Week 7 - Goals and Challenges

In my local area, a lack of available child care is a big issue.  Current zoning laws limit child care homes to a total of four children, including those living in the home under the age of 13.  A mother of one child can only offer care for three additional children in her home.  A mother of two can offer care for two additional children, and a mother of three can offer care for one additional child.  Most parents cannot afford to stay home and offer child care services, because of the zoning limits on the total number of children. 

 

Another big issue in the community where I live is trust.  Putting your child into a child care setting with total strangers is very scary to parents.  The news is often telling of horror stories at child care settings.  Within the past year, the news reported on one child care death, one fire resulting in death, and several cases of abuse.  I now have a child enrolled in care that came from an abusive situation in another child care.  The child care is still in business, as the only proof was broken blood vessels around the child’s face, caused by crying.  Since the child care personnel did not break the blood vessels, it was deemed the fault of the child for crying excessively. 

Advocacy is needed in the local community to rectify these issues.  Zoning laws need to be changed, allowing child care homes to open in the local area.  Local homes, directed by local families, would help ease the fear factor of enrolling children into care situations with strangers.  In our small community, reputations of family owned and operated child care homes would travel quickly, and quality child care homes would grow and prosper.  

 There are many opportunities for professional development in the area.  Local colleges offer courses, online college courses are available, and both are subsidized at a rate of two per year (down from 5 per year in 2010).  The local United Way offers classes, as does Penn State Better Kid Care online.  High school students can attend the local Vocational Technical school and major in Early Childhood Education.

My professional goal is to complete this Master’s degree, and retire into online teaching.  I would like to make a difference in early child care, by using my experiences and education to train the next generation of early childhood teachers.  I am hoping to eventually be able to financially support my family entirely through online teaching, and close my child care.  I will miss the children!  I must admit that I am getting older, and less able to physically continue the career of early childhood educator.  My Australian contact, Sue, is also planning on retiring soon.  She is working toward an advocacy issue, of bridging the gap between early childhood teachers and elementary school teachers.  In Australia, as in our country, early childhood teachers are less recognized than elementary school teachers, are paid less, work longer hours, and have fewer benefits.