Taking CARE of Business

According to Harvard Business Review, an estimated 50 million workers have a child under age 14 in their households. These employees make up one third of the U.S. workforce, and it means employers are dependent on efficient child care infrastructure for their organizations to function, grow, and thrive.

For this reason, in December 2019, the Huntsville/Madison County Chamber hosted a summit in partnership with the Alabama Partnership for Children (APC) focused on convening business leaders to discuss the role of child care in the regional labor force. From that effort, a child care task force was formed in early 2020. That task force, like many things, made a pivot in April 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the immediate needs for working parents with young children. During that time, the task force commissioned a study to identify best practices across the nation. The findings from that study were compiled, and a follow-on summit with APC was hosted in November 2021 with more than 100 business, industry, and child care experts from our community. One area of identified need was to understand the local landscape. In response, the Chamber commissioned a local child care market study in April 2022. That study determined the supply of child care providers as the largest barrier to child care enrollment in our region.

Since that time, the Chamber has engaged in ongoing efforts that seek to support working parents and increase the supply of child care. One of those efforts is made possible through the Chamber Foundation’s partnership with the national Best Place for Working Parents® program, which was identified as a best practice from the task force study. In addition, the Chamber serves on a national early childhood education advisory group with early childhood administrators and Chamber representatives from nine other communities across the country to share best practices and identify opportunities at both local and national levels. Many of those best practices focus on how to attract and retain child care providers. Child care comes in a variety of formats and child care decisions are very personal for working parents. Therefore, solutions require a multi-pronged approach that includes child care centers, home-based child care providers, and more.

The Alabama Department of Human Resources (DHR) recognized that many potential providers don’t know where to begin, especially those that may want to care for children in a home-based environment. In partnership with DHR and APC, the Chamber piloted a localized marketing and digital media campaign to share awareness of opportunities for individuals to become licensed in-home child care providers. DHR will follow up with those individuals directly to assist them with the licensing requirements and process. Building the capacity of home-based providers and supporting them as entrepreneurs and small business owners is a priority for the Chamber. We are actively seeking grant funding and partnership opportunities to expand this work.

In addition, we continue to support efforts that advance quality and quantity of child care offerings in our community. One of those programs is the DHR Temporary Assistance for Stabilizing Child Care grants, which provides qualified applicants with $2,000 in funding for each daytime child care slot they are licensed to serve. Allowable grant expenditures include employee pay, facility maintenance, purchases of classroom materials, cleaning supplies, and meals. Providers can also use the funds to offer tuition relief to families. These grants are funded by the American Rescue Plan Act and have proven to successfully inject necessary funding into the child care ecosystem. The application deadline for this program is June 16, 2023.

For questions or to learn more about the Chamber’s efforts, contact the Chamber’s VP of Workforce, Lyndsay Ferguson, at lferguson@ hsvchamber.org