Veteran Pre-K Program Dreams of Solving Child Care Crisis

The struggle to find quality child care is an unfortunate rite of passage for most parents, but it can be especially hard in the Bay Area. Namely, the rise of living expenses has resulted in financial burdens for young families.

Even if families can afford to pay the average monthly child care costs of $2,000 a month, they often face extensive interview rounds with admissions teams just to be considered at popular programs. (That’s if they get through the “You should contact us once you’re pregnant” waitlist.)

Then there are the families who are low-income by Bay Area standards but not low-income by the national poverty guidelines, so they don’t qualify for federal or subsidized programs, like Head Start. As a result, thousands of children go unserved, because their families can’t afford the high premiums.

Preparing a child for success shouldn’t be this hard, so the The Institute for Human and Social Development (IHSD) is redesigning their programs to make child care more affordable and available.

Since 1983, IHSD has served low income families with quality and comprehensive child care programs and currently operates ten accredited Head Start centers around the Peninsula. As they look to celebrate their 35th anniversary this year, the organization has some ambitious goals to help with Bay Area’s child care crisis.

“IHSD dreams of bringing our high quality programming to more of the thousands of unserved children and families in San Mateo County,” said IHSD Executive Director Angel Barrios.

On Monday, August 20, IHSD launched a brand new full-day full-year preschool site called “IHSD at Ravenswood” in East Palo Alto off the 101. Starting with four of the classrooms with federally funded dollars, IHSD hopes to operate the remaining eight classrooms as a mixed model program for both tuition and subsidized families.

“IHSD brings a long history of managing high quality programs in our county as well as an innovative approach that will be a great fit for the changing needs of the Ravenswood community,” explained San Mateo County Superintendent of Schools Anne E. Campbell.

IHSD’s core services include:

• Quality early childhood education
• Infant and toddler care
• Health and nutrition services
• Developmental and mental health support
• Family and community support program

IHSD celebrates their 35th anniversary with an inaugural fundraiser on October 21, 2018 at San Mateo Garden Center. To learn more about ways you can support IHSD and its many programs, please visit www.ihsdinc.org.