Formal care requires health and safety regulations. As Tompkins County grows, demand for care grows. Child Care Centers offer age specific curriculum, standard hours, and in some cases, sliding fee scales. Family care homes are preferred by many families because of the home setting, mixed age groups and flexibility. High Turnover is a Problem Centers need large staffs and have difficulty retaining workers due to their inabiity to pay competitive wages.
Most children are in family care homes, but hours are long and returns are low.
Informal Care Helps Fill the Gap Informal child care providers, in contrast, typically are not trained educators. They often are doing a favor for family or friends. Many parents choose informal care due to financial constraints. However, these arrangements may be unstable, it is hard to predict group size, and regulatory oversight of nutrition and safety is limited. Informal care absorbs the overflow of children from the formal system by caring for children whose parents cannot afford formal care, or who need evening or weekend care.