Local Budget Hearing

On May 11, Jennifer Iverson testified before the Prince George’s County Council at the Council’s virtual public hearing on the budget.

The county plays a crucial role supporting the work of the Resource Center. Jennifer took the opportunity to highlight the new way of working and supporting families, including offering remote early childhood home visits, tele-therapy for parents, and delivering groceries, diapers and gift cards to families who are in dire circumstances.

Jennifer also called attention to the crucial role of child care, before, during and after this pandemic. “Prior to COVID 19, there were about 400 child care centers and about 800 licensed family child care providers in the county with spaces for 25,000 children. Now, there are only about 270 operating below capacity to serve our essential personnel,” she explained.

Providers are wondering how they can come back from this when they only operated with a shoe string margin in the best of times; and the business model simply cannot be sustained if re-opening will require small groups of children, socially distanced.

Read Jennifer’s testimony here.

Posted on 5/21/2020