Infant day care is hard to find in parts of state

Need high in rural NW Arkansas

— Most child-care providers in rural Northwest Arkansas agree that it’s difficult to find care for children under 2, but it can be done.

“From 2 and under, it’s very hard to find,” said Sharon Hyde, who operates Little Hillbilly Daycare from her home in Ozark in Franklin County.

“We’re such a small day care we stay full with infants all the time,” she said.

Hyde, who spent 23 years managing a large day-care center before opening her own, keeps two infants at a time and recommends that parents who foresee needing her services contact her as soon as they find out they are pregnant. Two couples on her waiting list are due anytime, she said.

Part of the difficulty in finding infant child care in the area can be attributed to demand. Three counties in Northwest Arkansas — Franklin, Boone and Carroll — have higher percentages of children under age 6 with working parents than the state average, according to estimates from the 2006-10 American Community Survey of the U.S. Census.

In Franklin County, 78.9 percent of children under age 6 live in homes where one or both parents work, the largest percentage recorded in the survey. Statewide, about 65.2 percent of children under 6 live in homes where one or both parents are employed, according to the survey.

Calvary Baptist Preschool in Ozark maintains a waiting list, and the wait can be up to a year, said Director Kathy Barham.

Kidz Kare in Ozark can accommodate up to 79 children but has an enrollment of only 63, said Michelle Jones, the center’s owner and director.

The center participates in the Better Beginnings ratings, a state-run program, and has a rating of one star out of a possible three. There are only two child-care centers with a Better Beginnings rating in Franklin County, according to the state’s Child Care and Early Childhood Education Division.

“We are held to a higher standard,” Jones said. “There’s a pretty thorough application process. We have people who come out and assess our curriculum.”

The Northwest Arkansas Child Care Resource and Referral service in Springdale receives about 100 calls a month from parents in 11 counties looking for child care, said Michelle Wynn, coordinator at the service. They often have questions about cost, financial assistance, location and quality.

“We definitely encourage the parents to go by and check that [a day-care center] is right for their family,” Wynn said.

A few have waiting lists, but most in Northwest Arkansas have openings, she said.

Finding space for an infant or young child can take longer, especially for families who prefer a home day-care center, Wynn said. Some home daycare centers may keep only one infant at a time.

Options for child care are more plentiful in the region’s major cities than in smaller cities such as Farmington, Wynn said. Parents who commute from Farmington to Fayetteville should look in both cities, she said.

For many parents, the question isn’t whether they can find a space, but whether they can afford it, said Tonya Russell, director of the state Child Care and Early Childhood Education Division. A federal subsidy provides assistance with the cost of child care to low-income families. The waiting list is about 10,000 children, Russell said.

The subsidy comes from the Child Care Development Fund through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

“The funding has been flatlined,” Russell said, with the amount remaining the same for about 10 years. “Then you have an economic recession. We have more children in poverty now.”

Arkansas, Pages 12 on 12/30/2011

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