Navigating the barriers to child care

6 Better Beginnings

Navigating the barriers to child care

For many Sonoma County parents, finding safe and reliable child care for their families can often be difficult, as they have multiple barriers to navigate.

“People are struggling to find child care, period,” said Renee Whitlock-Hemsouvanh, coowner and operator of Child Family Community in Santa Rosa. “They’re also struggling to find care that meets their needs.”

For families who juggle different schedules, finding a child care provider who can accommodate them can be challenging, and the financial loss that the COVID-19 pandemic has caused for child care service providers has only made that harder.

“Currently, we are only accepting full-time children because from a financial perspective, it’s the only way we can make it,” she said. “But for a family that doesn't need care five days a week or that can’t afford that, it makes it inaccessible for them.”

According to WhitlockHemsouvanh, many families have turned to look for supportive care elsewhere if they can, “like a family friend, neighbor or grandparent who can help out.”

Child care was expensive before the pandemic, but Whitlock-Hemsouvanh said it’s only getting more expensive. “We’ve had to increase prices, and it just marginalizes those who need the help the most.”

There are, however, programs available to financially support families with the costs of child care. Community Child Care Council, (4Cs) offers subsidies to qualifying low-income families, thanks to state funding.

According to Melanie Dodson, executive director of 4Cs, the Alternative Payment Program provides child care vouchers to income-eligible families in Sonoma County. Families who qualify for the voucher can enroll their children in child care services at a more affordable cost, but even that support is limited.

According to Dodson, although the subsidies help, there aren’t enough of them to meet demand.

“For our low-income families, they can't afford child care and they need a subsidy, but there aren't enough subsidies for the families who are eligible under the state guidelines,” she said.

Besides cost, families face other challenges in finding suitable care. Dodson pointed out that the locations of the programs are an additional issue, particularly for families living in rural areas of the county, like the Russian River, “So many of our families travel to get the child care that they need, so that can be a barrier too.”

For elementary-school-aged children, child care tends to look different. After-school programs, which tend to be located on campus, are a great resource for working parents, but they also have limitations.

“They only have so much capacity,” said Dodson. “If it’s full, there’s no other place for them to go, unless the parent leaves work in the middle of the day to pick them up and take them somewhere else.”

A large challenge for providers and families has been the reduced capacity of their centers. “There's been a huge reduction in the slots available, and right now, one-third of all of our programs are currently still closed,” Dodson said.

Dodson believes that many child care providers and programs are waiting to reopen in the fall when schools are back in session, “They've had to, as a business, withstand the closures, so we aren't exactly sure what that will look like come September.” 4Cs is also working on supporting people to become child care providers, with funding from a grant from Impact Redwood Circle.

“We help them to get their home license so they can break into this industry, which is very exciting,” Dodson said.

As the pandemic winds down, she’s seeing an increase in demand for care, “We’re getting the same number of calls for child care now that we were preCOVID, which is a good sign — that means that people are looking again.”

Photo courtesy 4Cs Children sit in a circle at 4Cs Willow Creek Preschool in Santa Rosa. Photo courtesy 4Cs

— Mayra Lopez-Rocha