Just last month, Congress held two hearings on the crisis in child care and its impact on children, families, businesses, and our nation’s economy. Now, the spread of the coronavirus is making this crisis and its impacts substantially worse, threatening to put this already-vulnerable industry into a tailspin that will compromise the country’s ability to weather this storm, and get back on its feet after it is over.
To understand the breadth of the deepening crisis, the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) shared a brief survey with child care programs to learn more about the challenges they are facing across states and settings, and the impact a closure without significant public support would have on a program moving forward.