Pandemic Has Taken Mental, Financial Toll On Family Child Care Providers - WBUR
By Kathleen McNerney
Home-based family child care providers in Massachusetts were hit harder, financially and mentally, than other child care providers as the state closed schools and businesses because of the pandemic this spring, according to a new survey.
Child care providers reported high levels of stress and anxiety as the pandemic sickened and killed thousands, upended livelihoods and closed physical school and child care facilities, according to a pair of surveys by the Saul Zaentz Early Education Initiative at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, with Abt Associates research and consulting firm.
"The biggest overarching concern is that they won't be able to reopen," said Stephanie Jones, a professor of early childhood development at Harvard who conducted the research. "That they won't be able to go back to their business — their own business — and they won't have the supports or the resources, access to information that will allow them to do that successfully or the model will be so broken that [it] just will be untenable."