Lindsey Ramsey became an aide in an infant room at a child care facility as a 19-year-old single mom looking for work so she could afford diapers for her daughter. Never having thought about entering the sector, she learned how to care for children from a group of passionate caregivers.
“I had no idea what I was doing,” said Ramsey, 34, now the executive director of Shady Lane School in Point Breeze North. “But we had a wonderful group of educators who helped uplift new people entering the field … and they taught me how to change diapers and be a mom … I started to fall in love with early childhood education.”
The pandemic, though, exacerbated a multitude of underlying problems that had long haunted the care industry, such as high costs for parents and low wages for employees, according to child care advocates and providers. Now some child care practitioners are anticipating crisis.
While Congress injected $39 billion into child care through the American Rescue Plan Act [ARPA], it didn’t address underlying problems in child care infrastructure.
More than half of that funding ended in September, igniting fears over a mass closure of child care facilities dubbed the “child care cliff.”
While the end of federal funds will not lead to wholesale closures, Cara Ciminillo, executive director of Trying Together, an Allegheny County-based child care advocacy group, said the decline of providers will continue if long term funding is not brought in.
Despite the mounting challenges, Ramsey said caring for the community and her love of childhood education keep her working in the field.
“I’m driven by equity, because it is so important that we are elevating those who don’t have the resources, who don’t have enough to be able to succeed and thrive in life,” Ramsey said. “Having access to early childhood [care] early on, is one of the leading contributing parts to human development. So I consider it to be a key component to equity, and that’s why I am rooted and stuck here.”
…
Betül Tuncer 