Towns and cities around Marion County are developing their own strategies to encourage the opening of more child care facilities because there is a distinct shortage of them in the county.

This is one of the conclusions reached following a survey on child care which has taken place over the past few months; a presentation by the Marion County Development Commission on Tuesday morning reviewed the findings and the solutions being undertaken.

Carla Eysink is Executive Director of the development commission; she tells KNIA/KRLS News there’s a definite shortage of child care for working parents, and the shortage becomes more acute as they get older.

“The amount of parents we have working (with) zero to five age kids is about 77%, and it increases when the kids go to school. So we know that there’s a lot of need by parents out there for child care spaces,” Eysink says.

“And in looking at the spaces and analyzing what we can as far as what spaces we have at child care centers as well as DHS-regulated homes, that there is a gap in all of our communities between what we have today in spaces and the number of children that need spaces.”

The survey collected information from businesses, providers and over 800 parents in the county; based on this data, local communities are developing their own individual strategies to boost the number of child care spots available to families.

This could in turn encourage more people to move to the county, since a lack of child care has been cited by the Commission as one of the reasons why local employers have had trouble filling positions.

Eysink says providers may also use this information to determine the types of service they provide, and whether they need to expand their hours of operation.