Access to available and nurturing child care in Santa Barbara County has risen to the forefront amid the novel coronavirus pandemic.
Jacqui Banta, chief operating officer of Children’s Resource & Referral of Santa Barbara County, said the need for child care spaces has become increasingly more desperate for communities with coronavirus-related school closures, and the likelihood of traditional in-person instruction not occurring for quite some time because of the COVID-19 situation.
The workforce is trying to get back on its feet, and children need structure, support, supervision and help with distance learning, while parents need to feel secure while returning to work, Banta told Noozhawk.
“Our economy cannot truly reopen without a true and honest investment in child care,” Banta said.
There are nearly 320 open licensed child-care facilities in Santa Barbara County, including more than 215 in the North County and more than 100 on the South Coast, Banta said.
Of the licensed facilities, more than 255 are family child-care facilities and 60 are center-based facilities.
Pre-pandemic, 518 licensed child-care facilities were in the county in January 2020, including 356 family child-care facilities and 162 center-based facilities.
In addition, Children’s Resource & Referral of Santa Barbara County has three open licensed exempt center-based programs. There were 46 open in January 2020, Banta said.
There is need for more than 9,000 infant and toddler spaces, 10,000 preschool spaces, and more than 25,000 school-aged spaces in the county, Banta said.
“We simply do not have the facility capacity to serve those children,” Banta said.
With a current capacity to serve 18,000 children, Banta said, the county has about a 28,000 child care space deficit.
“Without a significant investment in child care spaces and facilities, these parents cannot return to work and in turn invest in our economy,” Banta said.
The Children’s Resource & Referral of Santa Barbara County is a resource for families to find child care as working parents try to meet their job obligations during the pandemic, Banta said.
Employers in Santa Barbara County have contacted the nonprofit organization and have received assistance with obtaining child care referrals for their employees, Banta said.
“At Children’s Resource & Referral of Santa Barbara County, we can help guide parents through the challenge of finding a child care arrangement that best suits their needs,” Banta said. “We can explain the state licensing regulations, tell them about indicators of quality care, and answer their many questions and concerns about child care.”
This is a free service to employers and parents, Banta said.
The effects of COVID-19 have caused a vast path of destruction in communities and beyond, Banta said.
(Girls Inc. of Greater Santa Barbara photo)
“People have lost their lives, their loved ones, their jobs. Schools have been closed, many businesses and so on,” Banta said. “The one constant, in our community, that has certainly served as a quiet backbone to the essential workforce and inevitably to our health care systems and economy, is child care.”
Banta said supporting child care sites to remain open has established environments where meaningful and lasting relationships can continue to develop between child-care providers and children, as well as between child-care providers and families.
“Having continuity of care, especially during a global pandemic, provides security for children and their families,” Banta said. “We know healthy development and early learning environments play a vital role in later learning.
“Continuity is necessary to ensure that children’s experiences in care and education settings contribute consistently to a child’s developmental milestones, and that early identification of developmental delays can be addressed,” she continued.
The Santa Barbara Foundation has hired a consultant to provide child-care providers across the county a hub of information on what’s happening with public health, the state of California, and “anything that may impact either staying open or reopening in the future,” said Pedro Paz, the foundation’s director of grantmaking.
“We are going to have regular conversations and communications with child-care providers,” said Paz, who also mentioned the information will inform parents considering child care decisions.
Child-care facilities are facing new costs in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Plexiglass divider shields have been placed inside some child-care centers in an effort to protect staff and children against the virus, and some sites will require retrofitting existing faucets and replacing them with contactless faucets.
The Santa Barbara Foundation has helped with some funding to assist child-care centers to safely reopen during the pandemic, Paz said.
The Santa Barbara Foundation offers Small Capacity Building Program awards grants “aimed at strengthening the organizational capacity and programmatic effectiveness of Santa Barbara County nonprofits,” according to the organization.
The foundation is actively monitoring federal and state funding opportunities to expand support for child-care providers in the county.
“A lot of the work the foundation is focused on is ages 0 to 5, and trying to support those that have been closed or reopened,” Paz said.
The United Way of Santa Barbara County, or UWSBC, launched the Learning & Enrichment Centers Collaborative to support children and families during distance learning in response to service gaps and unmet needs during coronavirus-related school closures.
The UWSBC and its community partners created the Learning & Enrichment Centers Collaborative, a broad child care and enrichment model to support area students with the remote launch in August.
Needs addressed by the centers include supporting children and families through access to the internet and technology, adult supervision and learning support, social-emotional skill development, access to food, and exercise.
“Many students and families are in need at this moment,” said Steve Ortiz, president and CEO of the UWSBC. “This has thrown a curveball at many households in a situation where they simply don’t have those tools and the ability to support their students at home.”
The new and expanded model began after conversations with school districts and youth-serving agencies, as well as stakeholders of United Way’s emergency child care initiative and educational programs, the UWSBC’s Fun in the Sun summer learning program, and UWSBC’s United for Literacy.
This collaborative includes dozens of partner schools, local philanthropy leaders, and youth-serving agencies.
To alleviate the stress of distance learning, UWSBC is working with existing child-care providers and youth-serving agencies to increase capacity at their facilities to provide care and educational support to better help students with remote learning, according to the organization.
Youth-serving agencies that received scholarship funding from the Learning & Enrichment Centers Collaborative include the Boys & Girls Clubs of Mid Central Coast, Channel Islands YMCA, Girls Inc. of Carpinteria, Girls Inc. of Greater Santa Barbara, Good Samaritan Shelter, Isla Vista Youth Project, Police Activities League, Santa Maria YMCA and the United Boys & Girls Clubs of Santa Barbara County.
Two organizations serve junior high and high school students, while other sites have elementary level students (early kindergarten through fifth grade).
The main focus is at the elementary level, Ortiz said.
The centers operate from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.
“Our most vulnerable students have the ability to be on their campus doing their school work,” Ortiz said, mentioning local school districts selected their most vulnerable students to attend the learning centers.
“United Way worked with the school districts,” Ortiz said. “We developed a referral system.”
Current efforts are being targeted to serve 750 to 1,000-plus children from high-need target populations, including homeless and foster youth, students who qualify for free and reduced-price meals, and children of essential workers.
The UWSBC has secured $645,000 for the Learning & Enrichment Centers, according to the organization.
The funds created more than 445 spaces for 12 weeks in the fall. This is in partnership with the Santa Barbara, Goleta, Carpinteria, Hope, Guadalupe and Santa Maria Bonita school districts and nine Santa Barbara County-based nonprofit organizations.
“Education is key to the success of a child, the success of a household, and the success of our community,” Ortiz said.
The Learning & Enrichment Centers Collaborative goes beyond the educational components, Ortiz said.
“It’s everything from the education side to the socio-emotional component to the food and nutrition side as well,” Ortiz said. “It’s a holistic approach to supporting our families when schools are closed.”
The Learning & Enrichment Centers Collaborative is supported by the Ann Jackson Foundation, a countywide COVID-19 joint response effort, Hutton Parker Foundation, James S. Bower Foundation, Linked Foundation, Natalie Orfalea Foundation with Lou Buglioli, The Towbes Foundation, United Way of Santa Barbara County and Yardi.
— Noozhawk staff writer Brooke Holland can be reached at bholland@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.
