- Just ahead on Black Issues Forum, the childcare crisis is no longer just a family issue, it's an economic emergency.

As parents struggle to find affordable care, businesses are feeling the impact and workers are being pushed out of the workforce.

We discuss what it's costing us and how we fix it.

Coming up next, stay with us.

- Quality public television is made possible through the financial contributions of viewers like you, who invite you to join them in supporting PBSNC.

(upbeat music) ♪ - Welcome to Black Issues Forum, I'm Kenia Thompson.

Childcare is often talked about as a family issue, but in reality, it's an economic one.

Right now in North Carolina, families are struggling to find affordable, reliable care and the ripple effects are being felt across the entire workforce.

Businesses can't hire, parents are forced to reduce hours or leave jobs altogether.

And in some cases, entire childcare centers are shutting their doors.

So what does this mean for our workforce?

And more importantly, what are the solutions?

We begin tonight's conversation focusing on the impact on the economy.

Joining us to explore these impacts is North Carolina Senator, Natalie Murdock.

Welcome to the show.

- Hi, thanks for having me.

- Of course, so good to have you always.

We've talked about this before.

When we're hearing this buzz term of childcare crisis, it's not a new issue, right?

We are kind of putting emphasis on it right now because of what's happening, but this has been ongoing for a while.

Talk to us about where this started, especially here in North Carolina and what are the reasons we're now feeling this swell?

- Yeah, we've been on this path for a really long time and really the heart of it are just systemic changes that need to happen.

The US compared to so many other countries, we just don't put enough effort into ensuring folks have childcare.

We don't provide enough subsidies.

We don't reward those educators.

We oftentimes view them as just caring for a child, but it actually is education.

And since we don't value that, the wages that are not provided to those providers are also reflected in our inability to stabilize that workforce.

But during COVID, the good thing is when Congress appropriated a lot of money towards childcare, childhood poverty actually decreased by 50%.

When those subsidies expired and went away, we did not do what we needed to do at the state level to supplement that funding.

And that's the crisis that we're currently in, the new childcare crisis.

- The new childcare crisis.

So now we're seeing impacts in workforce development in our economy.

How is that trickled down to the workforce?

- We are all feeling it.

And typically in Raleigh, when the North Carolina Chamber says that something is an issue, typically my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, listen, they are a conservative group.

They even said, if we do not do something about childcare, our economy is going to collapse.

Here in North Carolina alone, over $5 billion of an impact from not having childcare.

And that's because around 35% of families, either one parent is leaving the workforce altogether, or they're getting another job, working part time, maybe having a side hustle in additional to caring for their child, if they're just unable to pay for the cost of what is comparable to a college tuition for childcare.

So you have the growing cost, parents can't afford it.

So that results in a lot of them simply staying home so they can care for their children.

- Yeah, let's talk numbers.

So you shared with me earlier, the number of centers that have closed, Durham in particular have had more centers closed.

Share those numbers.

- Of all urban areas, Durham has felt this the most, which is why we had a round table at a local daycare, Kate's Corner here, in the Durham area.

Of all the urban areas, we've lost around 14%.

That is higher than any other urban county.

And we're the fourth largest county.

And with the Research Triangle Park, all the economic opportunities we have, it's gonna have a direct impact on the economy from us losing so many facilities statewide.

August was the first month that we lost more facilities than we opened.

It is not sustainable, our system is broken, and it's long past time that we do something about it.

- And there are a combination of issues why those centers are closing, right?

So is it just business sustainability and then a lack of enrollment?

What does that look like for the centers?

- Yes, as Kate will be talking with you all about, some of it is just lack of sustainability for some of the models, but more than anything, you need those government subsidies.

When we say we don't have a budget, a lot of people don't really know the impact of what that means.

Childcare is one of those big ones.

$80 million has not been appropriated, it's in the budget that has not passed, and that helps to offset the cost to low-income families that simply can't afford childcare costs.

When that money goes to the facilities, it helps them to be able to provide that care.

$80 million is a lot of money.

And by the time it's appropriated, that number will be an old number.

With inflation, it has not kept up with costs.

That cost is from 2023 or so.

So we really, really would need to update those numbers to even keep up with what it currently costs to maintain these childcare facilities.

- Now we know that it impacts all families, race, gender, identity, all of that.

But we do also know that our black families are feeling the impacts, especially when we know that a lot of our black women are leading their household in income, bringing in the income.

So how is it in particular, are we seeing black families suffering from this?

- It's a one-two punch for black families.

Overwhelmingly, in the care economy in general, you see a lot of women, a lot of women of color, a lot of black women.

Same for childcare.

A lot of these providers are black women, so they're being underpaid for their work.

