The Iowa Women’s Foundation has provided a variety of yard abd window signs to help Hamilton County child care centers build awardess for their collaboration on recruitment efforts.

In many communities, child care centers see each other as competition. That is not the case in Hamilton County. All four of the child care centers are coming together to help each other recruit a workforce to serve the families who reside and commute to this county.

Mighty Trojan Child Care Center, Riverview Early Childhood Center & Preschool, Stratford Early Learning Center, and the Webster City Daycare Center are meeting with other industry specialists to develop a variety of recruitment strategies.

Access to quality affordable child care is a national crisis. In Hamilton County, officials with all four centers agree the primary barrier is not being able to hire enough staff. In Iowa, there are state-mandated ratios of the number of staff to children. If a center is not able to hire enough staff, they are not able to care for the total number of children allowed in their license capacity. They have the space, but they do not have the staff, therefore centers are not able to take on additional children and meet the demand. Families who need child care but can’t find child care are not able to work. Centers are not able to take on additional children because of the number of staff vacancies.

“Not being able to hire enough staff starts a financial chain reaction. First, child care businesses cannot hire enough staff, which leads to turning families away, and finally, without operating at full capacity they do not have the cash flow needed to stay open.” Melissa Juhl, Child Care Resource, and Referral explained, adding that child care businesses operate on a very narrow profit margin and cannot afford to turn families away.

The Hamilton County child care centers are also partnering with Building Families, a non-profit that provides funding and supports to quality programs for children and families. Building Families funded a collaborative video to attract new employees. The Iowa Women’s Foundation has also provided a variety of yard and window signs to help create awareness for the CAREforce for our WORKforce promotion. The campaign goal is to help communicate that child care is essential — and child care providers are professional essential workers.

“The public needs to be aware of the challenges child care businesses face. We need to pool our resources, our talents, and our collective action to support them however we can,” said Dawn Oliver-Wiand, Iowa Women’s Foundation Executive Director,.

The four center directors will continue to meet with Building Families, Child Care Resource and Referral of Northwest Iowa and the Iowa Women’s Foundation to find additional solutions to their workforce issue. This issue is bigger than this committee — It is a county economic development issue, according to officials.

“The success of all of our child care centers is dependent on us working together. Together we are stronger and we are committed to finding the staff needed to adequately operate all four centers and provide the quality child care families in Hamilton County need,” said Rosie Messerly, Director, Riverview Early Childhood Center and Preschool.

For more information about how you can help, contact McKinley Bailey, Building Families at (515) 602-6371.