Working parents know how tricky childcare can be. But a new study released by the Center for Community Studies at Jefferson Community College, provides statistics to back that up. It shows that in at least four New York counties, those challenges appear to be getting worse.
The center’s director Joel LaLone said when the center surveyed the entire state, respondents in Jefferson, Lewis, St. Lawrence, and Oswego counties had the lowest satisfaction rates in childcare, so they decided to take a closer look.
"On an excellent, good, fair, poor scale, in the North Country last fall, and this was a sample of over 2,000 adults, about 40 percent responded to that, the most common, the plurality was, 'poor'. Statewide, that was only 19 percent...so we said, it is different here,” he said.
Brandy Koproski, executive director at Integrated Community Planning of Oswego County, sees those challenges firsthand.
Koproski said over the past few years, she has seen a decline in regulated childcare centers and in-home programs, leading some parents to leave their jobs or create a patchwork system of help.
"Maybe they've got grandma taking on this day, and then they've found a regulated care for that day, but then they're working part time to get the rest of it,” she said. “And there's no continuity for all of that, so that's a little bit of a struggle for families in that way as well, and then for the kids. Are they ready for school because they've been all over the place and not able to have that consistency?"
LaLone said the study also shows childcare stressors are getting worse, with the number of respondents saying availability is “excellent or good” decreasing to about one-third of what it was a decade ago.
It’s also having an economic impact. Lalone said 22 percent of parents reported declining a job or leaving a job because of childcare concerns, and when you extrapolate that to the whole population, it’s an impactful statistic.
"It's not just a negligible, in our minds, group of people,” he said. “It's almost 9,000 parents have left or declined a job due to lack of childcare."
Lalone said an estimated additional 4,000 adults are leaving or declining jobs to provide childcare for someone else.
Koproski said she would like to see more recruiting efforts, as people retire from the field faster than they’re coming in.
"Childcare is not a moneymaker by any stretch,” she said. “Your heart has to be in it. It's a very difficult job. But what we see is even coming out of early education programs, (graduates are) going into school districts instead of going into childcare, so it's very difficult to staff classrooms."
The Center for Community Studies hopes to share the results with childcare advocates, lawmakers, and local employers to see if more support is possible.
