Providers urge county to prioritize infant and toddler slots to ease wait lists

Community partners at the Aug. 4 listening session urged the Buncombe County Early Childhood Committee to consider infant and toddler slots as a top priority, citing heavy demand, long wait lists and the benefit of early intervention.

"Funding for infants and toddlers spots... have the highest level of support from the work that we've done, 84%," Chair Martin said when opening that portion of the discussion. Providers described local experience: Brian said the county-funded grant previously supported toddler classrooms and gave children early intervention advantages. Marsha Whitney of Werner Center said providers often are "the first ones who are identifying that a child is not developing typically," and noted that early intervention matters when "our 90% of brain development is taking place in the first 2000 days." Another partner summarized supply data by saying "for every infant born in our county, there's only a slot for 8 percent of them."

Speakers cautioned that infant/toddler care is expensive to run and that centers frequently struggle to staff such classrooms. Caroline and others noted challenges sustaining slots created by time-limited grants and difficulty tracking whether those slots remain available in subsequent years. Several partners recommended pairing slot funding with workforce supports and operations-related supplements so rooms do not open only to close later.