In what will come as no surprise to military families, the Military Compensation and Retirement Modernization Commission offers wide praise for the quality of military child care, but says there simply isn’t enough of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The commission recommends that Congress give the Defense Department more flexibility to build or expand military child care centers, similar to temporary authority given to DoD in 2006 when service officials were able to increase the number of child care spaces by more than 10,000 before the authority expired in 2009.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The services used operation and maintenance funds to build new child development centers or expand existing ones during that time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The commission recommends allowing projects costing up to $15 million under a renewal of that authority.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
The emphasis should be on adding more spaces for children ages newborn to 3, the commission stated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Troops and families who gave feedback about quality-of-life programs to the commission through surveys, town hall meetings and other forums “illuminated the importance of these programs that are, in many cases, beloved,” according to the commission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Programs for children, especially DoD schools and the Exceptional Family Member Program, were cited as key aspects of military quality of life, according to the commission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yet child care was among the services identified as needing improvement. DoD reported to the commission that as of last September, more than 11,000 children were on waiting lists for child care.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But that may not accurately reflect the full unmet need, commissioners noted, because of some data inaccuracies with waiting lists, and the fact that some parents choose to seek child care elsewhere because waiting lists are so long.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
DoD’s goal is to provide child care within 90 days of need. Child care services are clearly not an entitlement, according to military policy, and not every military parent wants or needs military child care. But the shortage of care for those who do need it was cited as a frustration that affects quality of life and willingness to serve or accept certain assignments, the commission stated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Troops and their families reported that the shortage “sometimes results in situations where they cannot afford alternatives, find it difficult to meet demanding military work schedules, and have to forgo opportunities for spouse employment or education,” according to the report.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
One survey respondent praised the staff at child development centers as being “very loving and nurturing toward the children,” but added: “My complaint is that at bases with 24-hour operations, there are no 24-hour child care facilities, limited local options, and no Family Child Care homes willing to care for children on nights, weekends or overnight when active-duty parents have to work.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In addition to giving the services more flexibility to build and expand centers, the commission recommends that DoD:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On other quality-of-life benefits, the commission recommended:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This has long been advocated by the Military Child Education Coalition and other advocates for military children and is an active issue within DoD.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Consistent, national-level reporting on the performance and attendance of military dependent students is currently not available,” the commission said, “which “inhibits efforts to better understand and support these children.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Military Compensation and Retirement Modernization Commission says more child care slots should be available.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":96178,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":83,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[83,15],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3302],"class_list":["post-53135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-military-benefits","category-pay-benefits"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"QPUWTXEAEJECTDTC7GL722DQFU","arc_canonical_url":"\/pay-benefits\/military-benefits\/2015\/01\/30\/commission-improve-child-care-access\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n