A tradition began years ago establishing that, on April 5, California’s First 5 chapters would join together and visit their legislators in Sacramento.
Tuesday is First 5 Advocacy Day, when the nonprofit focused on preparing children for kindergarten addresses its concerns to elected officials.
The message this year will be the same as the last: Santa Barbara County needs more quality child-care slots.
Some headway has been made, but First 5 Santa Barbara County wants to keep momentum going.
Since the majority of a child’s brain development occurs before they reach kindergarten, First 5 has been working to ensure more quality child-care options exist for the 70 percent of parents who need to get back to work.
First 5 helped launch a county quality rating and improvement system five years ago, using federal funds that are set to expire soon, according to Sharol Viker, the local organization’s program quality officer.
California First 5 has helped extend funding, but an $80,000 grant from the Women’s Fund of Santa Barbara and matching $26,000 local First 5 grant — the group has a two-thirds match requirement for investments — has helped keep the program alive and finding more seats for kids.
Funds will also help the Children’s Resource and Referral increase the number of child-care spaces in new, women-owned family child-care businesses.
The voluntary quality counts program allows family home or child-care center operators to improve standards and gain national accreditation, Viker said.
“We really have a great need for child-care spaces,” she said.
After a provider is rated somewhere between 1 and 5, a coach helps time-strapped owners reach certain goals related to environment, health and safety.
Viker said 125 providers have gone through the program, including 31 of 400 total family-based operators and 94 of 145 child-care centers in the county.
First 5 needs more resources to be able to serve additional providers, she said.
The nonprofit is also working with local partners to create a one-stop child-care website connecting parents more easily to the quality counts, which are posted on First 5’s website.
On the legislative front, state Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson has been lobbying with the California’s Women’s Caucus to restore funding lost at the state level during the recession.
The Women’s Caucus requested $800 million in the 2016-17 state budget to help address child-care shortage issues.
“We are for the second year in a row making a budget request to recognize the fact that mothers are significant contributors to the economy and need to have quality and accessible child care,” Jackson said. “We are focusing on a request that will serve thousands of children.”
The group requested $600 million last year and was able to secure $265 million, which brought back 15,000 child-care slots, she said.
California was behind by 200,000 spaces before the recession, with 100,000 more lost since then, so Jackson knows there’s still a lot to do.
She hopes the state will specifically prioritize learners 0 to 3 years old, which makes her a big fan of First 5 Santa Barbara County.
“I think First 5 does a great job,” Jackson said. “The problem is we just don’t have enough positions for children who need the care.”
— Noozhawk staff writer Gina Potthoff can be reached at gpotthoff@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.