Child care is key to health care post-Helene, say WNC leaders

By Liz Bell

Education NC

Healthcare employers in western North Carolina have joined multiple sectors seeking childcare solutions Legislative Summit At UNC-Asheville at the beginning of March.

“As a healthcare organization, what we know about the area is that we have highly trained and skilled professionals who don’t work,” said John Bryant, Vice President of Operations and Support Services. UNC Health Pardee In Hendersonville. More than half of the experts contacted by the organization say childcare is the reason they are not working, Bryant said.

“We need to look for more than a temporary fix in a sustainable private public approach that treats childcare as an essential infrastructure.”

This year, employers in several industries are increasingly speaking about the need for both public and private childcare solutions. The early part of this legislative session, the NC Chamber Foundation Report released It has an employer-focused policy that expands access to working parents, and a public policy that expands access across the state.

Seven state legislators attended the UNC Asheville summit and attended with staff representatives from two additional offices.

The summit hosted WNC Health Policy Initiative, WNC Children’s Union, YMCA in Western North Carolinaand Verner Center for Early LearningHealthcare representatives from, also featured Mission Health and AdventHealth Hendersonville.

Some companies are taking the issues into their own hands by hosting on-site childcare programs, providing vouchers to employees, donating funds to local efforts, and participating in programs such as: Tri-Share. Local efforts are working to care for families and reduce costs.

These efforts are not enough in themselves, a panelist at the summit said.

Mission Health holds on-site childcare programs, for example, through a partnership with Bright Horizons, a national childcare chain. The partnership will make the difference between working and staying at home for many employees, says Renee Klimkiewicz, the company’s HR director.

“But again, you’re out in the area and now we’re in the childcare desert,” Krimkivich said.

Panelists said inadequate childcare hurts both recruitment and retention. The leaders at AdventHealth Hendersonville are looking to expand their team from 1,800 to 2,800 employees in the next 18 months, with concerns about flexible childcare options for current and future staff, particularly in rural areas.

“We have a lot of marital or spouse teams in our hospitals that work 12-hour shifts each, which creates serious concern,” Dunkle said.

Advocates and business leaders shared legislative strategies that could make a big difference to their families and employers.

Marcia Whitney, president and CEO of the Verner Center for Early Learning, pointed to two policies supported by supporters this year: grant flooring and free childcare for childcare teachers.

Floor rates help rural county providers maintain their business by increasing the amount they receive to participate in the grant program. Childcare support for child care teachers is a strategy. Created by Kentucky in 2022Maintain childcare workers that make a part of the minimum wage for any industry.

The median starting wage for child care teachers was $14 per hour in 2023, and the median starting wage for assistant teachers was $12. the study From the Child Care Services Association (currently early).

“My parents pay a lot for care. Teachers aren’t making enough,” Whitney said. “And the lack of work is another partner that can join us, even from public sources from corporate sources.”

“Helen’s recovery is also about parenting.”

The aftermath of Hurricane Helen highlights the need for sustainable childcare, panelists said.

“In the midst of an absolute crisis, it was ‘I’m coming to help, but I need to raise a child,'” Bryant said of his conversation with employees the day after the storm.

Providers who have influenced themselves, Moved to a temporary location and I scrambled to open the door as soon as possible.

“Helen’s recovery is also about parenting,” said Greg Bollum, director of the WNC Children’s Union.

All but three of the 25 affected counties’ 820 licensed programs survived the storm’s damage, according to information from Child Development and Early Education (DCDEE) information that Borum shared with the EDNC.

But for other reasons, six people were closed in the months leading up to the end of 2024, Borum said.

This “talks to the vulnerabilities of the system,” he said, outside of the storm’s destruction.

The state’s Hurricane Relief Act, passed in November, contained $10 million for childcare relief. The first half of that funding was accused of paying these funds at the end of February, reaching a local Smart Start partnership.

The bill introduced in this session pays particular attention to the intersection of Helen’s recovery and childcare.

Senator Ralph Hise, R-Mitchell, Those who attended the summit are sponsors Senate Bill 412will allocate $123.5 million a year to increase grant rates across the state, providing additional funding for programs that serve rural counties and young children. They would also spend $8 million to expand the childcare capacity of Hurricane Helen-affected counties. The bill, introduced on March 24th, has been assigned to the Senate Budget Committee, but has not yet been presented.

Other early childhood bills have adopted a variety of approaches, including establishing pilots to support parenting academies that train childcare for two to three weeks (training childcare for two to three weeks (House Bill 389), and fine-tune regulations to increase capacity (House Bill 412 and Senate Bill 745). Josh Stein of the Democratic government Budget proposal It allocates approximately $88 million a year to increase the grant and establishes three refundable tax credits for families.

Whitney says a long-term approach is also needed. This includes encouraging increased compensation for childcare teachers and expanding the homes of families’ children.

“We have all the answers,” Whitney said. “We have all the knowledge. We need to interact with each other to formalize them and systematize them.”