Limited childcare options causing problems for Effingham County parents

Sep. 24—Effingham County families are struggling to find quality childcare, according to initial findings of a survey by Effingham County's Community Based Planning program and Illinois Action for Children. The survey found job-related problems and a lack of specialized workers largely to blame.

The survey stated that nearly half of all families (47.5 percent) surveyed had struggled to find some kind of childcare in the area, with many (47.1 percent) finding it difficult to find care for their younger children. Just over 40 percent of respondents (40.7 percent) said that the process of finding childcare was "difficult," "overwhelming," or even "impossible."

The survey was distributed to area families during July and August, with 254 surveys being completed through last week. Out of those surveys, 205 families had children under the age of five. Many families said that they bounced around from different childcare programs, while others stated that the community didn't have enough options for them to work with.

All of this presents a challenge for Johnna Schultz, assistant director of the Effingham Public Library and one of the leaders of the Community Based Planning team. She said that the motivation for the survey was due to families having to step away from their jobs in order to nurture their youngest children.

"They can't find the childcare that they want or need," Schultz said. "This survey certainly confirmed that."

Samantha Weidner, the early childhood program coordinator for Effingham and Clay counties, also mentioned the inability to do one's job as a key motivator for not being able to find the right kind of care for their kids.

"Right now, we are facing an employment crisis," Weidner said. "We want to do everything we can to support our community in making sure that we support people working, if they are able to work. That was part of our agenda with this survey."

The combined forces of having only a handful of childcare options and people out of work may be a problem for the economy at large, not just in Effingham County, but also throughout Illinois. Courtney Hatcher, a provider recruitment and quality specialist with Mt. Vernon-based Project Child, said that if people aren't able to find childcare, the workforce suffers, with fewer people being able to take jobs as a consequence.

"It has huge implications for the workforce," Hatcher said. "Childcare is the foundation of the workforce. If families don't have childcare, they can't go to work. Some jobs you can work from home — and you're seeing more of that — but not every job is going to allow a parent to stay at home with a one-year-old. Even if they work in a job that is remote in a home, that doesn't mean that they're going to be successful in that job."

Schultz said that another reason for the lack of quality childcare in Effingham County was due to a lack of people qualified to do the job. This can be particularly acute for childcare providers in the area like Little Lambs Early Childhood Center in Effingham, where owner and administrator Carla Holtz is right in the middle of two crises: not just the inability for parents to find childcare, but finding the most qualified people to take care of their children.

"The requirements to be an (early childhood) teacher requires college and experience," Holtz said. "But, you can work in a fast food restaurant with a high school diploma and make the same amount of money. What we do is very hard, it's tough work. A lot of people don't want to do it."

Holtz mentioned that fewer and fewer people are graduating with associate's degrees in early childhood education, making the pool of qualified workers smaller and smaller as the years go by.

"Anybody with that degree is hard to find," Holtz said. "They're (colleges) struggling to find students. Lake Land (College) still has their program, Kaskaskia (College) still has their program, (but) down south some of the programs have closed down."

Fixing this issue may mean the difference between creating a brighter future for childcare in Effingham County and remaining stagnant, which could mean population loss, which may lead to less money in the coffers for the county. Holtz said that there are many opportunities for aspiring teachers to get into the field, from scholarships awarded by the state to being able to receive credentials in high school to teach. The Illinois Department of Child and Family Services is also considering a competency-based credentialing system to allow people to become teachers even without the required college education.

"(However), it's just not fast enough," Holtz said. "We need it now."

Even if help was on the way for businesses like Holtz's, obstacles remain. Wages remain low for the profession and many don't offer benefits for their workers, including Little Lambs. Relief may not come until the credentialing system is permanently fixed, beyond the temporary measures taken in light of the COVID-19 pandemic and enrollment increases at colleges that offer early childhood education as a field of study.

"Between the low enrollment (and) the lack of acknowledgment of the professionalism of being in early childcare, I think those are two things that definitely impact the staffing shortage," Hatcher said.

Weidner is thankful that many organizations in the area have stepped up to provide help when and where it is needed. Each of the county's school districts are pursuing Preschool for All funding from the state, which would allow them to provide free child care for all preschoolers within the district.

Even so, work still remains, and the survey itself remains an incomplete picture. The survey is still open and available at www.surveymonkey.com. Those involved with the survey hope that it will allow them to build better options for families, so that they don't feel so stressed out when looking for childcare, whether that comes locally or statewide.

"When families feel that (stressed), there's a problem," Hatcher said. "There's got to be something that changes with that because when families are looking for childcare, that's the most important thing in their life, that child or those children. No one wants to leave their children with somebody they don't trust."

Zach Roth can be reached at zach.roth@effinghamdailynews.com or by phone at (217) 347-7151 ext. 132 or (217) 899-4338.

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