Parents and employers understand that balancing work obligations and family life can be challenging. One of the biggest issues facing families is finding affordable child care. Although quality licensed child care is certainly available in Howard County, it can be difficult to find, and parents may be surprised by the price tag.
“Making Ends Meet in Howard County,” a recent report commissioned by The Horizon Foundation and The Association of Community Services (ACS), noted that “the greatest need for both the working poor and the middle class is affordable, high quality child care with employment-related services for young parents.” When parents are employed, child care often becomes necessary, and the cost of care can severely impact a family’s budget.
ACS has formed a subcommittee dedicated to improving access to affordable, quality child care for low-income wage earners; members are drawn from several stakeholder agencies and organizations and are looking at creative ways to help families find and afford child care.
State Standards
The Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE) has set high standards for licensed child care providers to ensure quality child care. The 422 family providers and 170 group programs (which include preschools, centers, nursery schools, before- and after-school programs, etc.) in Howard County must complete required training and pass inspections before becoming licensed by the state.
To maintain licensure, providers and program staff attend additional training courses each year, and are subject to unscheduled inspections by MSDE staff to ensure that they follow state regulations. MSDE recently unveiled a tiered quality rating system to encourage licensed providers to continue to improve quality beyond the basic requirements.
The Cost of Care
Fees for child care are set by each business owner. In Howard County, the average cost of family care is $226.17 per week for an infant and $184.97 for a preschooler. To a parent, this translates to $800 or more per month for full-time care for just one child, certainly enough to strain household finances.
However, it’s important to remember that child care is certainly not a high-income field. The average hourly wage for a teacher in a group program is $11.45. Most family providers are open from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. five days each week, and aren’t filled to capacity.
A family provider caring for one infant and four preschoolers makes only $17.56 per hour before taxes, and must pay for other costs such as equipment, food, supplies, required trainings and insurance. As small business owners, family providers and center owners are just as subject to economic constraints as the families they serve.
As difficult as it can be to afford child care, there is no question that the investment pays off. In 2005, the “High Scope Perry Preschool Study” released its findings on the long-term effects of child care on adults in their 40s. The study indicated that those who had attended a high-quality preschool program as children had higher earnings, were more likely to hold a job, had committed fewer crimes and were more likely to have graduated from high school than adults who did not attend preschool.
A Common Effort
Nonprofits, government agencies and business owners are working to help make quality child care more affordable and accessible, but challenges still remain for parents, providers and employers. Lower-income working parents may find the cost of care out of reach; while the state has a child care subsidy program that can pay a portion of the cost for eligible parents, very few families have been accepted since February 2010. The waiting list currently includes 418 children in Howard County alone.
Child care providers and programs must continue to find ways to recruit and retain quality staff on a limited budget. Family providers and center owner/directors must make sure that all training requirements are met each year, and struggle to find ways to provide health insurance and other benefits.
Providers and center owners must purchase necessary supplies and equipment for their programs on an ongoing basis, and family providers in particular must be prepared to serve as business managers, teachers, nurses, cooks and community relations specialists.
Employers Can Help
Employers will find that members of a workforce are more available and better able to concentrate on their jobs when they are certain their children are in high quality, safe, appropriate child care programs. Many businesses have found creative solutions to help their employees with child care in some way, including flexible schedules, flexible spending or dependent care accounts, and allowing employees to use sick time to stay home with a sick child.
Some larger businesses provide on-site child care for their employees; in other cases, several small businesses co-located on a campus have worked together to open a center to be used by any of their employees.
By working together on creative ways to find and fund child care, employees and employers can enhance their partnerships and encourage job loyalty, better attendance and attention to tasks.
The CARE Center, a program of the Howard County Department of Citizen Services’ Office of Children’s Services, can help parents find child care, discuss eligibility for the child care subsidy and other assistance programs, and work with business owners to plan ways to meet employees’ child care needs. For more information, call 410-313-CARE (2273) or e-mail children@howardcountymd.gov.
Keri Hyde is the administrator of the Howard County Office of Children’s Services, part of the Department of Citizen Services for Howard County Government. She may be reached at 410-313-1940.
