Washington day care expert says we’re heading for an even bigger void in care
Aug 28, 2020, 3:23 PM
Day care in Washington was in a crisis situation before the pandemic, but now things have gotten even worse — nonprofit Child Care Aware of Washington says that one in five Washington child care centers has had to close its doors since March.
According to a new report from the Washington State Department of Commerce, 550,000 children have no child care.
This comes at a time when some working parents are needing to find child care for the hours their children would normally have spent in school, since most districts are doing remote learning.
Deeann Burtch Puffert, CEO of Child Care Aware of Washington, illustrated the gap in care during a town hall with U.S. Congressman Denny Heck (D-WA), who represents Washington’s 10th Congressional District.
“I have heard so many stories of families getting on a waiting list for their infant, only to get the slot when their child is 3 years old,” Puffert said. “And so that tells a really big story about the challenges that families are facing.”
What struggles of child care centers could mean for Washington parents
Nearly 1,000 day care programs around the state have closed their doors and not reopened since coronavirus arrived here, including 319 in King County, 99 in Pierce County, and 94 in Snohomish County.
Puffert said the child care centers are having to shutter because parents are not comfortable sending children back in the midst of the pandemic.
“Families are keeping their children home, and providers are trying to hold on until families return, and that is not meshing very well, the timing is not meshing very well,” Puffert said. “We have a lot of providers who are struggling with meeting the fixed costs that they have.”
She told KIRO Radio earlier this year that many day care facilities are also facing increased costs with having to buy PPE, and having to keep the same number of staff members on hand — even with fewer children — because adults are needed to enforce social distancing.
Puffert said that as long as parents do their homework and make sure their child care center is following the state’s rigorous cleaning and social distancing rules — such as having parents drop children off at the curb — they should feel confident sending their children back for care.
“Child care providers have done the job they need to do to make the space as safe as possible,” she said. “Obviously it’s not without its risks, so I don’t want to unequivocally say everything is perfect, but I think they’ve done everything they can to create an environment where kids can be safe.”
There is also an important mental health component to all this, she noted.
“For many children, being in a setting where it is focused on them as children and their growth, being able to be in play and engage with other children cannot be understated as something that children really need in their lives,” she said. “And I think for the past six months, many kids have been kept inside.”
She worries that when parents do go back to work, they’ll find the child care void bigger than ever due to all the closures.
“I can say that there’s enough care now, but I think that the longer that this persists, when families return to a more normal cadence around balancing kids being out of home care, we might see some challenges into the future … when it is time for many of these parents to go back to work, there might not be a child care market to be had,” she said.
Care centers that do weather the storm and remain open may have to raise prices. Puffert noted that lower-middle-class families that don’t earn a high salary but fall just above the threshold for government aid have the greatest difficulty affording child care. In the greater Seattle area, this range is between about $50,000 and $80,000 for a family of four.
“If you’re an essential worker and you must work, you’re in all likelihood not making a high wage. And if you have children at home, that means, ‘What am I going to do about child care?'” Rep. Heck said. “It’s a great expense that was here even before the pandemic hit — now [there is] the increased difficulty of finding a place for them to go to.”
Heck said the House just passed a bill providing financial aid to subsidize child care providers and increasing the child care tax credit. That bill is now sitting in the Senate.
“The idea that people have to pay nearly what they make in order to provide child care for their children, or face the choice of staying home and losing that income, and having their marketability, their job skills atrophy while they are providing child care those few years — this is a ‘Sophie’s Choice,’ if you will,” he said. “This is an unbelievable burden on families. We have to figure out a better way in this country … to enable people to provide quality child care.”
Parents who are in need of care for their kids and don’t know what to do can contact Child Care Aware at 1-800-446-1114. The nonprofit will give free help matching families with child care situations fitting their lifestyle and needs.
