Credit: Michael Collier/EdSource Today

Children play at a family child care home in Oakland.

Credit: Michael Collier/EdSource Today

Children play at a family child care home in Oakland.

Five years ago, during the recession, Maria Morcera lost her business firm to foreclosure in Atwater, a city in California's Cardinal Valley. The house wasn't just where Morcera, her hubby and their four children lived. It as well was licensed by the land every bit a family intendance home, where Morcera offered child care to children ranging in age from infancy to 5 years old.

"I was embarrassed" to lose the dwelling house, she said. "I had a lot of stress. It was really hard."

Morcera was one of thousands of child care providers who were forced out of business during the recession. Family unit homes were large losers, particularly for owners such equally Morcera whose mortgage obligations exceeded their income when the families they served lost their jobs and could not afford kid care.

Between 2006 and 2012, the number of child care homes in California dropped from 38,000 to 33,000, according to the California Child Care Resource and Referral Network. The loss of these homes placed boosted burdens on parents seeking child care considering the land already was suffering from a shortage of kid care options, a condition that continues today. Estimates at the time indicated that but ane in four working parents had admission to early care and educational activity services.

Family homes make upwardly a crucially important piece of the kid care organisation in California, experts say, by providing a broad network of care from rural areas to major cities and including the comforts of a home.

"If nosotros lost family kid care it would be devastating to working families," said Judy Kriege, programme director at Bananas, a resource and referral agency in Oakland that connects families with intendance providers.

Family unit habitation child care providers often are less expensive than the larger child care centers because the home providers take the lower overhead costs of working in their home, Kriege said. In improver, family homes often provide a more than personal and unique cultural and language experience for young children in ways that larger child intendance centers aren't able to deliver.

Family homes also are able to provide more flexible hours than child care centers, which helps parents who don't work  9-to-five weekday schedules, Kriege added.

"If we lost family child care it would be devastating to working families," said Judy Kriege, plan manager at Bananas, a resource and referral agency in Oakland that connects families with intendance providers.

The vast majority of licensed family unit kid care home providers have some form of subsidy from the state, co-ordinate to a survey by the California referral network. Depression-income parents who qualify for what are in effect vouchers tin apply them to pay for fees in a diversity of child care settings.

State reimbursement rates to providers vary by county. A home in Alameda County, for example, receives $206 from the state per full-fourth dimension kid per week for 2- to v -yr-olds. By contrast, a child care habitation in rural Lassen County receives $136 a week for the aforementioned level of care for a child 2 to five years old.

Check out how much a family child intendance domicile in your county is reimbursed for each child it serves.

Rates for not-subsidized full-time intendance in a family home or kid care center in California tin can range from $1,000 a calendar month to more than $2,000 a month.

The homes serve about 300,000 out of 1 million child intendance slots licensed by the land. Fifty-fifty before the recession, there were non enough child care providers in the state to run across the needs of the iii one thousand thousand or and then children under the historic period of 5 in California.

Today, Morcera is back in business, and hundreds of others are starting up as well, in tandem with the land'due south recovering economy and housing market. Thanks to financial help from her grown daughters, Morcera was able to purchase a smaller abode where she runs her new business, Coco's Day Intendance, which is not far from her old habitation. She cares for a dozen children, from infants to 5-year-olds.

In the 2013-14 fiscal year, the statewide referral network helped license 632 new family child care home providers and created more than than 5,000 child care slots – a slow climb back to pre-recession levels, simply one that is welcomed by child intendance advocates.

A family kid care dwelling such every bit Morcera's is the proper name given to a child care setting in a private home that is licensed by the state. Such homes brand up more than than half the country-licensed child care facilities and they can serve a maximum of 14 children, depending on the children's ages and the size of the home. Child intendance centers, by contrast, serve more children and are housed in public buildings, such equally schools, or private facilities.

The family child care homes and the child care centers form a foundation for what students learn in their earliest years, and research shows that children who attend high-quality preschool programs are more likely to succeed in life than those who don't.

Asiya Jabbaar, director of Reaching Beyond Care, a family childcare home in Oakland, shows off students' art work.

Michael Collier/EdSource

Asiya Jabbaar, managing director of Reaching Beyond Care, a family child care home in Oakland, shows off students' artwork.

Asiya Jabbaar has been able not only to tough out the recessionary hits that forced many others out of the child care business but also to build a highly rated program in the procedure. Each weekday forenoon, she opens the door to her loft in Oakland's Fruitvale District, which doubles every bit a family unit kid care home that she has named Reaching Beyond Intendance. She and one or two administration welcome as many as eight energetic children, from infants to 5-year-olds. Her xiv-year-sometime girl, who lives with her, goes to school while Jabbaar works.

Jabbaar, 38, who earned a master's degree in Early Childhood Pedagogy from Mills College in Oakland, said the general public should think of her and others in her profession as educators rather than caregivers.

She was working with five kids, two of them with special needs who were sleeping during the morn in a room used for napping. The loft had the usual trappings of a family kid care home, with a variety of stations where students were playing. The children's recent paintings of flowers were strung from ane side of the loft to the other.

3 girls were finishing an art projection and talking up a storm at one of the stations – pressing scraps of colored paper together as part of an exercise designed to stimulate their sensory development. Afterwards, i of the girls grabbed a toy blood-pressure cuff from a bin and wrapped it around Jabbaar's arm. The kids routinely engage with Jabbaar in "doc play" to larn how their bodies piece of work.

At lunchtime, Jabbaar beckoned the kids to the dining table using American Sign Language while speaking the words in English. She teaches signing commencement as a universal language for the kids, and then uses information technology to introduce words in English.

Equally they saturday downwardly together, Jabbaar asked the children to describe their lunch. "Black beans," said ane. "Strawberries," said another, and "hummus," said the 3rd, afterward a chip of hesitation. One day a week, Jabbaar takes the children to a nearby farmers market to introduce them to healthy eating choices. On other days, the students play at a park in nearby Alameda to larn about the natural environment, or walk to a public library a block from the child care home to listen to stories.

Like family unit child care home providers in most of California, Jabbaar is being rated under the state's Quality Rating and Comeback System (QRIS). With funding from a $75 million Race To The Top Early Learning Challenge Grant, the rating effort aims to increment the number of child care homes that receive high-quality marks and is designed to help parents make decisions on where to ship their young children.

In the kickoff round of quality reviews last year, Jabbaar said her coach from the Bananas resource and referral network visited her home and gave her a v-star rating, the highest. Another round of reviews is existence conducted and volition be completed past June 2016.

Several times a day, Jabbaar jots downwards notes of her observations of students' cognitive development in addition to their social and emotional progress, and passes along information to parents. She likewise uses an assessment tool, known as the Desired Results Developmental Contour, to gauge her iv-year-olds' readiness for kindergarten.

To brand time for such assessments, Jabbaar relies on two assistants to help her work with the children. She'southward been looking to hire a 3rd assistant simply decided to put that on hold after Oakland raised its minimum wage on March 2 from $ix an hour to $12.50 an 60 minutes. Jabbaar's charge per unit for parents seeking full-time unsubsidized child care is $325 a week.

Juggling work and family issues can impose significant stress. For example, she recently had to close her business for a twenty-four hour period to take her daughter, who lives with diabetes, to the UC San Francisco hospital for a checkup.

Despite pressures like these, in Atwater, Morcera is thrilled to exist running a family kid care home again. Last yr, she said, she put on a graduation party for families whose children were moving on from preschool to kindergarten.

"I taught them the ABCs," she said, "and I love them."

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