Article Link: http://exchangepress.com/article/advocating-for-child-care-during-and-after-a-pandemic/5025408/
The coronavirus pandemic shows just how essential child care is.
Since March, many working parents across the country have scrambled to find alternative child care arrangements as schools and some child care providers closed because of the coronavirus outbreak. Those parents who were able to “work from home” struggled to balance work and being present for their young children, and less than 30 percent of workers can even work from home, according to the Economic Policy Institute. And while health care providers and other essential personnel put their lives on the line caring for others, who was taking care of their children?
Health care workers in the U.S. have over 3.5 million children, according to an interactive map developed by Yale University professors and based on census data. These children needed care, in order for health care workers to respond to COVID-19, but 2.3 million of them had no obvious child care providers available.
A nurse in Kansas told us, “I absolutely have to work. My child care closed with one day’s notice. I found another child care program and asked if I could count on them to be open. They told me that they are open today and plan to be ...