We tend to think about child care as a family issue and a business issue. Four decades ago, the fact is that child care became a “military readiness” issue when the draft was eliminated in favor of an all-volunteer force. With the resulting influx of families and children, child care was needed to reduce the conflict between military mission requirements and parental responsibilities.
It was a turbulent beginning. As military spouses began joining the workforce like their civilian counterparts, families often had to leave their children in unsafe and unhealthy facilities, such as abandoned prisons, stables, and pre-World War II asbestos-filled wooden buildings with lead-based paint. Quality of service was inconsistent and there was little to no accountability. Service members lost duty time due to a lack of reliable child care.
While our nation debates about how to invest in child care, we should look at the lessons the military learned in identifying how to offer high-quality, cost-effective, and available care.
The military committed to improving this experience in the early 1980s. In 1989, the first Army Child Care Center was accredited by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), a marker for high quality programming. Today, 95% of all Military Child Development Programs are accredited by NAEYC, as compared to only 12% of all child care centers in our country.
Frankly, the question that should be asked today is not Should we increase our investment in child care? There is plenty of research on the value of this investment. The more important question is this: How can states, territories, municipalities, and tribes make the most of our investment so they can offer sustainable and high-quality early childhood systems?
The answer, in large part, is found in the Military Child Development System. It is an accountable, scalable system, designed to provide and sustain the right spaces for the children to support both the workforce of today (military and affiliated-civilian employees) and the workforce of tomorrow (the children served).
For the past 30 years or so, politicians, researchers, and child advocates have touted the Military Child Development System as exemplary and challenged us to learn how it became a model for the nation.
The system has four interdependent components that should be considered. Each component has policies, regulations, and procedures that could be adapted to strengthen and support child care systems outside of the military.
Quality: The military provides nationally accredited and regulated child care options provided by a well-trained and compensated stable workforce in safe and functional facilities. To make this possible, they have developed training modules and continuous Individual Development Plans for on-site trainers, directors, and teachers. They offer competitive wages and benefits for the child care workforce. New Child Care Centers have been built with designs that follow standard building requirements and reflect best practices.
Affordability: Military programs operate with both family and public investment. They offer locality based sliding fee scales for families based on their total family income. They manage a program financing model to help figure out the “true costs” to determine families’ fair share and fee assistance that is needed.
Access: The military offers access to multiple program options on and off base, with the right hours (daytime, evening, or weekend care) that meet the needs of children and working parents. Having the appropriate access reduces stress on families. Options for families include early childhood and school-age centers; staffed networks of family child care homes; satellite family child care homes linked to centers; and certified teen and adult babysitters, friends, and neighbors/kith and kin providers. There are defined operational policies and standards for each of the program options.
Accountability: The military maintains ongoing compliance with nationally recognized and unique employer-related (DoD) program standards measured by input, output, and outcome metrics. They practice risk management with tools and practices that support and safeguard the health, safety, and well-being of children and provide protective factors for the staff. Annual internal and external assessments are followed up with support for corrective action plans. Parent Advisory Councils are required at each installation to strengthen family input and oversight.
It will take our federal, state, and local governments, and families all diligently working together to fix our broken child care system. The good news is that we don’t need to figure out how to improve the program operations, strategies, policies, or financing of our child care.
The lessons are already there. We just need to get them shared broadly within our states and communities.
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Contact Kathy with your thoughts and questions. Kathy Thornburg, Ph. D. is a senior advisor at AEM Corporation, focusing on adapting the Military Child Care Model for states, tribes, municipalities, and territories. Previously, she was a Professor at the University of Missouri, where she directed the Child Development Lab and the Center for Family Policy & Research. She also served as Assistant Commissioner for the Missouri Department of Education.
