Child care facilities seeking a way for their employees to get training to meet state requirements now have a free option locally to do so.
Foundations Academy Training Center has its first five-day class the first full week of December at the Parkview Warsaw YMCA. The Kosciusko Chamber of Commerce had a ribbon-cutting for the center on Tuesday.
Kosciusko Community YMCA Director of Early Childhood Programming Ashlee Parker said the center came about through "a partnership with LaunchPad, which is the early childhood and child care coalition in the county."
"It came out of a need to provide some onboarding training for newly hired early childhood educators in the county," she said.
Parker said the center will provide child care employees "the state-mandated trainings that they have to have, CPR certification and the health screenings that they need to have and then also some additional trainings to help them when they go to their learning settings: classroom management, managing challenging behaviors, things of that nature."
"The goal is when they leave ... they have the certifications that they need. It takes that off of the director's shoulders and kind of streamlines that process for them," she said.
People don't have to work for child care facilities in Kosciusko County to take part in the training, although priority will be given to those employed in the county when considering seats for the classes, said Parker.
As of early Tuesday afternoon, half of the spots for the first class were still open, said Parker. People may sign up by calling the Parkview Warsaw YMCA at 574-269-9622 and asking for Parker, who's leading the training.
The training is free to participants thanks to $375,000 from a Lilly Endowment Inc. grant awarded to the Kosciusko County Community Foundation and $200,000 from the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration’s Office of Early Childhood and Out-of-School Learning Employer Sponsored Child Care Fund given to the Kosciusko Chamber of Commerce and LaunchPad.
"I'll do onsite follow-up in the weeks after the training, so it will give them another level of support, another person to ask questions, and we will work on goals," said Parker.
"Our goal is that we can get these educators, send them out with a little deeper foundation and with some strategies that they can pull from when they're placed into the learning setting, and we are really hoping that it affects the turnover rate in the early childhood education setting because continuity helps all the way around, the kids, the family, the teachers, everyone," she said.
Kosciusko Community YMCA CEO Dr. Jim Swanson said having the child care training center at the YMCA fits with the organization's goal of "helping with the child care crisis in our community."
"For years, we've stayed close to all of the discussions and wanted to find a way that made sense for us and made sense for the community to share in a solution, and so we're excited about the partnership with the foundation and with LaunchPad and with the chamber and grateful for community donors and just the opportunity to launch our first training center," he said.
Funding from the same Lilly grant will also pay for putting in a play cafe at the Parkview Warsaw YMCA where people can work remotely while their kids are with a play coach.
Swanson noted hopefully a ribbon-cutting for the cafe should be done in spring 2025.