DOOR COUNTY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – A shortage of qualified child care workers in Wisconsin has left many families with limited places to send their kids.
As a new school year approaches parents like Katie Smullen, a working mother of two tells FOX 11 she’s worried the problem will get worse.
Smullen lives in Door County with her family, where there are only 13 licensed or certified child care facilities spread throughout the entire peninsula.
“I do worry about some families and if it’s a single family, what do you do. I worry that there are some people having to choose between working and putting their child with a neighbor and It’s not a good fit. I worry about that.”
To help families find childcare, Jamie Tramte Brassfield with the Family and Childcare Resource Center of Northeast Wisconsin, tells FOX 11 she’s constantly looking for facilities, especially ones willing to take in children under the age of three.
“So parents who are looking for infant care, they are having a very difficult time. There are just not enough spots in regulated care.”
Brassfield said one of the biggest issues faced by those working in the childcare industry are the strict requirements they must follow.
“Things that regulated programs need to do is background checks for their employees and administrators. They need basic safety measures in place and we want facilities to provide experiences for children that are play-based.”
The requirements are why some facilities like the Barker Child Development Center through the YMCA have a hard time hiring more staff.
“It’s really, really tough. The staff is the ones that work every day with these kids so we need to make sure we are giving them what they need to meet the standards and regulations,” said Joanna Severinsen, who is the administrator for the center.
Severinsen said the Barker Center is the only licensed group in Sturgeon Bay and has also had a waiting list of more than 200 children for the last two years.
“A lot of them on our waitlist are not born or have just been born and won’t need care for a couple of months.”
For the families fortunate enough to find childcare, the rising cost continues to pose a problem. In Door County, the average cost of childcare is $194.00 a week per child.
“Paying for daycare it’s like paying a second mortgage. For my two girls in daycare full time, it’s $1340 per month.”
To bring more affordable childcare to the area, a new not-for-profit organization called Door County Children of Hope is looking to open a new facility.
Ryan Zahler, a board member for the organization, said they’d already been looking at buildings and recruiting staff.
“We went the non-for profit route because it’s not just the lack of childcare in the area, it’s the high cost. Here in Wisconsin, we have a lot of low to middle income families and fall in the top 15 for cthe ost of child care. We like to have 70 to 80 children and our target age will be from birth to four years old, Monday through Friday, and possibly 5 a.m. to 7 p.m. to extend the hours a little bit for parents that work earlier and get off later.”
The goal is to open the facility by late September 2018, so families have a place to send their kids for the upcoming school year.
