(upbeat music) - Childcare is in high demand in Kansas with less than half of children in our state receiving childcare services.

We discuss the childcare shortage in Kansas.

Coming up next on "Inspire."

(logo humming) - [Announcer] "Inspire" is sponsored by the estate of Ray and Ann Goldsmith, the Raymond C. and Marguerite Gibson Foundation, and the Lewis H. Humphreys Charitable Trust.

(upbeat music) - Hello and welcome to "Inspire."

I'm excited to be here with my beautiful sisters Danielle Norwood and Amy Kelly, and you, of course.

The childcare shortage in Kansas is a pressing issue affecting families, childcare providers, and policy makers.

- The shortage affects more than children and families.

It's a growing issue for communities and companies statewide.

- Here to discuss some of the challenges that working parents in Kansas are facing and how the city of Topeka is responding are Sarah Elsen, who's the Executive Director of Child Care Aware of Eastern Kansas, and Trina Goss, Director of Business and Talent Initiatives at the Greater Topeka Partnership.

Thank you both for being with us today.

- Thank you.

- Thank you for having us.

- For those who don't have a parent, who don't have children that are in the zero to five age range, tell us about some of the challenges that Topeka in general is dealing with in terms of people being able to get childcare.

Talk to us about that, Trina.

- Okay, I think there has been a misconception since COVID.

We did have a period of time where parents would struggle to find quality childcare in Shawnee County.

And that still can be the case.

We had a number of centers close during COVID.

And then coming out of COVID, it was a challenge.

We have had several centers state that they do have openings, which is great.

The biggest challenge that we're seeing now is in those non-traditional hours.

So those are the families, the parents who have to work, you know, a second shift or even a third shift job, and they need a place to leave their kids.

And so we don't have very much of that in Shawnee County or across the state really.

- Okay.

Sarah, what's your thoughts on that?

- I would absolutely agree.

And I think it's important to stress that there's a difference to taking your child somewhere and then taking them to licensed quality childcare and having a licensed early childhood educator, you know, take care of your children and trust them.

I think a lot of times families have been forced to find alternatives.

And we know that that's not safe and it's not quality.

And so really focusing more on that licensed quality, affordable care.

- So we're dealing with a shortage.

Can you tell us why we're in a shortage?

I mean, what are some of the contributing factors that put us into this situation?

- I think definitely the rate of pay for our early childhood educators is a contributor.

They're making 10, $11 an hour, they're not having benefits, they're not having health insurance, paid time off, other leave that you can get by going and working at a fast food restaurant.

So I think pay and staffing is a huge contributor, especially for centers, but also family homes that have been providing childcare.

It is a business.

And they are starting to look at it, and they should look at it, as a business.

And so when they're looking at the rate that they're really making on it, a lot of them are deciding to close and go back to work and work outside of the home and not provide that in-home childcare.

- Well, it's a little frightening because you hear a lot of parents who say, "We just can't afford it."

So what are they to do?

- So affording childcare is definitely a major challenge for a lot of families.

A monthly payment to a childcare facility is more than their rent or mortgage, more than their groceries, more than their living expenses.

And so, you know, some families can easily afford it, but most cannot.

There are subsidies that companies can provide and some do.

There are, you know, state benefits that families can receive and some do.

But of course there's income requirements for those.

I will say just, I just read a recent report of some of those government funding subsidies.

In a lot of cases, there are less than 20% of eligible families who actually receive those benefits.

- Mm.

- So I think there's a lot on the table there.

And so it might be a matter of educating the public and educating families about what's out there.

- I think also there's a problem with the DCF funding for lower income families.

Because the paperwork involved to get that subsidy, and to get it started, takes a long time.

So if you get a job and you're expected to start in two weeks, and you don't have the funding to pay before you get that paycheck for childcare, then it's the hard decision that families are having to make, you know, of going back to work.

And I don't have the money to pay for childcare or continuing to do what we're doing right now.

