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The Massachusetts Community Action Child Care Network: Quality, Accessibility, and Affordability
It is part of the mission of Community Action Agencies (CAAs) in Massachusetts to provide opportunities for low-income families to become self sufficient. In order for low-income families to work or to participate in education and training programs, they must have access to quality and affordable child care.
Recognizing the importance of child care, Community Action Agencies have become major providers of child care and early education programs throughout the Commonwealth. A recent survey conducted by the Massachusetts Community Action Program Association (MASSCAP), which represents the 25 CAAs in Massachusetts, concludes that CAAs administer over $142 million in child care funding. This includes:
- Over $50 million in Head Start programming
- Over $52 million in Child Care Resource and Referral and voucher networks
- And nearly $40 million in other programming including center based day care, family day care networks, school-aged programs and Community Partnerships for Children contracts.
Accessibility And Flexibility Are Attributes Of The CAA Child Care Network
Nearly 12,000 low/moderate income children are enrolled in the Community Action Agencies’ child care system. (This excludes referrals and vouchers issued through the Child Care Resource and Referral Network agencies). One of the unique aspects of the community action network is its ability to offer multiple options to families in need of childcare. All agencies (18) providing Head Start services also reported extended day services and many agencies are integrating their day care and Head Start services thus creating a seamless child care system for families. Fifteen agencies reported providing both Head Start and Day Care services. Community Action Agencies have the capacity for providing child care that is accessible and meets the changing needs of families as they face the demands of welfare reform and the work place.
Affordability Is a Must
Child care is always discussed as a major barrier to employment for all families. This barrier increases with low income families because of the high cost of child care. Community Action Agencies provide comprehensive affordable subsidized child care to the most vulnerable families in the state. The lack of such care is often the cause for families to slide back onto the welfare rolls while the working poor struggle to make ends meet. Unsubsidized quality care averages $5,000 to $8,000 per year per child, an amount equal to 40% - 50% of the income of a family just above the poverty line.
Quality Care Describes The CAA Child Care Network
The child care systems operated by Community Action Agencies are quality programs with high standards of care. A recent report entitled Massachusetts Families Working and Still Poor, prepared by Massachusetts Kids Count, states that every dollar spent on quality early childhood care saves $7 in remedial education, criminal justice and welfare costs.
Moreover, the long-term CAA tradition of parental involvement in their child care systems serves to improve parenting skills of participants. This contributes to the strengthening of the family unit.
Many child care programs operated by Community Action Agencies are accredited by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC). It is a goal of MASSCAP to achieve 100% accreditation by the year 2000.
What Can Be Done To Improve Child Care Access?
As stated in MASSCAP recent report Running in Place: A Report on Poverty in Massachusetts, there are a number of important actions state government can take to ensure that parents who are willing and able to work are not kept out of the workforce due to the high cost of child care. An important step would be to fully fund the child care subsidy for low-income parents. There are estimated to be between 6,000 and 10,000 low-income parents eligible for child care subsidies currently on waiting lists due to inadequate funding. Funding for this subsidy should be increased to ensure that all eligible parents can pay for child care.
Beyond that first step, the state should increase the earnings limit for this subsidy. Under current law, parents are eligible for the subsidy only up to 50 percent of the state median income. By raising that to 85 percent of the median income, more needy parents would be covered, thus helping them to remain in the work force and simultaneously provide quality care for their children.
Finally, the funding for low-income child care subsidies should be tied to reductions in the welfare caseload. Parents who move from welfare to the work force typically have low incomes during the early years they are working; thus efforts to reduce the welfare caseload will likely increase the need for low-income child care subsidies. Any surplus in the welfare-related child care accounts should be transferred to the low-income child care subsidies, rather than simply returned to the state’s general fund.
MASSCAP is a statewide network of 25 multi-service agencies--known as community action programs (CAPs)--providing basic support and training services to thousands of low-income and elderly residents across the state. We were created over 30 years ago by Congress to combat poverty by helping clients gain skills needed for self-sufficiency.
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