State of childcare: Coordinator discusses lack of quality facilities
JACKSON, Tenn. — With childcare becoming a much bigger topic lately, we wanted to speak with someone to provide you with more information.
Southwest Tennessee Child Care Resource and Referral provides a lot of opportunities for the people of West Tennessee to learn about child care. Coordinator Katherine Cothern tells us more.
“We serve 20 counties in West Tennessee outside of Shelby,” Cothern said. “We are working to improve the quality of early care and education for Tennessee’s young children.”
And Cothern gave examples of how they are able to do that.
“Yeah we do it in a variety of ways, whether it’s training in groups, training online. Onsite training for people who work with children in childcare settings, early intervention, out in the community, and other settings where we are asked to provide support in,” said Cothern.
Cothern says that there is a shortage of quality child care facilities. She says that is something that has definitely caught her attention as something that is different than the way it used to be.
“There is a lack of quality child care here in West Tennessee and really across the state and nation right now,” she said. “In the 40 years that I have been doing this, we are kind of at an all time deficit in relation to childcare. One reason is a teacher shortage for workers in the workforce. That affects a lot of entities right now.”
She says one solution to this could be the partnering with employers and their industries. CCR&R can provide you with some help on finding child care that will fit your needs. Cothern tells us more about that.
“We provide help on giving information on quality child care. Helping people look for childcare, not that we can get them in anywhere, but we can give them listings of places that are licensed by Department of Human Services.”
Cothern says that families used to spend around 7% of their income on child care, and now, it is upwards of 30%.
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