A wave of closures has left families scrambling to secure child care in Bloomington-Normal.
Three child care centers have closed in recent months, deepening an existing shortage of options in the area.
Hilary Pacha is a mom of five kids from Normal. She was left in a bind when one of two Cadence Academy locations closed abruptly late last year. Pacha’s children are all school aged. She’s a working single mom and needed after-school care for the younger ones — who she adopted through foster care.
“When you have your kids in child care, these are places that should be their safe place, the people they connect with, that they feel a sense of belonging — and especially for children who’ve been through trauma,” said Pacha.
Pacha said families were provided a list of other child care centers and a few weeks to figure out a plan.
“That was terrifying for me,” she said.
Melissa Breeden is the regional council manager for Birth to Five Illinois, a nonprofit aimed at mobilizing community resources around child care in Illinois. Region 17 includes DeWitt, Livingston, Logan and McLean counties.
Breeden said losing child care can throw families completely off their axis.
“You have a routine. You have trusted adults. You have a village to lean on. And when that rug gets pulled out from under you, it’s emotionally devastating,” she said.
“Everybody, especially kids, thrive on structure and knowing what to expect, especially young children who are developing and learning,” said Pacha, who also serves on Birth to Five’s Family Council.
“It’s been super challenging for us,” she said.
Three months later, the kids still ask about their teachers and question why they aren’t going to their former day care. One of her youngest children — Pacha has twins in kindergarten — has started acting out and getting in trouble more.
Take a breath first
Breeden said most parents’ impulse is to spring to action, but the first thing on their lists should be to take a deep breath.
“I didn’t follow that first step, by the way,” said Pacha. “I panicked and then just called Melissa. And then she told me to take a deep breath.”
Pacha’s situation is unique. In addition to needing trauma-informed care for her kids, she relied on Cadence Academy for transportation from school.
“Not only do I not have child care, but I have to find one that goes to that school to pick them up — because otherwise, what’s the point, right? I leave work to go pick them up and drop them off somewhere. That’s not feasible. And so now, the pool is even narrower.”
And Pacha’s wasn’t the only family left scrambling. In addition to the Cadence Academy in north Normal closing, two centers in east Bloomington, Kidsville and Bright Horizons, have also closed in recent months. Two new centers, the Farmhouse and Joshua Tree Ministries, both in Bloomington, are enrolling kids on a waitlist.
But Breeden said the additions don’t chip away at the shortage in Bloomington-Normal. It doesn’t even close the gap —especially for school-aged kids. Joshua Tree is currently enrolling infants only on its website. The center will eventually add toddlers, pre-school and before and after-school programs up to 12 years old.
The Farmhouse on Hersey Road will serve infants through Pre-K, with summer programs available for 6- to 12-year-olds.
“You think about the typical workday as 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., but children get out of school sometimes as early as 2:45 p.m.,” said Breeden. “It’s really trying to figure out the in-between time, and I can say there are definitely gaps to that when you look at the number of children in McLean County, specifically, under the age of eight.”
So, there might be an opening at a child care center, she said, “but logistically, it just doesn’t work.”
Families also are racing the clock to try to find a spot as other families are scrambling, too.
“Literally, it feels like the Hunger Games,” she said. “A family like mine, where we get subsidy, they’re not getting reimbursed as much for us. Then it’s like, I already feel like I have a strike against me.”
Pacha said the only place that met her needs and had an opening far exceeded her budget. In the end, she rearranged her schedule to be able to pick up the kids at school and be with them in the afternoons.
“This really made life feel a little uncertain for them, and it kind of spun them out of control,” she said. “So I thought, because I have the ability to leave work early, maybe I need to do that for my children, because I think putting them somewhere else would have been too stressful. I know not every parent can do that, but maybe it’s just looking at, what can you do?”
It’s a temporary plan. Pacha will likely have come up with another solution for the summer, but for now, she’s making the most of the opportunity to spend more time with her kids — “…and just being more intentional with my time and getting them more regulated—taking my time and not rushing it.”
Leaning on resources
In McLean County, Breeden said families can lean on several resources, including the Child Care Resource and Referral Network, located inside the Illinois House in downtown Bloomington. The agency has case managers who can help families identify a center that meets their needs and maintains a provider database in McLean, Livingston, DeWitt and Ford counties.
Brightpoint has a crisis nursery available for short-term respite care. And Breeden recommends Relatives Raising Children, a statewide program providing compensation for grandparents providing childcare.
“There are also other in-home providers that families can consider, even if it’s a temporary solution for a little while,” she said.
Breeden said District 87 and Unit 5 also are working to address child care gaps.
“And they are working to expand access,” she said. “For example, Sarah Raymond. They’re under construction. We can’t wait to see what’s that’s going to look like and how many kids can additionally be served by that new facility.”
But Breeden said making child care affordable, accessible and even possible takes everyone pitching in.
“This burden should not be on the parent alone,” she said. “For families to be able to work, for our society to be healthy economically, we need to invest in kids from birth.”
Breeden said access to child care is a workforce issue.
“We all learned that during the pandemic,” she said. “It was interesting to see how quickly early childhood professionals were respected and considered essential workers — and then we saw how quickly that changed.”
Child care workers in Illinois, on average, make about $30,000 despite needing advanced education to work in the field. And according to federal jobs data, care giving and ballooning child care costs are the top reason women are leaving the workforce.
Pacha said she considers herself lucky. She has flexibility in her schedule to adjust her work day around her kids’ schedule.
“If I wasn’t, this could easily have disrupted that," she said. "And then, would I even have a job? Now you’re going to have a single mom of five kids without an income?”
Breedan said the state's new Department of Early Childhood is designed to make navigating the child care system easier for families. The department is scheduled to be fully online this summer.
