Results of a Minot child care survey held few surprises for the Minot City Council’s child care committee, but it emphasized the known need for nontraditional weekend and evening daycare hours.

The committee met Tuesday, Jan. 6, to review results of the survey, conducted by First Children’s Finance over an 18-day period to better understand child care needs and service gaps in the area. Trinity Health participated in a separate survey to highlight the child care needs of its workforce.

Data gathered by First Children’s Finance found very few slots for nontraditional daycare hours compared to slots for traditional hours.

“Whether it’s healthcare workers, it’s emergency service workers, with military personnel, we have a number of families that have hours that don’t just follow that 8 to 5 or 7 to 5 type of situation, and there is very limited care available,” council member and committee chair Lisa Olson said. “I don’t think any of us are surprised at it, but it did come up in the survey results.”

Given the high number of nontraditional work shifts in the Minot area, First Children’s Finance recommended reviewing regulatory requirements for offering overnight care. This includes considering safe sleeping spaces, supervision ratios, parent-pick-up protocols and appropriate facility layouts for evening and night operations.

Child care providers on the committee acknowledged the issue, citing child care staffing challenges and the extra cost of that staffing as major hurdles to providing nontraditional care.

Committee member Keli Rosselli-Sullivan with Minot Area Chamber EDC said Ward County is not included as part of North Dakota’s child care desert, putting it outside the scope of certain state grants for child care assistance. The committee supported presenting survey results to local legislators to guide them in considering future legislation.

Respondents using Minot-based child care participated in the survey from 21 communities, yielding 811 submissions.

Of the 416 families responding to questions about care preferences, 40% are using care that does not meet their needs or preferences.

The majority of respondents, 66% of community members and 69% of Trinity employees, indicated their family-planning decisions have been influenced by the affordability, availability, or both availability and affordability of child care.

When asked about the documented child care shortage in the Minot area, respondents commonly identified challenges in staffing child care programs, a lack of available infant slots, extensive waitlists, low wages for child care staff and difficulty recruiting and retaining qualified personnel.

The report stated: “Both Trinity Health employees and community members underscored the need for nontraditional hours of care, high-quality care, affordable care, and consistent reliability – all of

which are essential for supporting working families. Survey results indicate that while 135 respondents reported no child-care-related issues affecting their employment, the remaining 334 respondents experienced some level of work disruption due to child care challenges. These impacts ranged from minor issues, such as occasional tardiness, to more significant

consequences, including missed work hours, reduced schedule flexibility, being unable to work altogether, or even being passed over for promotions. The most common challenges involved employees being unable to adjust their schedules or having to miss work because child care was unavailable or unreliable.”

First Children Finance made several recommendations:

– Leverage data to inform and engage the community.

– Explore expanded hours at existing child care offerings.

– Evaluate strategies to reduce cost burdens for employees, such as employer-supported child care stipends, priority access to local providers or partnerships with programs that offer scholarships or sliding-fee scales.

– Promote quality and support provider improvement efforts.

– Maximize employee benefits, including dependent care, stipends or scholarships.

– Continue strengthening community partnerships.

– Address quality staffing concerns by partnering with local colleges, high schools and workforce agencies to recruit and train staff.