Newsletter March 2022

The work that United Way is doing with Ready SWVA will go a long way to craft a solution to quality, accessible child care. - Todd Norris, Ballad Health Senior Vice President of Community Health and System Advancement

Regionwide, Southwest Virginia faces a much greater child care availability shortage than the Commonwealth of Virginia on the whole. While Virginia faces a child care slot deficit of roughly 11 percent, that number in Southwest Virginia is closer to 30 percent. That, Staton said, amounts to around 7,000 children who would be eligible for child care if it were available and affordable in their community. Because the problem is region-wide, so too is the effort to address it. Through utilization of a hub-and-spoke model, the Ready SWVA initiative will use the community college footprint to strategically locate four “spoke” centers, benefiting communities throughout the region. “Over the next three years, this initiative will work across 21 localities to build an effective quality child care supply that can help address this problem in our region,” Staton said. The hub, to be located along the Interstate 81 corridor in Washington County, will include a shared-services center that will operate as a single back office for every existing child care center in Southwest Virginia that chooses to take part, creating cost savings and increasing efficiency. United Way of Southwest Virginia will not operate the child care centers. By adapting existing vacant properties for use as child care centers, UWSWVA will help develop the spaces and facilities in which private-sector partners will operate and expand publicly-available child care centers. Ready SWVA immediately garnered the support of the Southwest Virginia legislative delegation. Senator Todd Pillion carried a budget amendment to help fund the initiative. House Majority Leader Terry Kilgore sponsored the companion amendment in the House of Delegates. “This is transformational. I think it gives us an opportunity to lead.” Kilgore said. “Bringing business training, education and childcare all into the same room is going to create a win-win for everybody.” Ready SWVA immediately received support from private sector partners. Whitney Czelusniak, economic and business development manager for American Electric Power, said Ready SWVA has the opportunity not only to keep Southwest Virginians gainfully employed and to keep businesses running at their full potential, but also creates a unique opportunity to attract young talent and young families back to the region. “Access to childcare impacts a lot of different industries and a lot of different occupations. Ready SWVA is a great way for our region to begin to lay a strong foundation to support the early childhood system in a very robust way.” Concluded Staton, “We believe Ready SWVA will be a model to be replicated in rural communities across the Commonwealth and beyond. But first, we need to succeed in addressing the problem here.”

I’m excited about the leadership shown by United Way, the inertia that UWSWVA has unleashed in our region, and I’m looking forward to the results and successes of Ready SWVA. - Jonathan Sweet, Pulaski County Administrator Panelists (L-R) Smyth County Schools Superintendent Dr. Dennis Carter, AEP Manager of Economic and Business Development Whitney Czelusniak, United Way of Southwest Virginia (UWSWVA) President and CEO Travis Staton, Ballad Health Senior Vice President of Community Health and Sys tem Advancement Todd Norris and Pulaski County Adminis trator Jonathan Sweet. UWSWVA’s Scott Robertson, far right, served as moderator.

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