Advocacy group wants to boost child care staffing

Child care substitutes

The biggest need is full-time staff. Ideally this would be for people to try out the career and hopefully this leads to more full time positions being filled”

Breanna Kramer-Riesberg, LCHD outreach coordinator

LEE COUNTY - An effort is underway to try to bolster the number of child care workers to help alleviate staffing problems for child care centers in the county.
The county was awarded a matching $10,000 grant two years ago for a Rural Child Care Market study which generated helpful data and ideas for helping solve a deficit of about 1,600 child care slots in the county.
One of the top ideas out of the survey, according to Breanna Kramer-Riesberg, the community outreach coordinator at the Lee County Health Department, was creating a pool of substitute caregivers to supplement the workforce in the county.
"We’ve received funding from the Lee County Charitable Fund and that will run for about six months into June. So we hope to enroll people for an initial trial period to see if the process works and see if people are interested," Kramer-Riesberg said.
She said funding is available for 25 trainees and that would be a big start for the program.
"We estimated the need would be greater. The biggest need is full-time staff. Ideally this would be for people to try out the career and hopefully this leads to more full-time positions being filled."
State Department of Human Resources requirements mandate a certain staff to child ratio and that ratio is what is causing some centers to reduce the amount of children they can accept because of the worker shortage, or if centers have staff calling in sick.
Kramer-Riesberg said the substitutes would be a stop-gap measure for current shortages, but hopefully transitions into filling some of the shortages permanently.
"Its not a full solution to the bigger problem of more staff in general, but does help with ratio and keeping kids in the centers.
"We do think this would be great fit for hourly staff folks, but not to draw them away from the schools. It's another route for people," she said.
"Maybe certain people prefer babies or two-year-olds without a full commitment to an 8-5 shift throughout the week. Teacher’s aides and paraeducators don’t get paid during the summer, so this could make that more a year-long work cycle for those people. We see it as a complement position rather than competitive."
Kramer said the industry usually has a pay range in the area of $10 to $15 per hour and she would presume that would be what the substitutes would get paid, but she said that would be up to individual child care centers.
The program is called the Child Care Substitute Workforce Development Initiative. Interested individuals would be eligible for a $300 stipend upon completion of the required 17 hours of training. Most of the training, with the exception of some in-person first aid training, is online. The group would also provide assistance in connecting substitutes to early childhood  care providers in the county.
Currently, about 60% of providers surveyed are currently hiring full or part-time staff. Few licensed centers are operating at full capacity due to short staffing. Substitute pools for early childhood care providers exist nationwide with some states, like Tennessee, investing in statewide technological infrastructure to support widescale substitute pools similar to those operating amongst school districts.
Some larger centers in Lee County have a couple of substitutes on staff to fill-in, however, the concept of sharing substitutes and creating a recruitment and orientation procedure will be new to Lee County.
Results of the child care needs survey indicated that 77% of parents with children ages 0 to 5 (not in Kindergarten) and 64% of parents with children ages 5 to 12 found it somewhat difficult or very difficult to find child care. Obstacles named were almost exclusively related to lack of openings or not enough spaces.
In addition, over the last 12 months, 56 parents (of 209 total respondents) have declined employment or withdrawn from the labor force due to child care and 95 parents have limited employment due to child care challenges, such as forcing them to work fewer hours or only being able to accept positions that have hours when they can secure child care. Access to child care directly correlates to improved income, expanded employment opportunities, and more stable work performance for families. The child care workforce challenge must be addressed to improve economic and broader workforce development in Lee County.
Preliminary recruitment strategies will focus on targeted populations like retirees, school staff (child care sites have more students during breaks when school is not in session), high school students, seasonal jobs (i.e. lifeguards), and current school substitutes. Offering a $300 training stipend will provide incentive to complete the full 17 hours of required training and try the profession with little to no risk. 
For more information or to apply for the program call 319-457-1395 or email littlesproutsam@gmail.com.