Department: County Administration
Department Head/Elected Official: David Berry, County Administrator
Regular or Supplemental RCA: Regular RCA
Type of Request: Transmittal
Project ID (if applicable): N/A
Vendor/Entity Legal Name (if applicable): N/A
MWDBE Contracted Goal (if applicable): N/A
MWDBE Current Participation (if applicable): N/A
Justification for 0% MWDBE Participation Goal: N/A - Goal not applicable to request
Request Summary (Agenda Caption):
title
Transmittal by the Office of County Administration of a report summarizing opportunities to support home-based child care providers across Harris County.
end
Background and Discussion:
In 2021, Harris County received a grant from Home Grown - a national organization focused on home-based child care providers - to determine how best to support child care providers who utilize their own home to care for children. There are over 1,000 regulated home-based child care (HBCC) providers across Harris County that are licensed to serve up to 12 children in their home, and even more HBCC providers who serve up to three children in their home and are not required to be licensed. Harris County utilized the planning grant from Home Grown to understand how to better support the work of these providers and therefore support young children and families.
The county engaged Connective, a Houston-based human-centered design group, to interview home-based providers across the county to learn what supports are needed for child care providers. The final report includes the findings of interviews with Vietnamese, Spanish, and English-speaking providers about their needs and outlines opportunities for the county to better support home-based child care providers. The attached report includes key themes from child care providers, including:
• Most providers do not participate in the child care subsidy program because of burdensome enrollment processes.
• Most providers are over capacity and need support to manage all part of their businesses themselves, from curriculum planning to accounting.
• Many providers operate paycheck-to-paycheck and rely on government support or need a second job to cover costs.
• Vietnamese speaking providers do not have adequate language access supports from the state to navigate regulatory and other processes.
These findings have implications for how the county utilizes American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) dollars to support the recovery of home-based child care providers. This ranges from how we design programs to support the wages of child care providers, to business and other supports the county can offer to providers. The county will use the information in this report to continue to develop ARPA-funded supports that best meet the needs of providers.
Expected Impact: N/A
Alternative Options: N/A
Alignment with Goal(s):
_ Justice and Safety
X Economic Opportunity
_ Housing
_ Public Health
_ Transportation
_ Flooding
_ Environment
_ Governance and Customer Service
Prior Court Action (if any):
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Date |
Agenda Item # |
Action Taken |
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5/10/2022 |
22-2941 |
Request by the Office of County Administration for approval to accept from Home Grown grant funds in the amount of $20,000, with no required match, for the Home-Based Child Care Planning Phase Program. |
Location:
Address (if applicable):
Precinct(s): Countywide
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Anticipated Court Date: 1/10/23
Anticipated Implementation Date (if different from Court date): N/A
Emergency/Disaster Recovery Note: COVID-19 related item
Contact(s) name, title, department: Sara Mickelson, Director, Early Childhood Initiatives, Office of County Administration
Attachments (if applicable): Connective Report