‘Band-Aid on a historical problem’: Child care providers expect slow collapse of sector without long-term aid

Children play at Shady Lane School in Homewood, Pittsburgh (Courtesy of Shady Lane School) Allegheny County allocated $20 million in COVID-era federal funds to prop up the child care sector over the pandemic. Now that part of the funding is coming to an end, advocates and providers fear the same old problems will cripple facilities county-wide. by Betul Tuncer,& James Paul,& Erin Yudt,& Tanya Babbar& and& Juliet Martinez, For PublicSource Lindsey Ramsey became an aide in an infant room at a child care facility as a 19-year-old single mom looking for work so she could afford diapers for her daughter. Never having thought about entering the sector, she learned how to care for children from a group of passionate caregivers. “I had no idea what I was doing,” said Ramsey, 34, now the executive director of Shady Lane School in Homewood. “But we had a wonderful group of educators who helped uplift new people entering the field … and they taught me how to change diapers and be a mom … I started to fall in love with early childhood education.” The pandemic, though, exacerbated a multitude of underlying problems that had long haunted the care industry, such as high...