Child Care Task Force Report: Ambassadors for Children
Executive Summary
The Community Action Network created the Child Care Task Force, "Ambassadors for Children", in March 1999 as a community-wide initiative responding to the need for accessible, affordable and quality child care in the greater Austin area.
In greater Austin, virtually all child care centers are reporting extreme difficulty in recruiting and retaining qualified staff. During the summer of 1999, two child care centers closed because they were unable to find qualified staff and another, that had served downtown Austin for over 30 years recently announced that it is closing for reasons related to staffing. Pay for child care staff is low, averaging $7 - 8 per hour, and benefits rarely include sick and vacation leave or health insurance. Although the cost of child care is steadily increasing, the income generated from tuition alone is not enough to either pay teachers adequately or to purchase appropriate learning materials. As a result, the classroom environments often have inadequate resources and teachers are both underpaid and under-trained.
The consequences of poor quality child care can be devastating -- inadequate care can significantly delay brain development. During the early, most formative years, a child develops the foundation for success throughout life. A sense of self-esteem, emotional competency and a grasp of the fundamentals of literacy are formed in the child's first few years. Quality child care helps children develop to their full potential by focusing optimal attention on development of the "whole" child - physical, motor, social, emotional, language and intellectual.
Quality child care is an integral part of our community's infrastructure, contributing to a strong economy and a competent work force. When good child care is affordable and available for working parents, employers benefit through less absenteeism, increased productivity and higher rates of employee retention. The community at large reaps long-term benefits from higher literacy rates and lower delinquency rates.
The committtees of the Child Care Task Force reviewed "best practices" from around the country and made specific recommendations for programs that can help in solving the immediate child care crisis as well as creating a structure for the Fund For Child Care Excellence . The creation of the Fund is a direct result of a recommendation from earlier work accomplished by the Austin Child Care Council to establish a "Community Child Care Fund".
The mission of the Fund for Child Care Excellence addresses the concerns surrounding the accessibility, affordability and quality of child care in our community. To accomplish its mission, the Fund has set the following goals:
- Increase the number of available child care teachers
- Improve teacher training and teacher wages
- Increase public awareness of early education and development issues
- Expand materials/resources for child care programs
- Provide scholarships to families for child care
To accomplish these goals, the Fund has determined that projects to be considered for future funding will be centered around four general categories: teacher/director support to improve retention and training of child care staff; public education and recognition to raise public awareness of the importance of early childhood development; infrastructure projects that provide materials for early childhood classrooms, playgrounds and facility construction or improvement; and child care subsidies/family scholarships to help families better afford quality child care.
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