Accessible, Quality Child Care: The Why and the How for Greater Des Moines
A group of toddlers buzzes around a play kitchen in a classroom at Oak Academy, clanging dishes and serving up pretend pizza. This may look like play — and it is — but it is also a formative experience.
Ninety percent of human brain development occurs in the first five years of life. Early childhood sets the stage for the trajectory of a person’s life. It is during this time that children learn their ABCs and 123s, but it also when they gain their foundation for academic, social and emotional competencies.
“We are truly shaping the young minds that will then walk into kindergarten classrooms and excel. We're socializing them with their peers. We're helping them with conflict resolution with each other,” says Deidre DeJear, President and CEO of Oakridge Neighborhood, a nonprofit housing and human services agency that includes Oak Academy, an early learning and preschool center.
Child care programs like Oak Academy across Greater Des Moines are a catalyst for optimal outcomes from this precious, critical window. But this window is clouded by challenges:
Capital Crossroads and numerous Greater Des Moines organizations like Children and Families of Iowa, the Iowa Women’s Foundation, the Iowa Association for the Education of Young Children (IAEYC) and Oakridge Neighborhood are collaborating to develop solutions that will strengthen child care in Greater Des Moines.
This investment and this work takes community involvement and there are five things Greater Des Moines leaders, employers and advocates can rally around to create system-wide success:
Solution #1 - Develop the Child Care Workforce
A study by IAEYC found that a majority of child care workers love what they do. But many leave the field because they cannot make ends meet. IAEYC facilitates two programs to help combat these challenges. The TEACH (Teacher Education and Compensation Helps) program provides scholarships to people working in early childhood field to help them obtain additional education in the field. The WAGE$ program provides salary supplements based on an individual’s level of education and commitment to their programs.
“We're able to increase the education of child care providers and give them a salary supplement to keep them in the workforce,” says Jillian Herink, Executive Director of IAEYC, an organization that focuses improving the early care and education profession. Their programs help early childhood professionals build their skills and provide high quality education for young children.
Solution #2 – Advocate for Public Policy:
Public policy plays a role in shaping child care. For example, TEACH and WAGE$ are funded by the federal Child Care Block Grant. At the state level, a bill was recently signed into law to codify a program that provides Child Care Assistance (CCA) to people working in the child care field, helping them afford their own child care expenses.
Solution #3 – Champion Partnerships and Collaborations
If it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a village to support child care systems and organizations like the Iowa Women’s Foundation help fill in the gaps. One such gap is operational support. “There are a lot of grants that don't cover operational expenses. So as we fund those projects, we are covering operational expenses so those projects can get off the ground and be amplified as they continue to grow,” says Claudia Schabel, President and CEO of the Iowa Women’s Foundation. The IWF has funded center expansion, furniture and equipment, training curricula for new providers, before/after-school programming and efforts to increase child care availability for second/third-shift workers.
Many organizations across sectors are working collaboratively to address regional child care challenges. For example, the Iowa Child Care Coalition (ICCC) was formed to create a more accessible, affordable, high quality child care system sustained by a professional, competitive, and compensated workforce. Through nonpartisan legislative recommendations, the ICCC seeks to increase access, affordability, and quality of child care while increasing the stability of the child care workforce across Iowa. Check out their Iowa State Fact Sheet here.
Solution #4 – Consider Child Care as Economic Development
“Regions that are investing in child care solutions are offering their working families and their businesses a competitive advantage,” says Kaity Patchett, Executive Director of Capital Crossroads, “When families have access to stable, quality childcare, they're more able to fully participate in the local workforce.”
Stable, quality child care solutions are necessary for parents to go to work and provide for their families. This is something Children and Families of Iowa sees firsthand in their work in family support, child care, career training and behavioral health.
“Parents can work toward building financial stability, pursue career advancement, create meaningful family experiences,” says Janice Lane Schroeder, CEO of Children and Families of Iowa, “Strong childcare systems do not just support children. They strengthen entire communities by empowering working families.”
Investing in child care is akin to investing in infrastructure.
“Businesses see reduced absenteeism and higher levels of productivity. They have wider access to a talent pool,” says Patchett, "In that sense, investing in child care solutions is the same as investing in roads, broadband and public transportation. It keeps the economy moving forward.”
Solution #5 – Employer-Led Solutions
When employers contribute to the solutions, they see transformations within their organizations. For UnityPoint Health, child care contributes to patient outcomes.
“To provide dependable, reliable, great health care, we need dependable, reliable child care for our team members and our health care professionals,” says Joyce McDanel, Vice President of Human Resources and Education for UnityPoint Health in the Des Moines market.
To address this, UnityPoint Health has a daycare center for employees in Des Moines and other markets across Iowa. The organization also sees how lack of accessible, affordable child care impacts their talent pipeline who are both working and advancing their education. As a solution to this, UnityPoint Health offers an income subsidy for team members who are in school to help cover costs for child care. Removing this barrier supports degree attainment and skills development in areas that UnityPoint Health needs to deliver health care services.
Learn more about Capital Crossroads and the collaborative work to empower the child care system in Greater Des Moines.
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