northcentralpa.com: LTE: Is there a crisis in childcare?

Ron Frick, President/CEO, Lycoming County United Way

Dec 2, 2020

Healthcare access, educational inequities, and racial disparities are issues that are not new to the United States, but COVID-19 has certainly brought new attention to these issues and others and forced the nonprofit community to speak out and advocate for systemic change. The holes in the dike are opening daily and governments and communities are running out of fingers to plug them.

We clearly need to do better.

Early learning and child-care providers serve families across all socio-economic classes and provide the valuable care needed so parents can go to work and so children have the proper start they need in life. Yet despite the important role many believe they have, many child-care providers are struggling to stay afloat. Under Pennsylvania’s social distancing measures, most child-care providers were required to close in the early days and weeks of the pandemic, and while things have opened up somewhat, many providers have been forced to implement new protocols and work schedules for the parents have also changed and caused disruption for families as well as providers. This has put many high quality programs at risk of closing permanently.

Read the full article here.