Child Care for Essential Workers | WRGB CBS 6 Coverage

Abbe Kovacik, Executive Director of Brightside Up recently sat down with Lynsey Smith from WRGB/CBS 6 news to talk about child care for essential workers in the midst of the Coronavirus pandemic.

ALBANY NY (WRGB) - While many worry about the unforeseeable future surrounding the coronavirus outbreak, child care programs and providers are on the front-line of this pandemic.

Erin Breslin, Senior Director of Marketing & Membership for the Capital District YMCA, says "We understand long before this happened the importance of keeping children safe."

Organizations in the Capital Region like Brightside Up and Capital District YMCA are using their services to help find resources and provide child care for families in need during this crisis. View on WRGB website


The surveys Abbe refers to in the interview are below and available on our COVID 19 Resource page

Survey on Child Care Program Openings
OCFS is collecting information from licensed and registered child care providers to find out whether they have openings in their child care program, and if they have the capacity and desire to serve more children than their established capacity. Providers who have slots available in their program are asked to complete this survey every Wednesday. OCFS will share this information with stakeholders including the local child care resource and referral agencies to help connect parents in need of child care with available slots in their community.

Parent Need for Care Survey
If you are a parent or caregiver who needs child care, please complete this parent need for child care survey. Based on the information you provide about your job, employer, number of children, and financial need, OCFS may be able to help you find the child program you need. It may be a challenge to find child care due to COVID-19 related program closures, however the staff at OCFS are trying their best to support families to find the high quality child care that they need.

Substitute Survey
If you are interested in helping support your community by helping to keep local child care programs operating-especially to care for children of health care and other critical workers, please complete this Survey for Current Child Care Workers. Your responses will be shared with local child care programs that are in need of staff.
Encuesta de trabajador existente de cuidado infantil.docx


Survey for Child Care Workers
NYS OCFS is seeking assistance from licensed and registered child care programs and their employees. Child care workers who are temporarily out of work due to COVID-19 related program closures may be able to help fill vital roles at other child care programs.
If you are interested in helping support your community by helping to keep local child care programs operating-especially to care for children of health care and other critical workers, please complete this Survey for Current Child Care Workers. Your responses will be shared with local child care programs that are in need of staff.