So I really think taking a look at cutting the red tape and making it easier for families to qualify for the DCF assistance would go a long ways to helping Kansans go back to work and be able to help contribute to the economy as well.

- For those just tuning in that don't know what DCF is because I don't have kids and I don't know.

What does that stand for?

- It's the Department of Children and Families.

- Okay.

- So it's a state program that like your TANF, your temporary aid, maybe, you know, food assistance, some other aid that they may qualify for if they're below the poverty level.

And so DCF assistance provides a childcare subsidy if you are below a certain poverty level to help you subsidize the cost of taking your child to childcare.

- What are the impacts on children who aren't able to be in a childcare facility?

Because we talked about sometimes families kick in to try to do it themselves, but it's not the same as being in a licensed childcare provider space.

Talk about the impacts of that.

And I'll let you start with that, Sarah.

- Well really our early childhood educators, and that's what they are, is they're early childhood educators.

They're not babysitters, they're not daycare providers.

They're educating our children, they're educating our youth.

And studies show that coming out of quality childcare predicts third grade reading level.

Third grade reading level predicts, you know, graduation rate.

Graduation rate predicts so many other things later on in their life.

So instead of like throwing money at the backside of it, let's start investing at the front side of it and early childhood educators.

And we do a lot with our agency by providing technical assistance, professional development, really making sure that our early childhood educators have, you know, the newest professional development techniques to invest in our children.

And so there is definitely a difference between taking your child to a licensed childcare center or in-home childcare home and just leaving it with a family member where that child may just be watching TV all day.

- Absolutely, Trina?

- And I'll add to that.

Also, a child's brain develops like 90% of what they learn in life, they learn before the age of five.

And so it's imperative that they do get that education early on just to learn basic skills, and interacting with peers, and, you know, handling conflict and things like that.

They start that at a very young age.

And like Sarah said, it does affect them all throughout the rest of their education and into adulthood.

- And so Sarah, you're with Child Care Aware.

What is Child Care Aware?

- So we cover 33 counties in southeast Kansas, and we have many, many different programs.

We are grant funded.

But one of the big things that we do is, well, how we work with Trina is we worked on a grant together to increase childcare capacity in Shawnee County.

So that was one thing.

But we also work with childcare providers if they're interested in getting in childcare and helping walk through the licensing process with them, getting them their initial foundations classes that they need, CPR, First Aid.

But then throughout their time in their career, we continue to provide them professional development.

We have a learning library at our office where providers can come check out boxes with lesson plans in there and, you know, toys that go along with it.

We provide resources.

We have the statewide resource and referral line.

So if families are looking for childcare and they don't even know where to start, they can call us anywhere from out the state, tell us the zip code they're looking in, a mile radius that they're looking in, the hours they're looking for, kind of if they are on DCF assistance, how many children they have.

And we are able to give them a warm list of licensed childcare providers to contact instead of them just out there not even knowing where to start.

We keep in contact with licensed childcare providers every other month, at least quarterly on how many openings they have in what age group.

And then we're also able to give parents kind of those guiding questions on what to look for when choosing a childcare provider.

But beyond that, we have grants that goes out to the 501 childcare centers, and they work on early learning literacy and making sure they've got the reading and the rhyming and ready to enter, you know, kindergarten when they get there.

And then we just work on a lot of other things.

So in a nutshell, we support children and families from zero to five in many different arrays of life.

But really a lot of it is with our childcare providers and our families.

- Okay, we have a lot more questions for these two.

(all laughing) So been excellent so far, and we hope you're gonna stay right there and hopefully we'll ask the question that you want us to ask.

Stay with us.

(upbeat music) - And we are back with Sarah Elsen, Executive Director of Child Care Aware of Eastern Kansas, and Trina Goss, Director of Business and Talent Initiatives at the Greater Topeka Partnership.

So to continue our conversation about childcare, so everybody says "Childcare is so expensive.

It's so expensive."

As a point of reference, like, where does Kansas, say, fall on the national rank of childcare expenses?

I mean, just so we have a point of reference.

