EXCERPT FROM: Pacific Daily News
By Laura Matthews
A program that provides assistance to some families for child-care services will be suspending new applications.
The Department of Public Health and Social Services will suspend new enrollment in the Child Care Development Fund. And families whose children were once enrolled in the program and are no longer receiving assistance won't be able to reapply.
Public Health said a growing number of applicants and increases in provider rates for child-care services are forcing it to suspend enrollment indefinitely for the Child Care Development Fund effective May 1.
The suspension is to ensure there is adequate funding for Public Health to continue providing services to families already in the program, said Christine San Nicolas, the social services supervisor for the Work Program Section of the agency.
"This is not something new that we haven't done before," San Nicolas said. "We have suspended new applications before just to (look over) the funding."
San Nicolas said if enrollments for new and reapplying applicants aren't stopped, the program will have a $3 million shortfall of funds. She said current applicants don't need to worry, as they will continue to receive services.
Expanded eligibility
Public Health is seeing an increase in the number of families enrolled in the program because it expanded some of the eligibility conditions, San Nicolas said.
One of those conditions was the allowing of full-time child care for unemployed parents in order for them to find a job. Full-time is defined as any parent who is in a work or training program for at least 30 hours per week, or pursuing 12 credit-hours at an education institution, San Nicolas said.
She said by extending full-time child-care assistance to the unemployed, parents wouldn't have to worry about who will take care of their children while they use the allotted three months for job searching.
Instead, San Nicolas said, parents were able to place their children in a child-care center or with an in-home provider, which can be a friend or a relative.
"We pay the center or the provider for providing child-care services," San Nicolas said.
For the first quarter of the 2010 fiscal year, San Nicolas said an average of 1,045 children were enrolled in the program. For the second quarter, from January to March, the enrollment was averaging 1,355 children, she said.
Enrollment went from 852 families to 937 families. With that increase, San Nicolas said, child-care centers' costs have gone up.
"One Tamuning center in March 2009 was charging an average of $400 per child, for the age range 0 to 1 year -- full time," she said. "Now, April 2010 -- the same age range -- the same provider is charging anywhere between $800 to $850 per child."
The Child Care Development Fund program is fully funded by the Department of Health and Human Services. San Nicolas said Congress determines how much money is allotted to the territories.
Guam got $3,978,605 for fiscal 2010, according to San Nicolas.
"Even if we want to ask for more (money), we can't," San Nicolas said. "We cannot apply for it because Guam gets discretionary funding. What we want to prevent is having to cut families or children from the program."
Business hurt
Rosalie Chang, owner of Amazing Kids Child Development Center, said the suspension of the program will affect her business.
"(Parents) are going to stay home and take care of their kids if there is no alternative," Chang said. "If we don't have kids, we have to cut down on employees' hours and we might lose them. That's the effect."
Chang said there are about 33 children at her Hagåtña center who benefit from the program. She has 51 children enrolled, with a capacity for 58 children.
"We pay the center or the provider for providing child-care services," San Nicolas said.
Full text available at Pacific Daily News.