They're either having to leave their jobs, they're providing the childcare during the day to go home and provide additional childcare to their own children, or if they're the sole providers of their household or are the core income earners for the household, if their wages cannot keep up with the cost of inflation, gas is going up, groceries, everything else.

So it's having a disproportionate impact on women of color, black women in particularly.

- And when we think of our employers, right, either having to lose good employees, how are we potentially seeing the impact there?

Have we seen it start to happen?

- We have.

We have around 35% of families are saying either one of us cannot work, or they're taking different jobs, moving to different areas.

I heard a horrible story of a family who moved states because they simply had to be closer to their parents to have that childcare.

They both were in law enforcement.

They simply could not go on with paying for childcare even though they both were getting the salary of those that were in law enforcement in the Northeast.

That was a part of why they moved to North Carolina, to be closer to family, so that one of their in-laws could care for their children.

They just couldn't afford it.

- If nothing changes, 'cause I don't know how close we are.

We hadn't had a conversation since our last one about the state budget.

You can update us a little bit if you want to, but how close are we to getting that budget passed?

And if it doesn't and this continues, what impact are we gonna see here in North Carolina?

- Yeah, more than anything, we need a real state budget, and also would be remiss if I didn't share.

Now it's a one-two punch.

We're also are coming off of the landmark decision to not fully fund Leandro, so if we're not gonna fully fund public education, K through 12 education, and we're not gonna do what we need to do when it comes to childcare, this is the future of our state.

We need a full comprehensive budget, but at a minimum, what should happen is we should go back to session and make an appropriation for Medicaid and for childcare.

This funding is under the DHHS, Department of Health and Human Services.

If that $80 million was at least provided to these providers, that would be a little bit of a band-aid.

It's still not a long-term comprehensive solution, which we need, but it would go a really, really long way to helping to keep some of these facilities open.

- Well, unfortunately, I don't feel like this will be the last time we talk about it, so I'll see you again when we talk about it, but thank you so much for being here, Senator.

- Thank you.

- Thanks.

Well, while we know it can take time for economic landscapes to change, there are changes that can make an immediate difference when women is making strides and presenting solutions for educators and the early childcare ecosystem.

We'll talk with her after this clip, taking a look at the difference it makes when educators are put first.

- So I am an early childhood father-teacher currently, but I've been in a variety of roles.

- I drove the bus.

I did before and after school.

- I was working as the assistant director and the infant teacher.

- I started in infant one.

- I've been working at childcare for 11, about 11 years now.

- I love little minds and watching them blossom, but when you can't take care of yourself, how can you take care of other people?

When you don't get that support, it kind of hurts you mentally and physically.

- The demands of a childcare provider, you know, on a good day, we're exhausted and we're depleted, but on a bad day or just a, you know, real life things are going on day, it is so difficult.

- After a while, if you're being drained by lack of support and nobody really helping you to figure things out, I mean, it fizzles out, and then that honestly goes down to the kids.

It trickles to the kids because if we're not well, we're not able to mentally cope with, okay, I have this child, love them to death, but we are really having challenging behaviors.

I don't know what to do.

You know, that affects the kids 'cause eventually we're not able to give them all of ourselves.

We're only giving them a small percentage of what we could actually be doing.

- We're asked to like not worry about our own problems and only handle these constant problems that are going on, but from the place of an empty cup to begin with.

- You definitely forget yourself a lot more.

Already we're in a profession of, you know, serving and giving of ourselves, but even more if you're giving over what you have left.

- I come in every day, faithfully come to work 6:30 in the morning, stay till like 5:30 and still trying to like manage school.

And I felt like I didn't really get a lot of support.

And it's been like very stressful.

Like it hurts because, you know, I gave my time to this business for five years.

Teachers need help, not just with a paycheck.

Like we need a little support.

We need people to have our backs.

- It's frustrating when you have opinions or suggestions, whatever, and it gets shut down or nobody hears you.

- I have teachers that be, you know, they be stressed and it's hard for them to actually function in the classroom.

- Working with a good boss, good area, and everybody's loving it, taking time with each other and talking about how you feel it.

Communication is a big key factor.

I love my job.

Ma'am, I am ecstatic.

I can come to work and I'm free and my heart is full with love.

- Every single thing is different about Kate's Corner.

- The biggest thing for me has been our therapy mornings that we have.

- And that's not to say that everything's good all the time.

It's just that everyone's supported all the time.

And that's what makes the difference.

- Even though I cry a little, it's a cry of joy because you know what?

I worked really hard to finally get where I'm at now.

And that's peace and I have a good job now.

- Just to be in a better place, it feels so good.

It's so different, it feels so good.

- If childcare is the workforce behind the workforce, then we have to ask who is supporting the people doing that work.

My next guest is working to change that.

Joining me now is Kate Goodwin, owner of Kate's Corner Learning Center and the founder of the Truth Education Foundation.