- I think we're number eight in affordability where childcare outranks mortgage or rent out of all 50 states.

So, not good.

- That's not good at all.

- No (chuckles).

- Wow, okay.

Is there any reason for that?

- So I think what drives up the cost, and we have already talked about how childcare workers don't really make a high wage.

But because of the child to employee ratio, that drives up the number of employees that are needed in a center.

And so the salary expenditures are definitely one of the highest expenses for a childcare center and a family center too, if they have employees.

Also, you know, it is a business like Sarah mentioned earlier.

So they do have to pay the rent and the utilities and all of the food in a lot of cases, and the curriculum and toys and books, and all of those expenses come into it.

And that just drives up the cost.

And yeah, it get pretty high.

- You know, we just plain need to invest more in our children.

- Yes.

- We're talking here, you know, zero to five years old, you know, and the care providers don't make much money.

But once they go to school, the teachers don't make much money either.

- Right.

- So it's just a sad case when we can't pay people who are bringing up the next generations, pay them more money.

How can companies help?

I mean, if I want an employee, I want to help that employee want to be working for me and feel comfortable and safe that their child is being taken care of.

What can they do?

- There are some companies that decide to have their own in-house childcare center, which is great.

We have some local companies, hospitals, Blue Cross Blue Shield is getting ready to open one as well that do it.

But a lot of companies are like, "Whoa, I don't know anything about childcare.

I don't want to run a childcare center."

But they can still invest.

And I think it's really important right now that employers look at this as a benefit that they're offering their families.

And it's a recruitment and retention benefit.

You can recruit them if you have a childcare slot, maybe they're coming from another region.

You can retain them if they have a childcare slot.

And so if they don't wanna get in the childcare business, they can still offer a subsidy.

Just like many employers offer a subsidy to help pay for their health insurance, their employees' health insurance.

I think that's a great way that they can do it.

And there's a business tax credit too that employers can take advantage of if you- - Yeah, so with the business tax credit, if a company does decide to open an on-site facility, or if they decide to partner with an existing childcare center and have a contract with them basically saying, "We reserve this number of slots for our employees to use," they can take part in that tax benefit.

It's a maximum of $150,000 that they can receive each year based on what they actually spend towards, you know, supporting their workforce as childcare needs.

- The GTP and Child Care Aware partnered on an initiative.

Would you tell us about that?

- [Trina] Yeah.

- Well I think one of the big ones, and I think we're really, I'm happy about it because like I said, we're in 33 counties.

But I'm really happy that Topeka has made childcare one of their momentum 27 strategic plans that they've realized childcare is really important in Shawnee County for the growth of this economy and the growth of Topeka.

But we also were lucky enough and we were able to get an accelerator grant to work on building childcare capacity, but also through that we started Family Forward, which we are hoping to continue to grow.

And I'll let Trina talk a little bit more about that.

- Yeah, sure.

The Family Forward Initiative had three components to it.

One was to recruit childcare workers.

Another was to recruit champions of childcare.

So those are those businesses that want to do something to support their workforce, even if it's something small, creating $100 a month subsidy or something like that.

They could be a champion for childcare.

And then we also created the Family Forward Parent Scholarship Fund.

That was in partnership with the Topeka Community Foundation.

And our hope was that that fund would grow primarily from business contributions into the fund.

Of course, anyone can contribute, and we've had some very generous individuals who have contributed to that fund as well.

But that scholarship is really meant to support those families who even after receiving state benefits, they are still struggling to afford childcare.

So they could receive this scholarship as an added boost for their childcare needs.

Or as Sarah mentioned earlier, if they get a job and they have a gap where they need childcare, but they don't have a paycheck yet, then it can fill that gap.

Unfortunately, so far we haven't been able to start giving out the scholarships because we do need that fund to grow.

But that's something that we really are working on this year to build that fund up.

- It's to help families stay working too.

You know, the examples Trina gave were great, but life happens.

A car may break down and now a family's choosing between, "Do I fix the car or do I pay for my childcare?"

And so it's for emergency situations too.

