Child care availability was already a big problem in the North Country before the COVID-19 crisis hit. File photo: Jerry Saslav, USAF
Jul 15, 2020 — The coronavirus pandemic is making child care a real headache for parents across the North Country.
There are few summer camps. Many child care providers are still closed or operating at limited capacity due to social distancing. And school in the fall is a huge question mark. Meanwhile, parents are having to go back to work.
But child care experts say the situation was already dire before the pandemic.
Lindsay Turner is the Adirondack Foundation’s program director, and heads up their Adirondack Birth to 3 Alliance, a collective action group founded in 2014. It brings together five counties and a cross-section of agencies, providers, and organizations to support early childhood initiatives.
The North Country as a "Child Care Desert"
Turner says the first thing to know is that the North Country is classified as a "child care desert," which means that an area's need for child care far exceeds the capacity of regulated child care slots.
"Pre-COVID on average across the five counties there are six children per every one available slot."
When demand far exceeds availability, Turner says it has far-reaching impacts.
"It impacts parents who are working, parents who are deciding to stay home, employees who can’t find consistent or reliable care, and it impacts these children…we know that the first 3 years of life are really critical to a child’s development."
"It's a workforce issue"
In child care deserts, families often rely on piecing together child care (friends, family members, having their older children watch their younger children). Sometimes it means they can't take certain work or jobs (like overnight shifts) or that they don't work at all. COVID-19 heightens all of these situations.
Turner says "this impacts everyone, whether you have children or not. You have a domino effect that people underestimate." Without child care, parents can't work. Without workers, businesses can't operate. While Turner says none of this is new,
"COVID-19 is highlighting the chain effect."
Our problems and possible solutions
So why is the North Country a child care desert? Turner says that for Northern New York, it's a combination of poverty, a lower population, and the rural nature of our towns.
Transportation is a huge block for families that live in towns without child care, or who don't live in towns at all. She also points to the demographics of the child care providers we do have - they're older, and many of them are on the verge of retiring.
"The profession is not highly valued in our society, it's not a career young people are signing up for… the question is how do we bring more people into that pipeline?"
She says child care here, and across the nation, is a "double edged sword" with families unable to afford quality child care, and providers unable to make a living wage providing it. When asked what is needed to fix this, she says that philanthropy can only go so far -
"Big picture they need to valued as a profession. There needs to be more funding in the system, in the way we subsidize the child care system."
That needs to come from both ends, says Turner. Parents need help affording child care (through tax credits and direct aid) and child care centers need help with their high operating costs.
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The state of child care in the North Country: 'there are six children per every one available slot' - North Country Public Radio
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