CORONAVIRUS (COVID-19) RESOURCE CENTER Read More
Add To Favorites

Federal pandemic funding to boost child care services in county

San Diego Union-Tribune - 9/30/2022

San Diego foster families can get child care vouchers, workers can gain early childhood education training and small daycare centers will get help pooling resources, as part of a trio of items the Board of Supervisors approved Tuesday to make child care more accessible.

The programs aim to expand child care opportunities for families. They are funded primarily through the American Rescue Plan Act, which granted federal pandemic relief money to local governments.

"We need to see early child care education as worthy of public investment as kindergarten to 12th grade," said Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer, who proposed the items. "As a single parent, I grapple with these challenges myself, and I know that many local families are in desperate need of this help."

One of the measures authorizes $1.5 million — or $500,000 for three years — for child care vouchers to families reunifying after foster care. Subsidizing child care for families after separation can prevent neglect that might occur if kids are left home unsupervised, officials said.

The county also renewed another $1.5 million through a state-funded "Bridge Program" with the YMCA of San Diego to provide six months of emergency care for children entering the foster system.

In a separate item, the county approved $10 million in federal pandemic funds to train and support early childhood educators. The Child Care Workforce Investment Program looks to increase child care capacity in the region, particularly through home-based family child care centers.

During the pandemic, many of those businesses struggled, and 131 family child care centers closed between 2020 and 2021, the county reported. That gap left many families without affordable or available child care, officials said.

The workforce program will enlist universities, community colleges, school districts and career development organizations. It will include job training and professional development, as well as funding for continuing education in child and family development. It may also include retention stipends for participants to help compensate for low pay in the child care field. It's expected to be a three-year pilot program and will begin in 2022-23.

The board also approved an item to help lower costs for small child care providers, by helping them pool resources. The county voted to spend $2 million to hire an agency to provide "business infrastructure for a collective of smaller child care providers."

The partnership will enable providers "to focus their efforts less on business infrastructure and more on providing high-quality care," the board letter stated.

The agency could help with tasks including boosting enrollment, fee collection, managing operations and expenses, engaging families and accessing grant funding to improve or expand facilities, the letter stated.

This story originally appeared in San Diego Union-Tribune.

©2022 The San Diego Union-Tribune. Visit sandiegouniontribune.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.