The number of at-home day cares is growing in South Carolina while a handful of larger centers, which are more costly and tightly regulated, have closed, state records show.
State regulators say they’re not sure what’s causing the change.
But operators of the day care at Columbia’s Forest Lake Presbyterian Church are sure.
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Midlands day care
Day-care facilities around South Carolina are showing signs of stress. Larger, more expensive day cares are closing, while less expensive in-home facilities are opening. The numbers for Richland and Lexington counties:
7
Decrease in number of larger, more regulated and more expensive centers operating now than in 2008
31
Increase in the number of smaller, least-regulated and generally least-expensive in-home facilities operating now than in 2008
190
Number of licensed or regulated child-care centers in the two-county area
220
Number of registered in-home day cares in the two-county area
SOURCE: Division of Child Care Services of the S.C. Department of Social Services
“This economy has gotten the best of us,” Pastor Ellen F. Skidmore said Friday, the last day of the church’s Childhood Enrichment Center, which has taken care of children full-time since 2000 and part-time for 15 years.
“It feels like a funeral,” she said.
This year, across the state, 101 in-home day-care facilities have opened as seven child-care centers shut their doors, according to the state division of child care services.
Also, parents struggling to balance wage cuts or layoffs might be keeping children out of day care altogether — watching them at home or turning to neighbors or relatives for help.
Forest Lake Presbyterian, on Trenholm Road, is licensed for up to 60 children from infants to 4 years old. But enrollment has steadily slipped from about 40 a year ago toward the 20s this fall, Skidmore said. The church could not afford to make up the loss of income.
“That’s the point at which we knew we didn’t have enough cushion to carry us,” Skidmore said. “It’s very sad.
“We had parents losing jobs,” she said. That meant grandparents became child-care providers in some instances.
South Carolina’s unemployment rate is 12.1 percent, the nation’s fourth worst.
Amanda Trower and 4-year-old daughter Ceseley, or “CeCe,” said their last goodbye to staffers and other kids at about midday.
“They practically raised her,” Trower, an elementary-school teacher, said of the infant she took to Forest Lake at age 9 months. “CeCe was always happy when we left her and happy when we picked her up.
“This is very unfortunate because it’s so hard to find some place you like and feel comfortable with.”
Trower said she was unaware the center was in trouble and the closing has left some parents “devastated.”
“Some people have had to put their children on waiting lists (at other facilities),” Trower said.
She and her husband were luckier, though they will pay $15 more per week for CeCe.
Skidmore is not sure how many other day-care facilities are having a tough time.
Yet the fact that so many Forest Lake parents with infants found other facilities indicates many vacancies, she said. Infants are the hardest to place.
“I was amazed that centers close to us were able to take infants so quickly,” Skidmore said. “That tells me they had capacity.”
Leigh Bolick, director of child-care regulation at the S.C. Department of Social Services, said it’s too soon to declare a trend.
“Anecdotally, it seems that there are quite a number of centers closing. There seems to be a rise in family child-care homes,” Bolick said.
Day-care facilities open and close routinely, she said. Still, regulators in the field are reporting signs of a shift.
A quick analysis on Friday of data in Bolick’s office found there are 1,098 regulated centers statewide compared with 1,105 in 2008.
The number of group homes (intermediate-size facilities that care for seven to 12 children) has dropped by 28, to 209 from last year’s 237.
In-home facilities are up by about 100, to 1,644 from 1,543 last year, Bolick said.
A closer look at the immediate Columbia area shows the number of centers remains the same in Lexington County, at 73, while Richland County has lost seven, including Forest Lake, for a total of 117.
Figures on group homes for the two counties were not immediately available.
In-home day care has risen by a total of 31 facilities in both counties. Lexington added 11, bringing its total to 91. Richland added 20, for a total of 129, Bolick said.