Child Care - The Cornerstone of Our Future
Call it the cornerstone, the backbone, or a vital link in our economic infrastructure. However you describe it, CHILD CARE is the way working families, industries, and cities build their economy, their bread-and-butter, and their solvency. The current and future workforce depends upon child care.
If working parents are worried, concerned, and anxious about the safety and well-being of their child during the work day, our workforce is on edge and not productive. If children are in daycare or afterschool care that is not licensed, safe, engaging and affordable (or existent), then our future workforce is not being developed.
No one continues their career path. No one continues their education. And no one moves up the economic food chain if they lack child care.
We need to invest in quality, affordable, enriching child care that brings peace of mind to working parents and gives hope for the future of our Nation. When parents are ready to go back to work, we need a child care system that works for everyone.
The pandemic has caused the shuttering of many for-profit and non-profit providers in the child care industry. The temporary fix handed out from the federal government may have saved a few from closing, but sustainability is still beyond reach now that the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) has run its course for those lucky enough to have benefited.
The YMCA of Austin has been here throughout the COVID crisis. We have provided, cared for and assisted kids and families, as our Mission dictates. But we are now in need of support ourselves. The child care industry, as a whole, needs a lift, or we will be looking at a failed recovery if we do not begin treating child care as a necessary commodity. Prior to the pandemic, our industry was already stretched thin. But with increased safety costs, increased staffing ratios, and reduced capacity, we are staring down a real existential crisis.
How will we fix this broken utility, this necessary underpinning of our modern society that is currently hanging on, month-to-month without a lifeline? We are here to partner with you to identify solutions.
-- Dr. Joan Altobelli & James Finck, YMCA of Austin
The Extend-A-Care YMCA supports working families with full-day child care for school-age children.
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Social-Emotional Learning - The Secret Sauce
Through the Social Emotional Learning (SEL) process, children develop social and emotional competence which has been determined to effectively reduce aggression, drug use and other risky childhood behaviors.
Improvement of self-control, emotional regulation, academic performance and graduation rates, can also be achieved through consistent SEL implementation. The afterschool environment is an excellent venue for the development of social/emotional skills through group meetings, and planned activities that promote the five competencies of self-awareness, self-management, and social awareness, responsible decision making, and setting prosocial goals.
In Extend-A-Care YMCA programs, we have been partnering with districts, researchers, and curriculum developers to provide such SEL curricula, behavior management, and mindfulness in the afterschool/child care space in Austin and Central Texas schools.
In the pandemic recovery, we have found even more purpose to our program at a time when children have many emotions, questions, and anxiety. We will continue to deliver the SEL program to serve the children and families of our community in such a time of turbulence.
Questions? Give us a shout:
Joan Altobelli, PhD, VP of Licensed Childcare, Extend-A-Care YMCA
joan.altobelli@austinymca.org, 512-680-1427
James Finck, President & CEO, YMCA of Austin
james.finck@austinymca.org, 512-322-9622 x121
Details
September 17, 2020
The YMCA of Austin