,000.
If you are able to support childcare by working at a center or interested in starting up your own in-home center, there are resources available, including Child Care Resource & Referral (iowaccrr.org) and Mid-Souix Child Care Collaborative of Iowa (midsioux.org).
If interested in learning more about how you can become involved, contact Tara Wurster at twurster@rcph.net or Jenny Robinson at quad.kfc@gmail.com.
