Child care comes up in a lot of conversations in Marysville.
Parents talk about how difficult it can be to find an opening. Employers see how child care affects their ability to recruit and keep employees. Existing providers know firsthand what it takes to operate a child care business and how difficult it can be to add more spots.
We know there is a problem. The bigger question is: What can we realistically do about it?
That is the work OneMarysville’s Child Care Task Force has taken on.
Child Care Aware of Kansas recently named OneMarysville a Child Care Community Champion, recognizing the work already underway in our community. We appreciate the recognition, but we also know we have a lot of work ahead of us.
Our task force includes Todd Frye, Josh Haverkamp, Ashley Kracht, Wayne Kruse, Susie Latta, Michelle Luppen, Darren Schroeder, Rachel Strunk, Jon Ungerer and Gina Ward. We brought together people with different perspectives because child care is not a problem that one organization, employer or provider can solve alone.
We also established some basic principles for our work from the beginning. We are here to move the issue forward. We do not want to spend months talking about everything that cannot be done. When we identify a barrier, we want the next conversation to be about what we can do about it.
Most importantly, we want this work to lead to action.
One area we do not want to overlook is the business side of child care.
Many of our existing providers are small business owners. They deal with expenses, staffing, regulations, insurance, facilities and all of the other challenges that come with running a business.
If we want more child care slots, part of the answer may be helping existing providers strengthen or expand their businesses. Another part may be identifying people who have considered becoming providers but do not know where to start.
We are also looking beyond Marysville. Task force members have visited other communities, talked with child care providers and explored different models. We are interested in what has worked elsewhere, but that does not mean simply copying someone else’s solution.
Before we start deciding what Marysville needs, we need to hear from the people about child care. OneMarysville has launched a Community Child Care Needs Assessment for Marysville and the surrounding area.
The survey asks about current child care arrangements, difficulties finding care, the ages of children needing care, the hours when care is needed and other factors that will help us understand where the biggest gaps really are.
You do not have to be using child care right now to participate. We want to hear from everyone.
Take the Community Child Care Needs Assessment:
And please share it with someone else who should complete it.
We will also be reaching out separately to area employers. We want to better understand how child care availability affects attendance, hiring, employee retention and the ability of people to enter or remain in the workforce.
The information from those surveys will help determine where we put our time and resources next.
Our task force has a broad charge: support the providers we already have, identify opportunities to expand child care, look for short term opportunities as well as long term solutions and bring concrete recommendations forward.
We do not expect one project to solve every child care challenge.
But we do expect to make progress.
The first step is understanding what our community actually needs. Please take the survey and help us get that part right.