And so if we're able to provide assistance, we're able to keep that family working, we're able to keep that child safe in quality childcare.

So there's a lot of different scenarios, but I really think it's a great opportunity for us to invest back in our families and our children here in Shawnee County.

- So what other types of advocacy, I mean those would be advocacy things, that you let people know that this is out there, this is available, don't give up, working with companies to get them in on board and get the word out.

What other types of advocacy steps can be taken?

- I'm gonna jump in on this one first.

(all laughing) So I'm glad you asked that question because our Chamber President, Juliet Abdel, she is working with three other chambers of commerce through our medal coalition, which is Lawrence, Manhattan, Topeka, and Emporia.

And one of their main efforts as they lobby while the legislature's in session is on childcare.

And so they're really advocating for continuing funding and increasing funding at the state level and hopefully at the federal level for childcare benefits for needy families.

And then they are also advocating for higher rates of pay, benefits for childcare workers to be treated the same as a K through 12 educator, to be able to receive those same benefit, the state benefits, and higher rates of pay.

So if anyone wants to advocate, I mean, they can definitely reach out to our Chamber of Commerce and get involved, whether it's writing a letter or showing up, you know, in session or whatever.

- And I would also say Kansas Action for Children does a lot of advocacy as well.

And if you go to their website, you can sign up for their weekly alerts, which will keep you up to date with any legislation that's going on.

So you can see, you know, what is being proposed and, you know, get a weekly email and stay up to date.

- This is something that definitely touches a lot of people.

Even if you don't have children, you care about the kids in the community, and especially wanting to make sure that they have the best education starting from the very beginning and going forward.

So thank you so much for being on with us today.

This is an ongoing conversation- - Yes.

- that we need to be having.

And we appreciate your insights with us today on this very pressing topic.

We are going to be back in just a few minutes with more, so please stay with us.

(upbeat music) - Hi, I'm Janet Thompson-Jackson and I'm so excited to be a part of "Inspire" today.

Are you one of those people who feels like, "I just don't have time to work out?

I want to.

I would if I could, but I just don't have the time."

Well, today I am going to show you some yoga moves and just some general movement that you can do while you're sitting in your chair.

You can do this in a small space if you don't have access to a yoga studio, or if you just don't feel comfortable going to a studio.

Let's sit down and get started.

(gentle music) Alright, so imagine that you are at your computer, you've been on yet another Zoom call, or just working on some document.

We often don't think about what that does to our hands.

So I wanna start there.

Let's give our fingers and our wrists some exercise.

So I'm gonna start by taking my index finger on either hand and just gently pulling my wrist.

And the action is in my wrist.

So I'm gonna turn to the side here so you can see that it really, I'm being very gentle with my finger.

And then I'm gonna go to my middle finger, do the same thing.

Now what I'm feeling, if you're doing this with me, you're feeling this at a slightly different spot, going up your arm and you're really feeling that stretch.

I'm gonna take my last two fingers together 'cause that pinky finger is kind of fragile.

Let's take that and do a nice stretch.

And you can hold this for a few seconds.

Oh, that feels really good.

I'm feeling that last one right up this part of my arm.

And I'm just gonna move my thumb a little bit.

Your thumb doesn't really bend quite as much, but then what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna take that same hand, make a fist, I'm gonna grasp it with my other hand, and then bring my wrist down.

Oh, that feels great.

I'm feeling it all up in my lower arm here.

And then shake that out.

We're gonna do the same thing with the other hand, starting with the index finger, going to the middle finger.

Now if I was doing this in a class, I would be holding it for a few seconds longer just to really get that stretch.

One arm may be a little bit more tender than the other, a little bit more sore.

Give the thumb a little bit of love.

And that's very natural.

Usually your dominant hand, you feel it a little bit more.

And then just really shake out.

Oh, you can do this.

You can do this as you're reading something on the computer, or if you're watching a video.

Just take the time to move your hands.

It will really save this area, the carpal tunnel problems that we have, it'll save that.

