Press Conference Highlights the Increased Demands on Child Care Providers and the NYS Budget for Child Care Aid
Today, we joined Assemblymember John T. McDonald III, Assemblymember Patricia Fahy, Assemblymember Carrie Woerner, A Child’s Place at Unity House, elected officials, parents, and children to discuss the increased demands on child care providers throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and the investments in the recently enacted New York State Budget to address the challenges that child care providers are facing.
Throughout the pandemic, we have partnered with the New York State Office of Children and Family Services to distribute the CARES Act monies through child care scholarships for essential workers and through program grants for child care settings. This funding has been critically important to child care providers; enabling them to provide safer environments and to accommodate the children who otherwise would be without child care services.
Child care providers have answered the call. With the CARES funding, they converted garages, dining rooms, and enclosed porches into classroom space in an effort to accommodate the virtual learning requirements of school-age children whose essential worker parents could not work from home.
The CARES Act has already been enormously helpful for families and child care providers in the Capital Region. The additional funding included in the American Rescue Plan will enable truly impactful change and opportunity for child care programs to serve more families with high-quality services.
