Solving rural child-care crisis requires creativity; N.C. sees success in network that develops more licensed providers

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It's a sign that something is extremely lacking if someone refers to getting it as "winning the lottery." But particularly in rural areas, that is exactly what is happening with child care, Anne Vilen reports for The Daily Yonder.

Vilen uses the dilemma of one mother as an example. "Six months into her first pregnancy, family nurse practitioner Alex Chamberlain made her first phone call in search of child care. . . . For the next six months, as she called one center after another with no openings, 'the panic set in'," Chamberlain told Vilen. "I was lucky to win the lottery just before my maternity leave ended. A newly opened, licensed family child-care home had a spot available."

North Carolina uses public funding to support early child care, and philapthropy has helped, too; a $1 million grant announced last month will be used to recruit and retain day-care workers, the Hendersonville Lightning reports.

 "The bulk of child-care resources and funding has gone toward high-quality child-care centers," Vilen reports. "But because rural parents often don’t have access to centers or can’t afford them, most young children are cared for at home, by informal caregivers or licensed family child-care providers. . . . Home-based care is the most prevalent child-care arrangement across the nation. . . . In Transylvania County, North Carolina, leaders took a new approach: supporting the county’s home-based child-care providers through a comprehensive network that connects and educates the grandmas, aunts, and neighbors taking care of the community’s children and provides the financial and technical assistance to those who want to become licensed child-care providers in their own homes."

Part of the Transylvania program includes peer support. Ansley Harron, a Smart Start of Transylvania County’s early care capacity specialist, told Vilen, "And the biggest thing is that they feel validated and supported by the network. In conversation with other caregivers, they realize that they are more than just babysitters. Raising children is an important and valued contribution that they are making."

Other states are making progress on child care. "After various family support policies were dropped from federal legislation earlier this year, states have been left to their own devices to stabilize child care and boost the economic well-being of their families," writes Jackie Mader of The Hechinger Report, a national nonprofit that reports on education. "But November election results show that several states are stepping up: In New Mexico, voters passed an amendment to increase funding for early childhood education, making funding early childhood education part of the state’s constitution. In Colorado, voters passed a proposition that raises taxes on higher-income households to pay for universal free school lunches for children. And in Nebraska, voters approved a $15 minimum wage, which will support family economic stability."