Coronavirus In Colorado: State To Provide Child Care To Critical Staff
DENVER (CBS4) - As schools, restaurants and a number of other public spaces are closing their doors, child care facilities are forced with a decision. One that Mile High Early Learning CEO Pamela Harris says was not made lightly.
"As it was coming closer to our community, we did not want to wait for a positive. We wanted to see what we could do to prevent that," she said.
Operating a network of nine center and serving hundreds of families, they made the call to shutdown. Even as the state was issuing recommendations to stay open.
"It was heart wrenching," Harris said.
On Wednesday, Gov. Jared Polis announced the formation of a new coalition of emergency child care providers, also known as the Colorado Emergency Child Care Collaborate.
Mike Johnston with Gary Community Investments is helping coordinate the state's efforts alongside the Department of Human Services and the Department of Early Childhood Development.
Using a new website, they hope to connect those wanting to help with those in need of care.
"This allows us to provide early childhood learning or care to any of those emergency or essential workers whether you are a nurse, or maintenance worker at the hospital, or police or firefighter or EMT, long term care or mental health facilities," Johnston said. "We are going to help those people get access to get child care."
Schools with empty classrooms, community rec centers and established care facilities with open space are responding to the call.
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Harris says after closing her doors it's something they are considering, but with everyone's safety in mind.
"People really want to help and ensure that those people who take care of us are also being taken care of," Harris said.
Johnston says they are working with DHS to scale back class sizes in these emergency care centers while also lowering the teacher to child ratio to reduce transmission risk.
More information for providers or those looking for help can be found here.