Study spotlights critical child care shortage in Fort Dodge
City, top industries find 3,239 children need it, but only 1,601 child care spaces are available
A study, supported by some of the area’s largest industries, has revealed a critical shortage of child care services for the children of Fort Dodge.
There are an estimated 3,239 children who need some form of child care, according to the study.
But there are only 1,601 child care spaces available.
That means that 1,638 children who need to be in some kind of child care, won’t be.
That is more than 50 percent.
“Child care is a vital, but often overlooked part of our local economy,” said Elizabeth Stanek, of Linking Families and Communities.
“Quality child care allows parents to go to work or school and be productive workers/students, because it provides the positive, enriching experiences necessary for optimal brain growth which, in turn, ensures a smart, strong and healthy workforce of the future.”
To that end, Boehringer-Ingelheim Vetmedica, Cargill, C & S Products, the city of Fort Dodge, the Fort Dodge Community School District, Friendship Haven, Iowa Central Community College, and UnityPoint – Trinity Regional Medical Center partnered in support of the study.
A public meeting on Thursday will elaborate on the data, Stanek said. It is from 9:30 to 11 a.m. at UnityPoint – Trinity Regional Medical Center in Conference Rooms 3 and 4.m. There will also be a presentation by First Children’s Finance and a panel discussion.
Stanek’s organization, which is funded in part by Early Childhood Iowa, has a simple goal: “Happy, healthy children.”
The study reveals a troubling gap between achieving that goal in Fort Dodge and reality.
“Linking Families and Communities has been watching the child care trends for some time and doing what it could to help current providers as well as encourage new providers,” Stanek said. “At the end of 2014 the Child Care and Development Block Grant was reauthorized by the federal government. When Iowa was made aware of the new requirements that it would have to meet there was a wide spread fear of the affect it would have on the number of child care providers as most of Iowa is experiencing a declining number of child care providers.
“At the same time, the city of Fort Dodge was getting feedback from local businesses that they and/or their employees were experiencing child care issues.”
Stanek said she partnered with Dawn Larson, a business affairs specialist who works for the city
“We started working together on this in the summer of 2015. We surveyed a segment of employers and held a roundtable discussion. Those interested in working on solutions to the child care issues of the community began to meet and soon decided that more information was needed. Each organization felt that a feasibility study was needed in order to work on solutions and each partner made a financial contribution to the study.”
The study encompassed a targeted group of employers and employees, followed by market research and analysis.
Linking Families and Communities contracted with First Children’s Finance to conduct the study, according to Stanek. First Children’s Financial a nonprofit Community Development Financial Institution that, among other things, provides loans and business development assistance to child care businesses.
Work with First Children’s Finance began in March 2016, Stanek said.
The report was completed in November 2016.
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Here are some of the study’s key findings.
• Eight-six percent of the families living in Fort Dodge who have children under the age of 6 have all of the parents working outside the home.
• Fort Dodge has seen an increase in the number of adults in their prime child bearing years, ages 25 to 34, despite an overall population decline.
• Fort Dodge has a declining supply of child care spaces, losing 111 between 2011 and 2016.
• There are an estimated 3,239 children ages 0-12 living in Fort Dodge that need some form of child care while their parents are working, but only 1,601 year-round child care spaces.
• Half of the employers that completed the child care needs survey indicated that their company had experienced employee absenteeism due to child care issues.
• Eighteen percent of employers surveyed said they had experienced problems hiring new employees due to child care issues.
• Sixty percent of the parents who participated in the study said finding child care was difficult because, one, there were no openings at quality settings; two, there was no available service for infants; and, three, finding a child care provider who could work with the parents’ schedule was difficult.
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Why care?
Stanek offers these statistics.
Ninety percent of the brain is developed by age 5. A baby forms 700 new neural connections per second, meaning this is a crucial learning window.
“The achievement gap between low-income children and their more affluent peers is apparent by 18 months of age,” Stanek noted.
According to the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, “By age 3 children with college-educated parents or primary caregivers had vocabularies two to three times larger than those whose parents had not completed high school. By the time these children reach school, they are already behind their peers unless they are engaged in a language-rich environment early in life.”
Stanek points out that high-quality early care and education programs not only improve a child’s long-range learning abilities, but improve that child’s chances of becoming a strong contributor to his or her community as an adult.
She characterizes the progression this way:
It helps children enter kindergarten with the skills needed to succeed in school.
Then it increases high school graduation rates and college attendance.
This can help reduce teen pregnancy rates, crime, and other social problems.
Ultimately, this can lead to reductions in long-term social costs for special education, child welfare and public assistance.
Public meeting
A public meeting on Thursday to discuss the data from the child care study is from 9:30 to 11 a.m. at UnityPoint – Trinity Regional Medical Center in Conference Rooms 3 and 4. There will also be a presentation by First Children’s Finance and a panel discussion. RSVP Elizabeth Stanek, Linking Families and Communities, by phone at 955-5437 ext. 1 or email at
estanek@linking-families.com.
More opportunities
Linking Families and Communities has set up a fund through a partnership with Child Care Resource and Referral of Northwest Iowa to assist child care providers in Webster, Calhoun and Pocahontas counties with start-up costs.
First time registered child development home providers can apply for up to $1,000 and a newly licensed child care center is eligible to apply for up to $5,000 to offset start-up costs.
Funding is available until June 30. Child care consultants with Mid-Sioux Opportunity, Inc. serving this area are Jami Huster at jhuster@midsioux.org or 573-0029, and Rebekah Hungate at rhungate@midsoux.org or at 573-0038.
Linking Families and Communities is located at 822 Central Ave., Suite 340. Additional information is available by calling 955-5437 or visiting the agency’s website www.linking-families.com.