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NEW ULM – A special briefing was held Thursday at the CAST Senior Center / New Ulm Community Center for seniors wishing to replace daycare.
New Ulm, Minnesota and the United States in general are facing a shortage of child care centers. For years, the New Ulm Economic Development Authority (EDA) has tried to find methods to alleviate the shortage. Without adequate child care, many parents are unable to return to the workforce, creating a labor shortage. The EDA has found that the limited number of daycares is a barrier to businesses entering the community or expanding.
Increasing the number of daycares and maintaining existing daycares has become a top priority.
Recently, Mayor Terry Sveine suggested recruiting seniors to replace daycares. In the event that a regular daycare needed to take a few hours off for personal business, it could search a database of available senior substitutes who could replace it.
“Many providers need a substitute”, said Sveine. He learned that a claimant no longer had an active driver’s license because she did not have time available during working hours to renew her license.
There are other times when a provider might use a replacement to attend medical appointments or even complete routine paperwork. A substitute could help fill many gaps in the system.
Sveine said it won’t fix all daycare programs, but it could help maintain current providers.
Sveine believes the seniors are in a unique position to help as substitutes. He is currently looking after his grandson several days a week and believes that other seniors would be interested in helping to look after the young ones.
Any senior replacement would receive an hourly wage from claimants, when and if they worked. Depending on the provider, that would be $ 10 to $ 20 an hour.
The meeting at the community center included childcare specialists from Brown County Social Services to provide seniors with the information they need to become a surrogate.
Daycare licensing supervisor Laura Filzen explained that any replacement would require a background check. Minnesota also requires that informal caregivers undergo training before caring for children. This training includes courses in CPR, Sudden Unexpected Infant Death Syndrome and other basic training. Replacement training requires continuing education. Some training is annual and others every two years. New Ulm EDA has already agreed to cover the costs of this training.
Anyone interested in joining the Senior Day Care sub-program can contact the Brown County Licensors Office at Social Services. Licensors can help you get started.
A next briefing will be scheduled in the coming weeks for those unable to attend Thursday’s meeting.
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