You play a critical role of educating children in the local community. Awareness of and alignment with different educational programs throughout the community, from birth until school-age, is critical to ensure programs remain successful and continue to provide quality care and education for local families and children. Have you considered how access to child care impacts employee recruitment and retention and student enrollment?
What can we do to help?
Provider Appreciation
The saying “a little goes a long way” is especially true for child care providers. This career is often an isolated venture with few opportunities to feel appreciated. Child care provider appreciation can be an event with door prizes, a meal, training, networking, or it can be as simple as sending a note in the mail – or anything in between! Acts of appreciation can also lead to better retention of providers.
Provide Free Training Space
In addition to fees to attend trainings, it has become increasingly difficult to find spaces to accommodate trainings for providers during evenings and weekends. Providing access to meeting, conference or board rooms (free of charge) increases the probability providers can attend trainings locally, or within reasonable distances. Visit the training spaces page to view the list of available free training spaces in southwest Minnesota. You can also add your training space to the list using this submission form.
Own and Operate Child Care
Child care can be operated in many ways, including a business-owned and operated program. This solution is great for businesses or organizations that want to support employees through a direct service. On-site or off-site, offering employees a child care option can be an incentive to attract and retain talent.
After-School Program
Is there an opportunity to provide after-school care for school-age children in your building? Often providers are holding spots during the day for school-age children, eliminating spots for younger children. Check with your local child care providers to see if offering year-round care for school-age kids would benefit their businesses and the community.
Lease Space
The opportunity to lease vacant space for a family-based child care provider can fill an empty space and offer a child care provider an opportunity to run a business outside of the home. Additionally, partnerships like these can create opportunities to cost share other utilities and/or services.
Cater Meals and/or Snacks
Whether center-based or family-based, preparing and cooking meals can be expensive and time-consuming for providers. Partnerships between providers and staff in kitchens can allow more time to focus on the direct needs of the children in their care.
Inventory Staff Child Care Needs
Identifying the needs of your own staff can help develop a better understanding of ways this issue is impacting your business and employees, and potentially offer ideas of ways to help. Gathering this information can be done in many ways — a simple survey conducted internally or through an outside entity, one-on-one conversations with employees, a comment box, etc.
Resources:
- Southwest Initiative Foundation: Child Care in Action (PDF) This fact sheet explores the five areas of focus for the foundation’s work supporting quality, affordable child care — a critical part of our economy and communities in southwest Minnesota.
- https://swifoundation.org/bright-beginnings/ This fact sheet explores the five areas of focus for the foundation’s work supporting quality, affordable child care — a critical part of our economy and communities in southwest Minnesota.
- The Business Case for Investing in High-Quality Child Care (PDF) This fact sheet highlights the child care industry’s economic and job impact in Minnesota.
- Child Care Aware of Minnesota West/Central District Child Care Aware provides families, child care programs, and the community with information and support for quality child care that is affordable and accessible.
- First Children’s Finance First Children’s Finance provides loans and business-development assistance to high-quality child care businesses serving low- and moderate-income families.
