By Dan Spalding
News Now Warsaw
WARSAW — Sherry Searles thinks 2024 could bring more success in the on-going efforts to expand child care capacity in Kosciusko County
Searles (pronunciation is similar to “girls”) is the director of LaunchPad, a program established five years ago by Kosciusko Chamber of Commerce.
She’s helped create an aggressive approach toward increasing child care opportunities in the county and sits on Gov. Eric Holcomb’s Early Learning Advisory Committee.
Searles, a former teacher with Warsaw Community Schools who has an extensive background in early learning, talked with News Now Warsaw’s public affairs show, In the Know, last week about some of the successes LaunchPad has seen.
Kosciusko County is one of the few chamber organizations in the state that has made child care a top priority with the belief that it’s an ecomonic development issue.
Searles credits the support of the community and the a 20-member board that has heped direct initiatives.
Efforts by LaunchPad are seeing results.
In recent months, LaunchPad received $490,000 from an employer grant program via the state, which used money from the American Rescue Plan Act. LaunchPad was then awarded $2.8 million through a Lilly Endowment grant that will be directed for child care with a focus on serving families with children ages 0-3.
Early learning child care has become a priority for LaunchPad.
“The truth is it’s very restrictive to open an infant room because of the ratios of child-to-teacher, it’s very cost-prohibitive,” Searles said. “With this funding, we’ll be able to offer the program money for each year to open the program and to sustain that program until it’s full.”
“Hopefully, if an infant or toddler comes in, they may bring a three- or four- or five-year-old sibling with them so we hope to establish more infant toddler rooms across the county with this funding,” she said.
Searles said those types of grant victories set the stage for more success in the coming year.
“With our funding that we have behind us, with the group we have assembled to get there, I’m excited about where we’re going,” she said.
In its first five years, LaunchPad has been able to help establish 500 new “seats” in Kosciusko County for child care.
Some of those have come through a private firm, Instrumental Machine & Development (IMD), which opened its own facility in Warsaw and made it available to the public.
LauchPad also assisted with opening a registered child care ministry at Pleasant View Bible Church.
But much of the progress has come through local school districts that realize their teachers are in need of child care for their own children.
Warsaw, Tippecanoe Valley, Wawasee and Whitko school districts now offer child care services to its staff, she said.
Whitko recently became licensed to take children from the community and Wawasee and Tippecanoe Valley are working on becoming licensed, Searles said.
“It’s a lot of work and a lot of investment on their part,” she said.
LaunchPad has also worked to remove barriers by lobbying for zoning changes in the city of Warsaw and Kosciusko County that will make it easier in the future to open up new child care facilities.
The chamber has also established a fingerprinting service that expedites one of the requirements needed for new child care workers who are entering the field.
The service has helped not only the local workforce but also others from surrounding communities, she said.
