The Search for Child Care on the Olympic Peninsula, Part 2
Five Child Care Assumptions I Got Wrong
A year and a half ago I started my first child care project - gathering local child care provider and family insights. I begin with both an open mind and a handful of assumptions to frame the work. To my surprise, practically every initial assumption I made was wrong. I refined and reframed assumptions as I learned more about the Olympic and Kitsap Peninsulas, and my latest thinking is summarized below.
Objective: Not Just Adding Slots, But Filling Them
Programs: Leaning Into WA’s Mixed Delivery System
Hours: Offering Varied Solutions for Dynamic Needs
Ratios: Adjusting Role Types Instead of Numbers
Data: Finding Better Ways to Gather Needed Information
1. Objective: Not Just Adding Slots, But Filling Them
I assumed our community’s need was more child care slots. What I knew about licensing, especially coming out of Covid, made licensing sound extremely difficult. I assumed the startup effort to obtain a licensed slot was the barrier to entry that prevented slots from existing. With that in mind, I initially started brainstorming solutions with the statement, “How might we increase the number of child care slots”? It only took a few conversations to learn that I was asking the wrong question.
I now ask “How might we fill more high-quality child care slots?”. This is a better question because many approved child care slots unfortunately often go unused. Slots can remain childless for a variety of reasons, but staffing challenges are often the primary culprit. The existence of more child care slots is not actually a meaningful goal, but children and families actively benefiting from those slots is the true goal.
2. Programs: Leaning Into WA’s Mixed Delivery System
The Peninsulas are a child care desert. The Department of Children, Youth, and Families cites our region as filling only 8-20% of child care needs, depending on county, age, and income level. This leaves such an enormous gap that I assumed that focusing on larger child care centers was the main solution, both for their volume and economies of scale. However, I found that a center-only focus is not a great plan, considering family preferences, startup cost, time to market, and our region’s population density.
Families, especially in a rural area like the Olympic Peninsula, want choice. One program’s location, hours, care methodology, language, pricing, or other characteristics will likely not be a fit for everyone. When I previously lived in major cities I didn’t know a single person leveraging in-home or friends, families, and neighbor (FFN) care. But in a rural community that is a different story.
When it can take hours to drive across a county on the Olympic Peninsula, many separate communities form, and they each have distinct needs. I’ll share more on these differences later, but in short, each type of child care program has unique benefits and challenges, and with that are a separate piece of a greater child care puzzle.
My son on the news after we went to Olympia to share local learnings with legislators
3. Hours: Offering Varied Solutions for Dynamic Needs
When I first started looking for child care I personally only looked at programs that covered the hours of 9-5, 5-days a week. I assumed this is what most families needed. It was frustrating to find limited infant slots, and only half-day preschool slots. As I got more desperate I started looking into programs with shorter hours and fewer days a week. Eventually I just hoped for something with some coverage. Anything.
I found that local families often have children in preschool for one (or both) of two reasons - (1) benefits to the child’s development, and/or (2) work coverage. The child benefits are well documented. But ‘coverage’ needs are more complex to understand than I initially appreciated.
When I lived in cities it seemed that most people I knew worked one full-time job. But out on the Peninsula parents are often juggling multiple revenue streams that ebb and flow throughout the year. Many work part-time. Some parents aim to save money with a program in the morning and afternoon nap at home.
There is no one size fits all schedule for all parents, or even for one family over time. Because of this, it’s important that communities have access to varied program hours to meet differing and evolving needs.
4. Ratios: Adjusting Role Types Instead of Numbers
In the child care field we all say that the business model is broken, margins are too thin, and changes are needed. Conceptually it is hard to think of a staff rate that’s low enough for a low or even middle income parents to pay, post-tax, one quarter of an infant provider’s pre-tax salary - plus other child care expenses such as the facilities, play materials, food, and insurance. If parent salaries aren’t extremely high, the child care financial often equation doesn’t work.
I assumed that at the root of this break was a staff ratio problem, and by streamlining operations ratios could safely increase. I quickly learned that nobody wanted to talk about ratios. Which makes sense, as a parent I want to keep ratios for my own children low.
I now see there is more to unpack around varying the types of roles that child care staff can fill, with job responsibilities, experience requirements, hours worked, and their pay. Might an aide or assistant earn fewer dollars but get more college credits? Might a semi-retired adult provide some part-time support, and gain some benefit from child interaction, at a different price scale? I wonder if there’s a way that more role differentiation could help provider margins and increase staffing pools, but this concept also carries complexity. This conversation gets more traction than changing ratios alone.
5. Data: Finding a Better Way to Gather Information
I assumed that the field had done sufficient parent and provider research, and we knew what parents and providers want. However, I quickly learned that many organizations have a hard time staying up to date with needs and preferences. Organizations are chomping at the bit for more insights.
With a need for data, it’s natural to think that we should ask more questions. However, parents and providers are overwhelmed by being asked too many questions as it is. Neither parents or providers have the capacity to answer the questions support organizations want to ask. Gathering input from busy people, without compensating them, is a hard thing to do.
Instead of asking parents and providers to meet on our timelines, during a busy day or evening, let’s meet them where they already are, in existing programs. Let’s also find ways to build trust and respect desires for anonymity, but still aggregate and share findings so all can benefit.
Peninsulas Early Childhood Coalition (PECC) aims to increase collaboration to do just that. We ask members to share findings and we join other networks to connect the dots. We hope PECC can weave a communication web, with each and every PECC members sharing important two-way communication with their own networks.
These five adjusted assumptions were ‘ah-has’ for me. There are more to come in the next few weeks!