Welcome.

- Thank you, thank you.

- We've had you on before because as we said earlier with Natalie, this is nothing new.

You have been working in this space hard and effervescently to change the landscape.

But this childcare crisis, which I know you don't like that term, is nothing new.

So tell us about how long has this been going on and what is the work that you're doing?

- Yeah, I think originally childcare was just structured improperly.

After 1971, when they took away the opportunity for childcare to be a wholesome community-based effort and made it to be more capitalistic in mindset of allowing private entities to come in, it changed the structure of it altogether.

And what we built out is that we knew that we needed better educated individuals understanding child development.

So they had to go to college and they had to get a degree.

And then they would go into a center and the margins wouldn't make sense unless they were managed, time was managed.

So the workforce didn't get to make their 40 hours.

And it just became a situation where a lot of large corporation make their profits off of the margins.

And those margins come from educators not getting what they need.

- Yeah, and earlier we talked about supporting the workforce, but a lot of people don't ever talk about supporting the workforce within the childcare system.

- Absolutely.

- And so your model is about putting the educator first, but what does that look like?

- Yeah, educators, first of all, need to be able to pay their bills and take their stress off of their own lives.

We have, like we said in the video, we're always pouring from an empty cup.

You're coming into the center, you have the stress of life.

You're making $14 an hour.

You're working sometimes eight, but mostly 10 hours a day because those centers are stressed and they don't have enough workers.

And we have to, of course, make sure that we're in compliance with the ratios.

It's stressful.

And for them not to have the right proper pay, and then they get sick because we're in a center of 100 children and there's coughs and there's all kinds of things that are happening to the educator based on what they do.

And then we don't give them medical care.

Like we don't give them benefits to make sure that they can go to the doctor and be well, not just for the children they serve, but for their own families and that they can be at work and be resilient.

But that doesn't happen.

I am probably one of a few providers in the state of North Carolina that provides 100% medical.

- And in watching that video, I've watched it multiple times, but in watching it in preparation for this, it brought me to tears because what it feels like is finally they feel seen, they feel loved, understood, and that makes a world of difference, especially when you're like, when I had to put my kids in childcare, this is someone I'm handing my precious love to.

Why wouldn't I take care of that person?

It's that mindset.

So how does your model work to make educators feel more stable, respected, and more financially sustainable over time as well?

- Yeah.

What we have been working on is really for educators to adopt a professional persona of what they do.

I think the United States is just like, not put an emphasis on the importance of a caregiver, the degrees that they have to come in, be able to facilitate a curriculum, but that is felt inwardly.

And so a lot of our work in the last three years have been trying to build a different persona within those educators to know that they're healers, to know that they are the comfort that children need.

They play such a vital role in our society, and we're shaping those individuals who are going to lead our country at some point.

And it has to begin in the zero through seven is our sound development of a child.

And if we don't begin there, we're doing a lot of recorrecting as they get older, and they're in school, and they have attention deficit disorder that's been unrecognized because someone didn't take the extra mile.

But I think that the educators at our center are seen, and we take care of them by paying them a livable wage, by making sure that they have work-life balance.

We talk about the four-day work week.

It's kind of unheard of, but it wasn't my idea.

It was a director that came to me and said, "Hey, what about a four-day work week that allows an educator Monday through Friday to take off and go to the doctor and run errands?"

Right?

- Unheard of, yeah.

- And so those are things that are really important.

But one step further, and I think this is what people miss, is that you can pay people really well, you can give them benefits, but there's a strain on this workforce that people don't see.

So the mental health and well-being of an educator, how are they whole?

I have a program called Soil Before Seed, and this is the format in which we operate in the center.

If the soil is not good, you cannot plant seed.

And so we do a lot of mental health support for our educators, trying to make them feel as whole as possible before they are asked to go give of themselves to others.

- One thing I also know about Kate's Corner is that you have degreed educators, which isn't always been the case in this space.

But there also, I think, and you obviously correct me if I'm wrong, is because there hasn't been a support in the professional pathway, right, to that.

So how are you solving that?

- Yeah, and early, so I guess childcare has always been, there's a developed hierarchy in childcare.

The director is probably, in most instances, as far as you can go.

And I feel like there are a lot of the girls who get their degree, who are passionate about this, and they see this as a profession.

And in the profession, what we should notate is that if I don't have anywhere to go, if I wanna be a curriculum specialist, or if I wanna think about the psychology of children and help out with mental health and wellness, or you don't have a pathway.

You're either an educator or a director.

So what we've done is we've taken the director's position, and to note that the director does a lot by themselves, and it is not sustainable in its position by itself.

We need to be able to give them support.

