4 Better Beginnings
The unmet need for child care The child care and early education needs of Sonoma County’s young children and their working parents continue get worse, and are now being called a “crisis” by child care leaders, elected officials and other social service organizations. The recent natural disasters beginning in 2017 and the coronavirus pandemic have doubled the problem, with the closure at the beginning of the pandemic of almost half the county’s licensed child care centers and licensed private family child care homes. Those that remained open were required to lower their enrollments to meet social distancing measures. Sonoma County is home to just over 90,000 children ages 017, and only 12,749 were enrolled in a childcare program prior to the coronavirus
pandemic. Infant and toddler care services were only meeting 34% of the demand, prior to the pandemic. For school-aged children, ages 6 to 12, only half the need for 13,672 school-aged spaces was being met, according to the most recent County Child Care Community Profile, prepared by the Sonoma County Office of Education in 2015. There is an even more urgent need for providing child care services to 22,000 low-income families that qualify for state subsidies but often can’t find available services in the needed location or with workable schedules. In 2015, the county only had 3,522 subsidized spaces. In late March, a consortium of county child care and early education leaders asked the county and eight cities to fund $5 million for post-pandemic recovery to cover five years of expanded services. These
Better Beginnings July 2021 A special supplement to the July 22, 2021 edition of:
Publisher: Rollie Atkinson Staff Writers: Heather Bailey, Camille Escovedo, Brandon McCapes, Katherine Minkiewicz-Martine, Zoë Strickland Consultants: Local Design Company, Ricardo Ibarra Production: Noe Naranjo Advertising & Sales: Teresa Mangiapani, Laura Tew Office & Administration: Jan Todd, Jamie Harrington All contents are copyrighted by ©Sonoma County Local News Initiative, Inc. PO Box 518, Healdsburg, CA 95448 POSTMASTER: This mailing is made under Periodical Class Permit 238-460 USPS. Periodicals Class postage paid at Healdsburg, CA. 95448. Send address changes to: Sonoma West Publishers, PO Box 518, Healdsburg, CA. 95448
included early childhood mental II. “I’ve been fighting this same battle for 20 years. We don’t have health ($1 million), safety-net the right hours or the right places navigation ($500,000), home at affordable costs, and we have visiting services ($1 million), undervalued and underpaid direct support to child care caregivers.” providers ($1 million) and Without any subsidies, stabilization of 0-5 infant and Sonoma County parents are toddler services ($1.5 million.) The smaller cities are being asked paying a range of $12,000 to almost $20,000 per year, per to fund $40,000 each and larger child for various child care cities are being asked for programs. Government subsidies $120,000 to $240,000. The effort for parents and child care centers is being led by First 5 Sonoma are based on past years’ surveys County which is allocating matching funds from Prop. 10 and do not take into account (anti-tobacco funds) to address Sonoma County’s high cost of rising impacts of parental living. substance abuse, childhood Some of the tuition or care trauma, increased cases of child charges collected by Dodson’s abuse and long-term 4Cs include $175 impacts of poverty and per week for 3 to low percentages of 3.5 hours per day; school readiness. half-day preschool Like all parts of costs $755 per America, Sonoma month; school day County has a “mixed care (6 hours daily) delivery” system of early costs $940 per childhood education month; and and child care services. extended daily care This includes private (9 -10 hours) costs licensed homes, public $1,425 per month. before- and after-school Infant and programs, licensed and toddler care is the MELANIE DODSON coordinated child care scarcest and most centers, the federal expensive service. Head Start program and Current COVID-19 safety unlicensed care from relatives precautions have greatly and neighbors. increased these costs. Hourly The “mixed delivery” system care in licensed private family could also be described as a “hit care homes averages $11.07 per and miss” or “gaps and holes” hour, but can cost as much as $15 system. per hour in some communities, Melanie Dodson, executive according to a 4Cs survey. director for the county’s Currently, there is a series of nonprofit Community Child state and federal early childhood Care Council (4Cs), doesn’t shy education and child care away from calling the situation a proposals, extended tax credits, “crises,” using the plural version one-time COVID-19 pandemic of crisis. She lists a lack of relief and calls for universal services, unaffordability, low kindergarten and transitional caregiver salaries, loss of work kindergarten for older 4-yeardays or hours by working parents olds. These proposals represent and extra burdens on women, billions of one-time or recurring low-income families and ethnic government funding. Dodson minorities. and others in her profession are “Our culture needs to pull grateful for this new funding, but itself up by its bootstraps,” also point out that very little of Dodson recently said, citing a these initiatives address the half-century of a broken system historical crises of the “mixed still based on a society that was delivery” system. just emerging from World War — Rollie Atkinson
