The place where child-care providers and parents meet is one of life’s most vulnerable and special intersections. As the state’s only Child Care Resource and Referral organization, we witness this intersection daily. The hardest part of being at this junction is not the connections we facilitate; it’s the way we regularly witness systems failing young children, families and child care providers.

We watch as parents — likely moms — have to turn down jobs they desperately need to make rent because no one is available to take care of their newborns. We see providers, teachers and workers end their days exhausted only to turn around and go to a second job just to put food on their own tables.

The problem we see is that we say things like “it takes a village to raise a child” — but parents and providers are left to make their own villages when we as a state could do it with them.

This September, we celebrate Child Care Provider Appreciation Month along with the state Legislature who passed a concurrent resolution recognizing the month. We, along with others in the early childhood community, want to show how much we love the child care providers who nurture, teach and grow our state’s youngest keiki. Most importantly, we want to show that our love for them extends beyond thank yous. It moves us to action. We ask our community leaders to join us in our calls for greater investment in the child care workforce.

Nationwide, more than 10% of the child care workforce has left the profession since the beginning of the pandemic and not returned. That translates to more than a half-million families across the country impacted by fewer child care workers and providers.

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We have witnessed this here in Hawaii as well. Anecdotally, we hear from center directors that they struggle to recruit new early childhood care and education workers. Additionally, we hear from directors, home-based providers and workers themselves that they are leaving the profession to pursue jobs they may not love but that pay more with less stress. This is all while families struggle to find child care that will meet their needs — during the hours they work and at a price they can afford.

These are not unsolvable problems. The solutions begin with a true appreciation for the specialized, often stressful and absolutely critical work those in child care do.

To start, we can begin by providing state funds to increase pay for a profession that is frequently paid poverty- level wages. The state Department of Human Services (DHS) has dispersed more than $70 million of pandemic-related federal relief to child care providers. Providers have used the funds to, among other things, give staff retention and recruitment bonuses. It has gone far to help stabilize our sector, but it will end. We will again face a cliff if we cannot sustain the program when federal funds run dry.

Additionally, we can invest in supports for child care providers. Policymakers and leaders can fund programs, like tuition stipends, that help us to recruit our next generation of early childhood care and education professionals and a new crop of family child care providers. They can dedicate funds to assistance that improves quality, including supporting center- and home-based providers to achieve accreditation. They can invest in other services including back-of-house services, mental health supports and other benefits that will help us grow and retain our workforce.

We would be remiss if we didn’t bring these policy and investment recommendations back to the most important junction: the one between a child care provider and a family. When early childhood care and education professionals are well-valued in pay, prestige and supports, they can better care for families. When our whole state invests in these providers, it means families can access quality child care at a price point they can afford.

We welcome policymakers, community leaders, families and others to join us this month. Help us thank our child care providers by committing to action.

Carol Wear is the interim executive director of PATCH Hawaii, the state’s child care resource and referral organization supporting child-care providers and connecting them to families who need their services.