(gentle music) I'm Janet Thompson-Jackson and I hope I've inspired you to replenish and restore.

(upbeat music) - What an informative discussion we just had with Sarah Elsen from Child Care Aware of Eastern Kansas and Trina Goss from the Greater Topeka Partnership.

Okay, one thing what Sarah brought up that really kind of floored me was the cost of childcare in Kansas.

Now she indicated that the relationship between the cost of childcare and housing- - Right.

- There's a national ranking, and Kansas ranks eighth as the least affordable between the cost of childcare versus the cost of housing.

The eighth worst.

I mean, it's on that kind of a scale.

That's terrifying.

- Well, it is.

- That is terrifying.

- And you know, you hear about our cost of living is supposed to be less in Kansas.

And you're supposed to be able to get more house in Kansas.

- Mm-hmm.

- Mm-hmm.

- And so what's the disconnect with the children?

- For sure.

- Yeah.

- Well, and you think about the lack of childcare facilities in Kansas, and you go back to that.

It's like, who can afford to actually have a childcare facility, who can afford to have their kids in childcare, especially if they're low income?

And you want the best for your children.

You know, you just can't drop 'em off at Grandma and Grandpa's house and say, "Do this."

It takes a lot of education 'cause they're not babysitters anymore.

And I ended up doing a conference last year in Wichita.

250 some childcare, early childcare educators where at this.

And one of the things that I said was, "I'm a beneficiary of a great preschool," you know?

One where I did get a step up into getting into the first grade.

And I want that for everybody.

But if you look at factors like, you know, people can't afford it, or childcare facilities are closing up because they don't have resources, then what are we supposed to be doing?

- Well, I will say, and I need to say this because I work for PBS KTWU, and we're your child's first and largest classroom.

- Yes!

- Oh, for sure.

- Yes!

- Oh, for sure.

- So thankfully, there are some things that you can watch on television.

- Absolutely.

- The other thing I was impressed with was how the training that goes into the childcare facilities.

And like the programs you see here, you know, we have like psychologists, psychiatrists who work on those shows to give that educational and instructional value.

But when they were talking about not only do you have to do your first aid, but you have to be, you have to have your education so that you can pass that on.

- Sure.

- Yes.

- Oh, absolutely.

I mean, there's no question.

I mean, the studies are conclusive that the amount of money you spend investing in children at that age pays off in dividends- - Right.

- down the line.

And, you know, the time that they spend, like when they started with "Sesame Street" back in '69.

- Right.

- And the thought behind it and the psychology behind it, and how that has grown since then, how critical that is.

And yet we still won't fund it.

- Exactly.

- And, I mean, this alters our future, and we still won't fund it.

So I thank God for KTWU and PBS.

- Absolutely, 'cause I think it's a both end.

I think that you need quality childcare and I think that you need public broadcasting.

Because especially in the home, I watched all of those shows growing up, and so I'm so appreciative to what public TV did for me in terms of being another classroom that I could go to, to learn a variety of things.

So I think that the two things work hand in hand.

- Well, thank goodness for our wonderful guests today too.

- Yes.

- Yeah, Sarah and Trina.

- Thank you guys because you know, they brought it home for us.

And so that is all the time we have for today.

We do want to thank Sarah Elsen, Executive Director at Child Care Aware of Eastern Kansas, and Trina Goss, Director of Business and Talent Initiatives at the Greater Topeka Partnership for joining us on "Inspire."

And as a reminder, you can watch this program again at watch.ktwu.org.

(upbeat music) - And if you are inspired to learn more about our guests, find out what is coming up on future shows, and get access to additional content, be sure to visit our website at ktwu.org/inspire.

- Inspiring women, inspiring workable solutions to address the childcare shortage in Kansas, inspiring you on KTWU.

Thank you for watching.

(upbeat music continues) - [Announcer] Inspire is sponsored by the estate of Ray and Ann Goldsmith, the Raymond C. and Marguerite Gibson Foundation, and the Lewis H. Humphreys Charitable Trust.