(WFXR)– More than one million dollars is headed to Southwest Virginia, to help provide more childcare options for working parents.
Governor Glenn Youngkin’s $1.24 million in grant money will help support the “ready Southwest Virginia” program.
It’s an effort announced last year by the United Way of Southwest Virginia to help fill the childcare gap.
“We feel that addressing the childcare shortage, especially right now with the cost of living helps more people have that reliable and affordable care so they can be gainfully employed,” said Travis Staton, CEO of United Way of Southwest Virginia.
Staton says with the money, the goal is to bring 100 new teachers into early childhood education over the next 24 months.
“These resources will help us work with existing providers to give them more resources, technical assistance to help them post jobs, create job descriptions, but to also help them with the recruiting,” said Staton.
The money will also go toward training workers to serve as assistant teachers in daycare facilities, to eventually become teachers and lead instructors.
In Governor Youngkin’s press release, he says it’s important to strengthen childcare in our area to move Virginia in the right direction:
“Finding quality, affordable and available childcare options for working families in Virginia has been an enduring challenge. Expanding access to providers while strengthening the current network is a necessary step in the right direction.”
Gov. Glenn Youngkin
Congressmen Morgan Griffith also weighed in on the conversation, after he voted for the Federal Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, which helps fund workforce development resources and expand childcare.
“You want to have employees who are able to get re-trained, but sometimes can’t get retrained to get a new job, because they do not have someone to take care of their children,” said Congressmen Griffith
The United Way of Southwest Virginia works with more than 214 child care centers, with licensing capacity for about 15-thousand students.
Staton says it’s important to revive the young workforce in Virginia.
“It is particularly important that this work be done in Southwest Virginia, Staton said, because the gap between available childcare slots and the need is more than twice as great in rural Virginia communities (20.4 percent) than in urban Virginia (9.1 percent).”
Travis Staton, CEO of United Way of Southwest Virginia.
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