Introduction
As with any initiative, child programs require financial management and planning to ensure success. Financial planning and management are the domains that allow the leader of the program to facilitate the process of predicting the amount of money needed and choosing who will compete for it. It is the process of developing financial policies for an enterprise’s purchase and management of finances. Some of the goals that financial planning allows to achieve are establishing requirements for capital, structuring the capital, framing financial policies, and ensuring that scarce financial resources are utilized with maximum efficiency. This paper will examine the domains specific to the financial management and planning of children’s programs.
Overview
Over the course of this module, I obtained knowledge relating to the basics of financial planning and management of scarce resources and learned about the importance of these aspects when working on a real-life project. After this course, I will be able to confidently manage the finances of a program because I understand the basic elements of this managerial aspect. For example, capital requirements should be determined by criteria such as the cost of current and fixed assets, promotional costs, and long-term planning (Jack, 2005; McGrath, 2021). Capital requirements must be considered from both perspectives of short-term and long-term investment. Capital structure is the composition of capital, for example, the relative sort and percentage of capital required in the firm. This encompasses both short-term and long-term debt-equity ratio considerations. Moreover, I learned about the development of financial policies for cash management, lending, and borrowing. A finance manager ensures that finite financial resources are used as efficiently as feasible and at the lowest possible cost in order to maximize returns on investment. Hence, this course has allowed me to fill the gap in understanding how financial resources are obtained, managed, and used in the context of child programs.
Reflection on an Imagined Child Care Program
An unmet need in the domain of child care is the support programs for parents who cannot afford quality child care and education for their children since these services are typically costly. People who reside in vulnerable communities are especially susceptible to the financial burdens associated with child care and should be assisted by the government. Child care programs can range from the ones facilitating the basic needs of children to large-scale projects aiming to help young individuals learn or develop certain skills (Administration for Children & Families, n.d.). For example, the United States government offers support to parents who cannot afford to pay for the quality education of their children through financial assistance programs (Administration for Children & Families, n.d.). Child care financial aid, often known as vouchers, certificates, or subsidies, is provided by the federal government to states and territories in order to give child care financial support to low-income families in their state (Administration for Children & Families, n.d.). These programs assist low-income families in paying for child care so that they can work or go to school, and states have their own set of eligibility standards.
In my opinion, such programs are essential as the financial burden of paying for a child’s education can be substantial, and not every parent can afford to pay. However, education is among the predominant factors that allow children to have a quality life in the future; for example, by having a good education, they can go to college and find a job they would enjoy, and that would allow them to pay for their expenses. Moreover, this quality education builds a foundation for the future of the state as it allows to bring up responsible and qualified citizens. If low-income families with tough family circumstances are unable to afford the child care expenses beyond the basic ones, they can ask for additional financial help (Administration for Children & Families, n.d.). The existence of such programs allows children from different backgrounds to receive the care they need, regardless of the income that their parents have.
Problem and Possible Solutions
Evidently, financing of child care programs that would allow parents to send their children to a daycare facility and work full-time jobs or perform house chores is a problem in the United States. According to the World Population Review (2022), the average cost of daycare for children is $1,230 per month, while the federal government defines affordable care for children as something that constitutes 7% of the family’s annual income. Currently, none of the states has centered child care that would meet this definition of affordable care services for children, and the government’s support programs cover these expenses fully only in several states. Hence, there is a serious problem in the way child care is managed and its accessibility of it for parents, especially those that have low income, or for vulnerable communities.
Before the epidemic, child care in America was a significant issue, while after the COVID-19 outbreak, now it has been a major disaster. For millions of families across the country, it is prohibitively costly and difficult to get (McGrath, 2021). Furthermore, child care employees endure insufficient salaries and working conditions. As a result, thirty-five states are experiencing a rise in the percentage of parents leaving the labor market for child care reasons—a 36% increase since April on average, amounting to 1.2 million employees (McGrath, 2021). Lack of child care is now the third most commonly stated reason for not working, slightly eclipsing pandemic-related unemployment and furloughs owing to decreased business.
Child care in the United States is confronted with two existential issues that have far-reaching consequences for working parents, providers, and the greater economy. First, child care is prohibitively costly and difficult to obtain. Child care prices and availability were insurmountable hurdles for far too many families throughout the country, even before the Coronavirus outbreak. Spending on child care per kid increased dramatically from 1970 to the 2000s, growing by about 2,000 percent throughout that time period (McGrath, 2021). Moreover, child care spaces are at best minimal and care for newborns and children with impairments. These limits encouraged widespread dependence on informal care networks: before the crisis, 56 percent of parents stated they relied on care from a grandparent, family member, or friend due to financial constraints (McGrath, 2021). Therefore, parents are burdened with the high cost of child care, and those who are part of vulnerable communities cannot afford childcare altogether.
