How To Improve Child Care Discussed Community Meeting Looks At Training, Pay, Availability

A few years ago, Melody Morgan got suspicious about the local day-care center where she’d been leaving her son.

Her worst fears were realized one day when she asked her son Tyler a simple question. His answer: “OK, just don’t hurt me.”

That response changed her life, prompting her to pull Tyler from day care, quit her job and look after her two children full-time.

Morgan was not at Monday night’s community meeting of the Department of Health and Welfare, put together to gather input from the public on how to improve the Idaho Child Care Program.

But the organization certainly would have liked to have heard from her and other parents. Part of its mission statement is to improve child-care quality. In a series of meetings across the state this month, the ICCP is gathering input from people on just how to do that.

Things were a little hectic Monday, but the meeting was productive. Facilitators scribbled notes on butcher paper as small groups mostly of providers chimed in on a wide range of ICCP issues. Each year, ICCP gets a chunk of federal funding, some of which has to be spent on “quality improvement.” This year they have $8 million.

Quality improvement means educating consumers like Morgan about the program, providing training and technical assistance to providers, like the day-care center, compensating providers for that training, and increasing the availability of certain types of care.

About 25 people showed up to offer their input Monday night. None identified themselves just as parents. Most were providers.

Not that the meeting was a wash. The providers buzzed with suggestions about ways to improve the bureaucracy that clogs the child care system in Idaho.

They talked about better training for providers, stricter licensing, communication with the public and each other, and a host of issues that will ultimately affect people like Morgan.

At this point, there are 9,000 children getting subsidies for child care, said Scott Cunningham, the administrator of the state welfare division. The number eligible is 30,000 to 40,000 children. The number of children served is triple what it was just a few years ago, Cunningham said. But there is more to be done. Doug Fagerness, the director of North Idaho College’s Head Start Program, knows the issues surrounding child care in this state and others are complex. The main problem, Fagerness says, is availability of care for infants and toddlers on the evening and weekend. But even if that care is available, it’s harder still to find quality.

In Idaho, providers can get a state license for child care if they pass a health inspection, a fire inspection, a criminal background check, pay $110 in fees and undergo four hours a year of continued education.

“That’s not very hard when you compare it to something like a hairdresser, who needs between 1,200 and 1,300 hours of training,” said Alice Anderson, coordinator of the Child Care Resource Center at the Panhandle Health District.

Good providers have more education, however, but without more stringent regulations in place, there’s no incentive.

Michelle Britton, the director of the Panhandle’s health and welfare office, said regulations aren’t there because the Legislature says those rules should be established by individual cities.

Coeur d’Alene, for example, requires four hours of education before getting a license, and then eight hours a year of continued schooling.

Other cities are more lax, however, and that leaves day-care centers struggling to convince their employees that education benefits them.

Yvonne Fletcher is a consultant with Early Head Start in Coeur d’Alene. She says the program there has a hard time retaining its staff. The pay is low, around minimum wage on average. But there’s a greater problem, Fletcher said.

“Child care isn’t viewed as a career,” she said. “It’s viewed as a stepping stone. There’s not a lot of significance placed on taking care of our children.”

Morgan said it’s important to let people know what to look for in good child care. She said Tyler also had a different instructor practically every week, and that some of the teachers’ training was questionable.

“I don’t think somebody off the street should work at a day care,” Morgan said.

This sidebar appeared with the story: ON THE WEB Second chance

Those who missed Monday’s meeting can comment on the Idaho Child Care Program at www.idahochild.org.