The Barbara Chambers Children’s Center is set to open another location in the Mount Pleasant area by May 2021.
The Barbara Chambers Children’s Center has been providing childcare to families through three established locations in Washington, DC. In a recent Advisory Neighborhood Commission meeting, Moises Del Rosario, a liaison for the mayor’s office of community relations and services, briefly mentioned the expected opening of a fourth location in Mount Pleasant. In a follow-up conversation, he expanded on those plans. “The center will have a capacity for 40 children,” Del Rosario explained. “They’ll be offering an infants and toddlers program, which is full-day childcare services for children from two months to two and a half years old.” And after working through some delays, the liaison was happy to report that the grand opening is back on track for mid-May.
With the current state of the country, any subject regarding a large gathering of people raises health concerns, especially when it includes children. David Garcia, a staff member at the original Barbara Chambers Children’s Center location, spoke about the necessary changes they’ve had to make. In the past year, they’ve had to cancel a program in which they offered childcare to children aged 5 to 12 years old. And since opening back up in early July, they’re still not operating at full capacity. “When we opened back up, we had a very limited number of children,” Garcia explained. “Now I’d say we’re operating at about less than 60 percent.”
There was also the matter of if the center’s services are being utilized more or less during the pandemic even without the restrictions. “Childcare is needed everywhere,” Garcia said, “We do have parents that are hesitant to come back, but we still have a boatload of parents still trying to enroll.” And with the impact on employment that the past year has brought, he made note of the fact they service many low-income families who have to plan ahead in regard to childcare. But according to Del Rosario, the new Mount Pleasant location will be accepting “subsidized and private pay children.”
