“Emily Allen, outreach and policy associate at Idaho Voices for Children, has worked with child care providers over the past two years to understand their needs and how changes in Idaho policy could meet those needs. Allen joined the Workforce Development Council’s committee and tried to help craft the grant application process with those providers in mind.
‘When we look at the industry at large and the landscape, child care providers tend to not have a lot of administrative staff,’ Allen said. ‘Many of them are just teachers in the classroom, and they don’t have additional capacity every day to be working on a grant application.’
To that end, she said she wanted to keep the application process simple while making sure the providers’ business plan and standards of care were high quality.
Allen also said she wanted to make sure to prioritize providers serving infants and toddlers, because it is especially difficult to find care in that age range across Idaho.
Allen and Secrist said the program will serve as a test case for how future funding could be allocated to support child care in Idaho. While the current funds are from federal stimulus, and the Workforce Development Council will ask for another $15 million in the next legislative session, those funds will expire in 2024. At that point, the council hopes to have enough data and proof that the concept works to start using state funds to keep it going.
‘We have to take this issue seriously, we have to recognize this is an ongoing crisis that we have not solved yet and that there’s significant system building to be done,’ Allen said. ‘But really utilizing the opportunity that this program is providing is a step in the right direction, and it’s encouraging. I think we should build on it.’”