The issues described above were exacerbated by the epidemic. COVID-19 affected both the formal and informal child care industries, undermining stable care and job situations for whole families. According to McGrath (2021), as a result of increased health and safety procedures, costs have risen by an average of 47 percent for licensed child care facilities and 70 percent for home-based care centers. Evidently, the child care institutions factored these costs into the payments that the families have to make, making child care even more expensive.
This is a serious issue—the inability to pay or obtain child care has a negative ripple effect across the whole economy, forcing parents to stay at home or exit the work market, greatly impeding our country’s recovery. In September 2020 alone, about 900,000 women quit the workforce, four times the rate of males (McGrath, 2021). Moreover, based on a McKinsey survey, 25% of working women are considering downsizing their jobs or exiting the labor field entirely as a result of the epidemic (McGrath, 2021). This is an especially shocking development given that women had only surpassed males in the labor field a few months before the epidemic. The economy was highly strong for working women prior to the pandemic, but industry-specific effects, along with family care limitations, severely harmed advances gained prior to COVID-19.
Aside from the impact on working parents, excellent and inexpensive child care is critical to nurturing America’s children between the ages of zero and four before the regular public education system takes over. Quality child care promotes optimal brain development, offers school and socializing skills, and aids in closing the opportunity gap between children from rich and poor or working-class households (McGrath, 2021). Children who get high-quality child care from the age of zero to four are more likely to acquire adequate language, communication skills, and social and emotional intelligence – all of which prepare them for a lifetime of success.
Next, child care providers suffer low pay and uncertain working circumstances.
Child care may be a big challenge for working parents, and it isn’t any simpler for industry providers and employees. Child care professionals are 92 percent female and 40 percent female of color; hence they are disproportionately affected (McGrath, 2021). Women of color are overrepresented in childcare positions, which pay less than $24,000 per year, or roughly $11.50 per hour (McGrath, 2021). As of July, the child care industry’s employment was only 79 percent of its pre-pandemic level, implying that one out of every five jobs had been lost, generating severe economic distress. Moreover, Hispanic and Black women are more likely to be single breadwinners and the primary source of financial support for their families, which means that a loss of income or employment stability threatens whole families.
Child care accessibility and programs that allow lessening the burden of this for parents are a problem because financing primary care for children allows for addressing their basic needs. Primary Caregiving is presently used as a system and technique of care for babies and toddlers in today’s daycare facilities (McGrath, 2021). In a child care center, there is more to this paradigm. This means that within a bigger group, each caregiver or instructor is allocated main responsibility for a specific group of children. This does not imply that the caregiver looks after the same three children exclusively. However, the caregiver’s primary obligation is to the children who have been allocated to them. Partially, this explains the high cost of child care as the facility has to hire many educators to substantiate the needs of the children.
The second aspect that causes the high cost and a second step in solving this problem using financial assistance programs for parents is that teachers in early childhood education must always evaluate and understand the needs of children and families. This means that these educators have to have a good education and developed skills that would enable them to work effectively. Early childhood teachers must not only cooperate with their colleagues to meet the needs of children and families, but they must also collaborate with multi-disciplinary teams to share ideas and debate the best outcomes for children and families in early childhood education settings.
The solution in terms of managing child care and its financing is in further improvement of the teachers’ qualifications, promotion of interdisciplinary collaboration, and provision of assistance to parents who cannot afford child care. Hence, a more detailed description of the multi-disciplinary team is that teachers collaborate with other professionals such as psychologists, child social workers, police, adult social workers, health visitors, and courts to provide various services and support for the needs of children and families. Thus, child care consists of a plethora of factors and requires specialists in different domains to support the adequate development of children. This idea supports the need for the proper financing and development of child care services and programs supporting child welfare. Practitioners have determined that the required welfare needs are critical for the fundamental safety, security, and health of the early years (Miller, 2021). These must also reassure parents and caregivers that their children will get high-quality care in all settings.
Conclusion
In summary, this paper is a reflection on the course material and the essentials of financing and management of child care programs. This paper details the problems relating to child care in America. Mainly, the high costs of these services were further worsened by the pandemic. Hence, parents can no longer afford to pay for childcare services, forcing them to quit their jobs and look after their children. The financial assistance programs that the government currently offers are not sufficient since they do not cover the costs fully. The solution is to address the causes of the high cost of child care in the United States and the expansion of the financial assistance programs for parents.
References
Administration for Children & Families. (n.d.). Child care financial assistance options. Web.
Jack, G. (2005). Children’s program administrator credential. NYSAEYC.
McGrath, J. (2021). Child care in crisis. Web.
Miller, C. C. (2021). How other nations pay for child care. Web.
World Population Review. Child care costs 2022 by state. Web.