United Way and North Ed receive $80k grants to help child care industry locally

Jun. 17—TRAVERSE CITY — United Way of Northwest Michigan and Northwest Education Services have received a combined $160,000 to put towards projects that will improve resources for and access to childcare in the region.

According to the Michigan League for Public Policy, 44 percent of Michiganders live in "child care deserts," which is defined as when the ratio of children ages 0-5 to the number of licensed child care spots is greater than three. As previously reported, there are just 8,000 providers to take care of nearly 560,000 children under the age of 5 in the state.

To change this reality, the Early Childhood Investment Corporation (ECIC) has doled out $1.2 million in grants to 11 organizations in Michigan. The issues within the child care industry are complex, but ECIC CEO Dawne Bell said she's hopeful that these grants will kickstart an array of innovative solutions all at once.

In northwest Lower Michigan, Northwest Education Services (North Ed) Early Childhood and United Way of Northwest Michigan were each awarded $80,000 grants.

As a way to build a more robust pool of child care professionals in Antrim, Benzie, Grand Traverse, Kalkaska and Leelanau counties, North Ed's $80,000 grant will primarily go towards eliminating barriers individuals face when trying to get child care certifications, said Yvonne Donohoe McCool, North Ed Early Childhood Supervisor.

The money will be available to students getting into the child care industry and current childcare professionals looking to get higher certifications. Part of that includes offering paid training and paying students' tuition or other expenses for courses such as the Childhood Development Associates (CDA) course at Northwestern Michigan College, Donohoe McCool said.

CDA credentials are important for people to have when entering early childhood education or the child care industry, said Melissa Thiebaut Marinelli, NMC early childhood instructor. When Thiebaut Marinelli started teaching CDA courses at Northwestern Michigan College, her average cohort was about 35 students.

Last fall, her cohort had fewer than 10 students.

Usually, CDA classes are spread out over fall and spring, but recently, NMC has begun offering a consolidated CDA course over the summer as a way to encourage more people to take it and enter into the child care industry quicker in order to fill in the gaps made from current shortages. The summer course is 5 days a week for 3 weeks straight.

The next condensed CDA course begins in July 2022, which is when North Ed will begin doling out money from the $80,000 grant to cover related expenses for those seeking to take that course.

"We're really trying to grow our own teachers and this will really help," Thiebaut Marinelli said of the grant money.

Those interested should reach out to North Ed to find out what the grant money can cover for them, Donohoe McCool said.

"It's a way for us to honor the work that early childhood professionals are really putting into their careers by becoming more credentialed to achieve higher education in pursuit of best services for kids and families," Donohoe McCool said.

The $80,000 flowing to United Way will go towards a new program United Way is developing to help families find accommodating child care that they can afford.

United Way currently works with Great Start to Quality Resource Center, Great Start Collaborative of Traverse Bay and the Michigan Tri-Share pilot program. Through that work, United Way's team recognized that many people in the region are unaware of the support at their disposal to pay for child care expenses, Executive Director Seth Johnson said.

The program will first be piloted in Benzie and Leelanau counties with the help of the Benzie-Leelanau District Health Department beginning in mid-July, Johnson said. The team at United Way is looking to work with employers to get information about child care assistance to more working parents.

Johnson said United Way is also planning on using BLDHD's Community Connection Assessment, which helps connect individuals to various resources they may need.

"When we talk to families, it's not just that they need support with childcare, we know that they also need support with housing. We know that they need support with utilities. We know that they need social-emotional support," Johnson said. "It's not that these families are just facing a barrier of childcare, more likely, and as we have observed, they are also facing other barriers."

Starting with addressing the need for more affordable and accessible childcare in the region will hopefully lead United Way's team to helping families get other resources they need, Johnson said.

After a few months of the pilot, the program will go on to include more counties in the Northwest Lower Peninsula region. Johnson said he is unsure when the pilot program would expand.

"We're really fortunate that ECIC recognizes this as an innovation that is going to help us fill this gap for employers, families, childcare providers throughout this region," Johnson said.

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