Emily Byrne, Executive Director of Connecticut Voices for Children, introduces the presentation.
More than 20 percent of childcare centers across Connecticut have closed since the start of the pandemic, leaving an industry that struggled to meet demand pre-pandemic increasingly threadbare.
That’s according to a new report called “The State of Early Childhood During the COVID-19 Pandemic,” authored by Sarah Miller for Connecticut Voices for Children, a local advocacy organization for children and families.
“It’s pretty difficult to read the paper or watch the news without hearing about the childcare sector and how it’s in crisis,” said CT Voices Executive Director Emily Byrne during in a Monday afternoon virtual press conference. “This fragility has never been more apparent. [The early childcare industry] has been in a state of crisis even before Covid.”
Click here to read the full report.
The impact of these pandemic-induced childcare closures, she added, are far-reaching, affecting children throughout the state, especially children of color.
Furthermore, the lost economic activity caused by the crushed sector — primarily affecting women and women of color — is more than $9 million every week, she said.
“[New childcare policies are] very important for the state of Connecticut in terms of its children and families and communities, but also in terms of moving our economy forward.”
Current barriers to access according to Miller largely revolve around the high costs of childcare and the inadequacy of current subsidy options for families, such as CT Care 4 Kids, which is unavailable for undocumented families and to those who earn more than 50 percent of the state median income.
The local childcare advocates did point out that there are some faint signs of hope in the otherwise bleak Covid-clouded landscape.
Childcare providers have been able to tap into federal Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans and other grants from the state Office of Early Childhood. The American Rescue Act, including provisions spearheaded by U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, included much-needed bailout money for the struggling industry. And, if approved by Congress, the Biden administration’s American Families Plan would fund universal preschool and further subsidize affordable childcare.
Along with urging Congress to pass the American Families Plan, the report also recommends that subsidy systems included expanded coverage, that the Office of Early Childhood conduct studies to establish the true cost of childcare, that data collection on systemic gaps and trends in childcare be more streamlined, and that early childhood education be supported as a secure career path.
“As we’ve seen really plainly through the pandemic, childcare is infrastructure,” Byrne concluded. “Without childcare, parents cannot get to work or access work. Without childcare that supports providers, a sector that is predominantly supported by women and women of color, [we are] moving away from advancement.”