AUSTIN (KXAN) — With stay at home orders in place, schools have closed — so have many childcare centers leaving essential workers searching for help.
“Childcare is necessary for our first responders, health care providers, our grocery store clerks and pharmacists to get to work.
“Those essential personnel need childcare to make sure they can take care of all of us,” said Dr. Lynette Fraga, the executive director of Child Care Aware of America, a national nonprofit working to advance a high-quality, affordable child care system.
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Fraga says the much needed coronavirus relief package included $3.5 billion for a child care development block grant, but she says that’s not enough. CCAoA is urging Congress to provide at least $50 billion in child care funding to states.
More than 20 lawmakers have signed a letter asking the Trump Administration to expand child care options for essential workers and are asking the Office of Child Care for details about when that option will be available.
Time is essential, said Fraga.
A new study by Yale University shows health care workers in the U.S. have over 3.5 million children. And 2.3 million of those children have no obvious child care providers available in the home.
“We need to fund that,” said Fraga.
“This down payment of $3.5 billion — if distributed quickly — will provide much-needed help to the agencies across the country that are currently working overtime to support the families of emergency and essential workers, the child care providers who are dealing with decisions to close or stay open, and the rapidly adapting system.”
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