Child Care White Paper
Child care is a particularly acute challenge in Western North Dakota where energy development has created a rapidly growing economy that is putting pressure on both the private and public sectors to provide the quality and quantity of services to support a high quality of life. The child care challenge impacts all youth but is particularly acute with respect to infants until kindergarten and before and after school child care for elementary and middle school age youth. The Strom Center at Dickinson State University leads the effort for this policy paper. The Strom Center recognized that resources have been developed to support this industry but given the magnitude of the current challenge they will fall short of providing the supports needed to ensure large scale development of child care services in the state. To ensure that our leaders had objective, relative and timely information The Strom Center partnered with Vision West ND to delve into this issue through development of this policy white paper. The Strom Center contracted with the Center for Rural Entrepreneurship as part of their ongoing collaboration on the Western North Dakota Energy Project to undertake a limited exploration of the child care issue in the region.