NASHUA, NH – Early this spring United Way of Greater Nashua’s Smart Start coalition partners launched an effort to support community members in gaining licenses to launch home-based childcare.
Increasingly, local parents have struggled to find quality childcare they can afford. Not only in NH but across the nation the childcare workforce continues to shrink as childcare centers can’t earn enough to pay a livable wage for staff among other rising costs.
Many interested stakeholders throughout the state of NH have been troubleshooting to find ways to stem the losses and grow access to childcare while maintaining quality.
Liz Fitzgerald of United Way Greater Nashua and Angela Mercado, Director of the Community Engagement and Training Center, collaborated to create a program to support interested community members to establish home childcare programs that are licensed by the State. The program provided incentives, coaches and mentors to navigate start-ups through the sometimes-daunting steps required for licensing. With support and inspiration and an initial investment to support the launch of the initiative came from Christina Della Sandro of NH Charitable Foundation. Connie Davis and Karen Abbott of Southern NH Services Child Care Aware provided input and guidance.
With the success of the first two cohorts and additional interest in collaboration and investments from Community Development Financial Authority and the Public Consulting Group, Angela and Liz recruited additional support from Amadou Hamady of New Neighbor Connections and Bruno D’Britto of The Brazil Council. Stefanie Paige Weider, Emily Mercado, Lisa Simpson, Carlisa Choate and April Roy and Liz Fitzgerald made up the core training facilitation and coaching team. Additional support was provided by International Institute, Nashua Community College and Saint Joseph Hospital and The Community Engagement Center offering space and transportation assistance. UWGN additionally supported the work by providing laptops as needed for participants through the Tech Equity program. We are also grateful for the high-quality interpretation provided by Yennie Navarro, Angela Mercado, Emily Mercardo, Collete Ramazani, Beatrice Bahati, Abeer Muaid, Aoua Bizimana, Bahera Shukura, Farhad Noori, Hijratullah Hemat, Minatulrahman, Ahmed and Mohammad Frotan. Special thanks to Neema Habomina and Hamida Alwan for bringing delicious homemade snacks.
The interest in the community was overwhelming – 110 people registered to participate, most from immigrant communities. Equally overwhelming are the barriers encountered. The most common barrier was permission from landlords to provide childcare at home. While it’s not against regulations, many housing management programs restrict tenants from home-based businesses and renting commercial spaces would be out of the budget.
Another barrier was that people that rely on public assistance for housing are concerned that starting a business would disqualify them for housing benefits and affordable housing alternatives would be hard to find considering the tight housing market. Childcare providers are currently among the lowest wage earners in the workforce, and it is hard for many to determine if the “juice is worth the squeeze.”
Finding collaborative partners that could share space with providers such as faith communities, other nonprofits and employers would be a game changer and also popular options for parents seeking care. The good news is that there are opportunities for the new trainees to fill holes in the current workforce and we will be supporting the trainees to identify jobs that can help them build skills as a childcare provider while increasing their income as they pursue their goal of a home-base childcare program in the future.
The complicated reality facing childcare simply put is that most working families struggle to afford current childcare costs while childcare providers can’t afford to work for less. Recently the State of New Hampshire increased the eligibility for the childcare scholarship. Many working families will qualify under the new guidelines. For example, a family of 4 making $113,000 annually or less would qualify for childcare scholarships for each of their children and most families that qualify, do not realize it and will struggle to find openings.
There is a lot more room for improvement and NH DHHS is working hard to support and improve childcare at a systems level. United Way is proud to be a partner in this work. We recognize childcare as a central cog in the overall economic health of our communities and we are grateful for the Smart Start Coalition Partners and funders that are working to solve this complicated system.
For more information about the Smart Start Coalition, visit www.unitedwaynashua.org or contact us at info@unitedwaynashua.org.
United Way of Greater Nashua is an independent 510(c)3 nonprofit founded in 1929 to serve the residents of Greater Nashua. Its mission is to fight for the health, education, and financial stability of every person in every community. United Way of Greater Nashua has received GuideStar and Charity Navigator’s top ratings for accountability, transparency, and financial management. For more information or to get involved as a donor or volunteer, please email United Way of Greater Nashua at, info@unitedwaynashua.org or visit their website at www.unitedwaynashua.org.