Cindy Duhrkopf led a child care needs discussion in Stuart Tuesday.

Different options of increasing child care in the Stuart area and West Central Valley School District were discussed Tuesday night.

Stuart Enterprise for Economic Development hosted a child care needs discussion at Stuart City Hall, in which parents, in-home daycare providers and other stakeholders voiced ideas of how to provide options of before and after school and daycare programs. Partnerships 4 Families Area Director Cindy Duhrkopf facilitated the discussion, which followed a couple meetings that were held in Stuart in 2015 and 2016. Duhrkopf shared the impetus for this discussion, “In the recent months I had heard a resurgence of the need for child care and so I thought it was time to bring everybody back together. Just because we had planted a lot of seeds about two years ago but they were kind of mulling under the ground, and we needed to see what was really going on and happening and I think that happened tonight.”

Duhrkopf discussed a recent survey that was conducted with Stuart businesses that show there is economic growth for the community, but not satisfactory child care available for employees.
Though there is desire for a city daycare center to be built, Duhrkopf says it is much easier to get a before and after school program started first. The meeting concluded with talks of a community-wide child care meeting to be held with the West Central Valley School District. Duhrkopf commented after the meeting, “We’ll listen to what happens with a couple of the conversations that took place tonight and possibly reconvene another meeting with the community. Maybe perhaps do more outreach to the families and the businesses and invite them and reconvene everybody and see what (the) next steps are.”

West Central Valley Superintendent Lance Ridgely attended the meeting, showing his support for the idea of a before and after school program happening in the district. Sharon Sloss of the First Congregational Church said the church elders have been interested in starting a similar program, and Stuart Community Care Center Activity Director Jody Hagedorn suggested a child care service be held at the retirement community.