SANTA ANA, Calif. \u2014 Finding available and affordable childcare isn’t easy for many parents in California.\u00a0<\/p>\n
What You Need To Know<\/p>\n
Orange County recently awarded First 5 Orange County $75,000 to help launch an incubator program for childcare providers
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A study by First 5 Orange County finds that there are only enough childcare providers for about 5% of kids in OC
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The program will help childcare providers learn about quality childcare and running a small business<\/p>\n
Orange County isn\u2019t an exception. There are only enough childcare providers in OC for about 5% of children in the county, according to a study by First 5 Orange County, a public agency that invests in child development.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The County recently awarded First 5 $75,000 to help launch a childcare incubator. The program aims to help train and add to the number of childcare providers available in OC.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The average salary for a childcare provider in California is $37,430, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That could be a contributing factor to the number of licensed childcare providers in the state dropping by 1,100 since 2019, according to Education Source.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople just see the taking care of the children portion of the business, but there\u2019s also a lot of behind the scenes that we have to do,\u201d said Omar Mauricio, who co-owns New Hope Ositos Child Day Care in Santa Ana. \u201cWe have to stay compliant with licensing. We have to stay compliant with the quality of the food that we give to our children. And on top of that, there\u2019s also the business aspect of things that we have to be compliant with the state.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mauricio runs the daycare center with his wife, Lucy Manzanares, who says the first year in the business was exceptionally difficult.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a little bit hard,\u201d Manzanares said. \u201cThanks to my husband, we stayed open like a year without getting payments, without getting a lot of the resources that we have now.\u201d<\/p>\n
First 5 Orange County is working to help entrepreneurs in the childcare space to help ease some of the burden and get more people working in the industry to help parents find adequate and affordable care.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe small business training that they need to be a successful business,\u201d said Kim Goll, who is the president & CEO of First 5. \u201cBut it also focuses on quality childcare, and I think it\u2019s an important strategy, among a host of other strategies. It\u2019s not going to be the thing that solves this.\u201d<\/p>\n
But the program could help give a much-needed jumpstart to the industry in Orange County. Goll adds that research has shown that proximity to childcare is an important factor for parents.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cMany families would prefer to put their kids in friends, family, neighbor, or family childcare,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s a more comfortable environment for them. So all we\u2019re doing is giving those that are interested in it, the tools to succeed.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Manzanares, even though she and her husband have faced difficulties being childcare providers, the service she\u2019s providing, in terms of helping the kids learn, and the added resources give her joy while trying to grow the business.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m very thankful because I can do those things now,\u201d she said. \u201cI can teach them, they can learn from us, and you know, I don\u2019t know, maybe we have a future president here!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SANTA ANA, Calif. \u2014 Finding available and affordable childcare isn’t easy for many parents in California.\u00a0 What You…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":391324,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164,16492,31532,7,1570,31533,59022,5999,5996],"class_list":["post-391323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news","tag-app-health","tag-app-human-interest","tag-california","tag-health","tag-human-interest","tag-jas-kang","tag-socal-what-you-need-to-know","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=391323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391323\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/391324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=391323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=391323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=391323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}