Building oases in a child-care desert, First 5 O.C. class helps women start home day cares
Costa Mesa’s Scarlett Lobo was working in the mortgage loan industry but left her job two years ago to start a family. Now mother to a 15-month-old son, she’s looking to reenter the workforce without having to leave his side.
Dennine Gardenhire, 57, of Mission Viejo, had to quit her job as a truck driver in 2019 due to an injury and now hopes to leverage her natural affinity and love for children in her next business venture.
Crystal Morillon, raising a young son in Anaheim, used her degree in child and adolescent development at various school districts but now wants to apply what she’s learned in a more personal workplace — her home.
“I thought, since I just had a newborn baby, this would be the best opportunity to finally move from employee to CEO,” the 35-year-old said of her professional journey.
Orange County has been identified by the public policy group Center for American Progress as a “child-care desert,” where just one licensed day-care slot exists for every 21 infants and toddlers.
The scarcity of services can have big impacts on families, particularly mothers, as they weigh the value of paying for costly commercial day care against the possible income loss associated with staying home with their children, says Cristina Belvins, a senior program officer for First 5 Orange County.
“We’ve found there were $2.27 billion lost in earnings because of the number of families who stay home to take care of their child, and there are 36,000 lost jobs due to lack of childcare,” Belvins said in a recent interview. “For our county, that’s $202 million lost in tax revenue.”
To combat that trend, a new program is giving women like Lobo, Gardenhire and Morillon the training and assistance they need to transform their own homes into licensed businesses that can alleviate shortages in their own neighborhoods.
Operated by First 5 of Orange County, and with backing and support from several organizations, including the Orange County Women’s Business Center, an eight-week child-care incubator program walks participants through the process of establishing and licensing their own businesses.
Through a combination of in-person and online courses offered in English and Spanish, students learn to draft a business plan, keep track of their finances, project budgetary needs and market their businesses through social media.
Students, many of them mothers and grandmothers, earn stipends up to $5,000, offered in stages as they reach certain benchmarks, such as applying for and obtaining a child-care license through the California Department of Social Services.
The program also provides them with a peer guide — either a former program participant who’s opened her own business or another Orange County in-home childcare operator — along with a business coach who can advise them on logistics and best practices.
Lobo, the Costa Mesa mom, is among a fifth cohort of about 30 students to receive the training, since the program began in the spring of 2023. She says she appreciates learning more about the business aspects of childcare, which can be intimidating to beginners like her.
“They have been able to simplify it as much as possible and go into detail about how to reach the customer, how to come up with a name, how to deal with social media and how to think about the competition,” she said Monday. “It has been so useful.”
The 31-year-old created a business plan for Costa Mamas Family Care Center, which she hopes to be fully licensed and ready to open sometime next year. A native of Venezuela, Lobo is planning on offering a bilingual program that includes fun hands-on activities for kids and parents.
“I took Mommy and Me classes and would love to do some events like that, where we can all get together,” she said. “As a mom, I think it’s key to meet other parents and moms. The idea of finding your tribe — that’s something that’s important to me.”
In a graduation ceremony Wednesday at the Boys & Girls Club Family Center in Garden Grove, Lobos celebrated with others in the fifth cohort and the program’s many backers, including the Newport Beach nonprofit Community for Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Leadership Opportunities (CIELO), which funds students’ stipends.
Gardenhire, whose daughter enrolled in the program earlier in the year, shared with her fellow students her desire to impact children the way important teachers and mentors did for her when she was a child.
“I just feel like boys and girls need care, they need nurturing. Parents need to know when they go to work their children will be cared for and they’re going to be treated like they are at home. That’s what I want to offer,” she said of her business, Kids R My Heart Childcare.
Mike Daniel is network director of the Orange County/Inland Empire Small Business Development Center network, which worked with First 5 of Orange County to establish the program as a pilot and provide business coaches for each student.
“When they’re done with this they can now apply for their license and they can still see us, there are 150 of us in the network, and we can get them connected to the right people at the right time,” Daniel said Wednesday. “Hopefully from here they can move on to start commercial childcare businesses, this is just the starting point.”
So far, 177 individuals have completed the curriculum in the program’s first three cohorts, opening 41 in-home childcare businesses, while another 50 or more are waiting to obtain their licenses, Joan Lundbaum, a First 5 consultant, said at the graduation.
“When they do, this group will have provided over 500 spots for young children in Orange County. And that’s in addition to all of you who will be opening your homes,” she added. “That is so amazing — congratulations to all of you.”
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