Wayne County sees early interest in child care initiative, but challenges remain
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In December, the Economic Development Corp. of Wayne County launched an effort in partnership with California-based Tootris to help employers connect current and future workers with access to child care.
The Child Care Benefit Initiative provides financial support for the first 1,700 full-time employees who wish to take advantage of the platform, and to date, 75 employees have signed on.
However, EDC of Wayne County President Valerie Shaffer says there are still some barriers to bringing the initiative to its full potential, and a new pilot program aims to help alleviate those barriers.
Shaffer told Inside INdiana Business that among the challenges is a lack of open seats.
“We have a number of childcare providers on the platform, and it’s a great way to connect our workforce with childcare opportunities, but there are still barriers with our childcare providers, having the wherewithal to find and hire staff to open up seats to help address our childcare shortage,” Shaffer said. “So while the platform makes the important connection between our workforce and childcare providers, we still have a lack of seats, which is still a detriment to to childcare availability in our area.”
Theresa Lindsey, business and workforce development manager for the EDC, said there are some providers that are only about two-thirds full because they don’t have enough staff.
To help address those concerns, the EDC has partnered with Eastern Indiana Works to create the Jumpstart Childcare Training Program, a pilot designed to provide a pipeline of talent to help increase the amount of childcare seats in the region.
Participants will undergo three days of training through the Indiana-Licensing and Education Access Depot, or I-LEAD, program where they will receive certification to work in a childcare facility.
The EDC secured a grant to have two pilot cohorts, the first of which will begin July 17. The funding will take care of all fees required to receive the certification and provide a stipend for participants.
“We are hopeful that this will begin to create a pipeline using Eastern Indiana Works and organizations similar to ours that we could roll out regionally and then, hopefully, statewide if it begins to allow us to create a pipeline for the lack of staffing that we are seeing in our facilities,” Shaffer said.
Shaffer also noted that the program will take some of the financial burden off of the childcare providers by taking care of the training and onboarding process.
Those who complete the first cohort of the training program already have jobs lined up. Lindsey said a new childcare facility is opening soon in Hagerstown, which she described as a childcare desert, and those trainees will join the staff at the new facility.
However, to potentially expand the training program regionally and statewide, Shaffer said additional funding resources will need to be identified.
Another potential barrier, Shaffer said, is the increase in costs for childcare providers, especially if they want to pay higher wages to employees. Initiatives such as the partnership with Tootris aim to help with that by helping employers subsidize childcare costs for their workers.
“That was one of the major draws for Tootris is that the platform is run through our employers. So it’s engaging them in the process of helping the workforce find childcare workers,” she said. “Long term, we would like to see participating employers start to offer subsidies for the cost of childcare as an employee benefit to help break down that barrier of cost.”
Last year, the state announced the $25 million Employer-Sponsored Child Care Fund, which offers up to $750,000 to eligible employers, who could use the funding to provide on-site childcare, offer childcare tuition benefits and sponsor dependent care assistance plans.
Dozens of employers throughout the state have already received funding through the first two rounds of grant awards.
Speaking virtually this week at the inaugural National Child Care Innovation Summit in Washington D.C., hosted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Gov. Eric Holcomb said noted that more needs to be done to address childcare access in Indiana and around the country.
“We have to make sure that all the organizations, all the businesses, all state and local, and members in the federal government as well, are are stressing that fact that we have to do more,” Holcomb said. “Here in the state of Indiana, I have to do more to address the doubting Thomases that are out there about the societal responsibility. The proof is in the partnerships, and I always say to them, ‘What costs more than having talent is not having the talent.’ When you have that data, and that data is driving the decisions, and you have these pilot programs that are working, that is compelling evidence that we can and should do more.”