A mom of two young children, I understand the struggle to find reliable, affordable childcare. In fact, both Klickitat and Skamania counties are recognized childcare deserts. I intend to work to expand programs that provide quality care as well as workforce support.  

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• Too many working families fortunate enough to have childcare still struggle to pay the increasing costs. Investing in affordable childcare is investing in our future. By ensuring that no family spends more than 7% of their income on childcare, we’re making sure that every child gets a great start, and every parent can contribute fully to the economy.

• Childcare is an economic issue. When parents do not have a safe, reliable, and affordable place for their children while they work, they're forced to miss shifts and lose income. 

• Ensuring that early education and childcare jobs also pay livable wages is also key. Low wages are contributing to high staff turnover, which in turn is destabilizing the childcare industry and making it harder for parents to trust that they have a stable, reliable place to send their kids.

• I will also work to retain and improve Washington’s paid family leave programs so parents can spend crucial time with their newborns without worrying about finances. 

• As an industry, childcare is also a space in which a majority of the small-business owners are also mothers themselves. We need to work on policies that maintain safe spaces for children but also address some of the barriers that prevent many women homecare providers from being able to grow into running a childcare facility.

• We need to provide creative tools and programs that allow local organizations and governments to be able to participate more effectively in solving this problem. Locally in White Salmon, I have led on proposals to remodel existing public facilities to become childcare facilities, in hopes of forging public/private partnerships that can contribute to addressing the issue.

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