Goal 5: Child Care
We support workers and employers by increasing access to affordable high-quality childcare, promoting early learning, and fostering long-term self-sufficiency for families
OBJECTIVES
5.1 Access: Support expansion of childcare facilities into childcare deserts. Increase provider capacity through supply of additional slots.
5.2 Whole Family: Provide financial support through scholarships to local families. Leverage workforce services for individuals requesting and receiving childcare services.
5.3 Quality: Assist childcare providers to achieve higher Texas Rising Star ratings
5.4 Professional Recognition: Support advances in education and training for childcare educators. Support advances in building pipeline of early childhood educators
5.5 Promote Partnerships; Leverage public and private resources to support the childcare ecosystem of providers and families
5.6 Data Collection: Assess data collection capacity. Work in community to improve data collection and analysis capabilities. Create special report on childcare access for children ages infant to age 3. Create a dashboard annually to share the state of childcare in Travis County from WFS’ perspective.
5.7 Policy Tracking: Report to Childcare Advisory Council and Board of Directors (as appropriate) local, state and federal childcare policies that impact localized childcare system and services
Give your input: Enter comments below. If you’re comfortable, please also note the organization you represent.
The biggest need is jobs for single parents with elementary school students who need to work daytime shifts so that they can be home when their children come home from school or after school care.
I am with St. Vincent de Paul Society and help many people in the community pay their monthly bills when their income falls short.
Continue to increase the number of scholarship slots in our area. Many of the parents we serve through the 2-Gen Coalition for Economic Advancement cannot rely on WFS child care scholarships because they are on the waitlist too long or do not know they have been dropped from the waitlist. Expanding scholarship slots is essential for enabling parents to quickly take advantage of training or work opportunities and ensuring children have access to quality education.
Two items are crucial. First and foremost, adding funds to alleviate the waitlist backlog, which is several years long. Second, improving the communication with families. This may be a systems/platforms issue, but the process for transparently sharing updates and events with families who are receiving subsidies, on the waitlist or considering the waitlist absolutely needs to be optimized. Too many families (and therefore child care providers) are uninformed and therefore highly impacted by changes or expectations around funding status.
5.1 Access: Support expansion of childcare facilities into childcare deserts. Increase provider capacity through supply of additional slots.
I agree that more childcare facilities need to be built in areas where families have migrated due to the high cost to live within the Austin. I would like to see additional funding to support this effort. However, I would like to see the fairness of the money distributed equally to all childcare centers regardless of their funding source.
5.4 Professional Recognition: Support advances in education and training for childcare educators. Support advances in building pipeline of early childhood educators
It would be nice to offer Monterey support to Early Childhood Educators to better themselves. I believe in building individuals with quality teaching that Educators can use to better their and their families lives. I would hope that if funding becomes available that the money would be distributed equally among individuals regardless of their work source.
5.1 Access: Support expansion of childcare facilities into childcare deserts. Increase provider capacity through supply of additional slots.
-This is a great objective and one that could really use urgent implementation. By expanding childcare facilities, providers can begin lightening the load of waitlist slots.
5.2 Whole Family: Provide financial support through scholarships to local families. Leverage workforce services for individuals requesting and receiving childcare services.
-This would be an incredible benefit, allowing local families enrollment by way of scholarship and leveraging workforce services. Shouldn’t have to just be limited to those individuals requesting workforce services through workforce solutions, but perhaps families who have established work by other means and/or have secured workforce services in the past.
5.3 Quality: Assist childcare providers to achieve higher Texas Rising Star ratings
-This is a huge objective as I am a home childcare provider who was not aware of the Texas Star ratings until much later in my program. I believe it is important to guide child care providers to the TRS ratings early in the starting process. This would information would probably be helpful coming directly from the Texas Health and Human Services, Department of Child Services, or lastly Texas Workforce. I would not have expected to reach out to Texas Workforce as they are not the point of contact, initially for providers upon starting a child care program.
5.4 Professional Recognition: Support advances in education and training for childcare educators. Support advances in building pipeline of early childhood educators
-Another great objective. What are ways that all child care providers can do to be recognized? Licensed, registered, and listed? Would be interested in seeing a streamlined education and training platform offered at low or no cost to child care educators.
5.5 Promote Partnerships; Leverage public and private resources to support the childcare ecosystem of providers and families
-I agree that both providers and families need support, to see this from public and private resources would be incredible.
5.6 Data Collection: Assess data collection capacity. Work in community to improve data collection and analysis capabilities. Create special report on childcare access for children ages infant to age 3. Create a dashboard annually to share the state of childcare in Travis County from WFS’ perspective.
-Something as simple as a google form would be nice for providers to respond as well in a report. Many providers have challenges with reporting and paperwork. They are operating at high levels constantly to give their families the best experiences. I suggest a one-page data collection report on a quarterly or annual basis to request the state of childcare in Travis County.
5.7 Policy Tracking: Report to Childcare Advisory Council and Board of Directors (as appropriate) local, state and federal childcare policies that impact localized childcare system and services
-N/A