So we've created four pathways outside of just being a director so that people who have a degree, who wanna go into curriculum, be a curriculum specialist, or a health and safety specialist, or someone who looks over the professional development of the center, making sure that the educators have required certifications, but also ongoing certifications that will support the betterment of the center.

And then we also have our engagement specialist, someone who is absolutely responsible for the culture just being sewn into the center, and taking them out of the classroom and being able, and I know when people hear this, it's very hard to do this.

And so that leads us to maybe how do we sustain this child care center so that we're able to do this for our educators.

- And as you've been implementing these things, how do you see parents' mindset change around how they view their educator, their child care educator?

- Most of our tours begin with this information that we are a lab school, that we're putting things in place that are not natural.

But the reason why you see a lot of your children's teachers change over and over and over again is due to the way that they're treated and how they're cared for.

And so they champion it.

They think it's great.

And I think I was surprised.

There were a lot of parents that came in asking me, how do you pay your teachers?

Because they know that teachers, and in their pain body, they'll share with them.

Like, I don't make enough money, I've gotta go do something else.

So it's been on the forefront.

And they see the difference in their children.

They see the difference in the stability of their child care center.

It's like you don't have to worry that Miss Marissa's not gonna be there every day.

She is there because she enjoys what she does, but she's well taken care of when she's there.

- She's valued, yes.

Let's talk partnerships, because this work, and you're amazing, I know that personally, but you can't do this all by yourself.

It takes a community.

So what do partnerships look like?

If there's a center owner or a director that's like, we wanna do something like this, but they're in another county, what does partnership look like?

- Yeah, I think that there are a lot of philanthropy out there that wants to see support in the areas of mental health.

That's what we did.

The Forest at Duke was one of our biggest sponsors in supporting mental health and wellness.

And I think that when you can go into a community and put this as a group effort, this is a community issue.

A community needs to come together.

And there are higher education that can be a contributor of that.

We have also partnered with social workers that are like, I wanna be able to help.

And some of our stuff is contractual.

We have people who come in who are licensed social workers that do our mental health and wellness on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

And then just getting them in training and being able to facilitate great training around things outside of childcare, like how to care for yourself, self-care, and things like that.

But our partners have been, along the way, people who come in and say, how can we help?

We have now, we have a sustainable model when it comes to the structure of childcare.

When it comes to, if I am a provider and wanna go into market, what does that look like?

And who will support that overall effort?

And that's what we're leading more toward is a new structure.

- And educational institutions are also part of that.

- Absolutely, absolutely.

- When we look at our technical colleges.

- Yeah, and Durham Tech is a great partner.

They have academies that they're doing now.

We've hired out of those academies.

But we, you know, being educated and coming into early childhood doesn't always get you prepared to be in a classroom of 22-year-olds.

So we partner with them to give the experience to the educators so they know what they're coming into.

And those educators that I have, some of them are degreed.

Some of my educators come with little to no education, but they get to go free through the community colleges.

And there's a great partnership to make sure that they're aligned and they come into the concentrations and excited and stay excited.

- Lastly, how does your model help business owners create that business acumen and sustainability of staffing and just being able to run?

- Yeah.

(laughing) - I think it was operate.

- Operate, yeah.

- Well, I think the biggest thing that we're doing in Kate's Corner and outside of Kate's Corner is understanding the focus on the workforce needing to be valued.

I think that it is important that you value your workforce because the margins that we, like the, I'm sorry, the results of that are great.

We have retention numbers that are amazing.

When people say, "I've been with you "since my child is a toddler "and now they're about to go to kindergarten," and that is our story now, it is because we continue to put the effort into the workforce and value them and give them the pay that they need to sustain themselves.

- Where can folks find more information about the work that you're doing?

- Yeah, I mean, it's everywhere, I guess I feel sometimes, but definitely on our website.

We are a lab school and the research from Truth Education Foundation works solely on making sure that we understand what is necessary to be independent in our solution and trying to figure out what's going on.

I can really appreciate the effort that the state and Senator Murdock and her colleagues are trying to make in order for us to see what's important, but I also have been in this for a very long time and my patience is waned.

So the solutions that I am finding is how can we go into market as a provider with a building that has low to no overhead when you start.

When I started Kate's Corner, I started Kate's Corner with a lot of debt to make it happen and those are the things you don't know as a provider, but as a community, you can come together and be able to provide a space that people understand, like I contributed to that and then it becomes self-sustaining, yeah.

- Well, Kate Goodwin, thank you so much for the work you're doing and I know there's a lot more to come that we'll talk about very soon.

- Yes, absolutely.

- Awesome, and I thank you for watching.

If you want more content like this, we invite you to engage with us on Instagram using the hashtag #BlackIssuesForum.

You can also find our full episodes on pbsnc.org/blackissuesforum and on the PBS Video app.

I'm Kenia Thompson, I'll see you next time.

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