ChildcareTennessee, State Ensure Child Care Programs Stay Afloat During Pandemic
A child draws at Wartrace Wee Champs in Wartrace, Tennessee.
In 2020, child care went from backburner issue to front and center. The turbulent year served as a painful reminder that there is no CEO of child care, no one entity in charge of making the system work. A patchwork of family and group home programs, child care centers and Head Start programs — constructed to help keep working families working and the economy pushing forward — started to strain and crack.
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Children gather at Wartrace Wee Champs, a family group home child care program (top photo).
In early March, the worldwide coronavirus pandemic knocked on Tennessee’s door and overstayed its welcome, as stay-at-home orders quickly were issued in metropolitan areas and lasted for months.
Vivian Bynum, owner of Wartrace Wee Champs, received appliances during the second year of ChildcareTennessee’s Support and Enhancement Grant (above).
As fears of the virus spread, families pulled their children out of child care and began to care for their children at home. Lower enrollments led to dwindling revenues, and child care programs began to shutter one by one.
of Middle Tennessee — and the Tennessee Department of Human Services (TDHS) expanded their partnership in 2020 through Disaster and Emergency Grants. These grants provided income and operational support to child care programs affected by the pandemic throughout the state. This included a separate set of recovery grants for programs also impacted by the March 3 tornadoes that struck Nashville and the surrounding Middle Tennessee area. Initially, $8 million was committed to assisting child care programs. As the pandemic deepened, more money was added, eventually making available nearly $61 million in grant funding to more than 2,500 child care programs statewide. The grants helped child care programs buy PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) for their staff, pay for sanitizing services and provide back pay for staff during shutdowns.
Child care centers and the families they serve were in crisis, particularly working mothers who so often shouldered the brunt of the child care burden.
No one could predict how long programs would need to stay shuttered. Many programs had to close for much longer than originally anticipated.
To help both working families and child care providers, ChildcareTennessee — an initiative of The Community Foundation
ChildcareTennessee eventually processed 5,400 applications from 2,065 agencies across Tennessee over the course of 15 months.
