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Excellent points in this article. Child care providers’ attention to health and safety made child care uniquely adept at handling this pandemic. But our national lack of economic support of child care providers also made child care uniquely vulnerable to financial devastation. https://twitter.com/childcareaware/status/1334212594081652741
Child care providers have been doing amazing things to create a safe place for children during the pandemic. Try for yourself social distancing preschoolers or disinfecting surfaces while caring for several infants and toddlers! Nothing they do is easy. It’s incredibly difficult.
Many child care providers kept working to care for children even when their local schools were closed. In our recent study 77% were worried or very worried they would get sick, 74% that they would get their families sick. But they came to work providing child care anyway.
Often these child care providers make this sacrifice for half the pay of a kindergarten teacher and none of the benefits — all too often no sick pay, no personal days, no health care.
Our child care providers are incredibly kind, but we do not adequately reciprocate their love.
Our child care providers are incredibly kind, but we do not adequately reciprocate their love.
Child care providers need sick pay. In a Sept CDC contact tracing study, COVID made its way into 2 centers because of providers coming to work even when a housemate was COVID-symptomatic. They need sick pay to afford to stay home when needed. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6937e3.htm
Child care providers should be prioritized for #COVID19 #vaccination. Although, child care itself has not been shown to elevate providers’ risk of Covid, providers do get sick from community spread, especially our providers of color, and their lack of sick pay hurts them.
I’m deeply bothered by how poorly we treat our child care providers. Example — US teachers are allowed a $250 federal tax deduction for money spent on supplies. Who’s eligible? K-12 teachers, aides, principals, and counselors. Who’s excluded? Early ed and child care providers.
For the past 25+ years I’ve studied child care providers — who they are, what they do, what they need. Before that, I was a K-12 teacher in a public school. It is a false line some draw between teachers and care providers.
All care is educational; all education is caring.
All care is educational; all education is caring.
We show our love for our children by the way we treat those who care for them. Child care providers are essential, and we need to treat them as such — better pay & supports, sick days, vaccine prioritization, etc. We protect our babies by protecting their caregivers. Hard stop.
