Introduction
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| Many child
care businesses in Orleans Parish are struggling to
reopen in neighborhoods that still look like war zones.
Click on photos for larger view. |
Save the Children commissioned the Mississippi
State University Early Childhood Institute (ECI) to assess the
current child care capacity and need for child care in Orleans
Parish, Louisiana, 10 months after Hurricane Katrina struck the
Gulf Coast and caused major flooding in New Orleans. This report
describes that assessment.
At the time of the assessment, no plan existed for coordinated
restoration of early childhood services in New Orleans, Orleans
Parish, or a wider area. The Bureau of Primary Care and Rural
Health of the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals had
developed a plan for restoration of health services in several
areas of the state, including the area of Orleans and Jefferson
Parishes (Bureau of Primary Care & Rural Health, n.d.a.).
However, the plan did not rank neighborhoods in terms of
priority for restored health services, instead indicating only
that the parishes should “build new, permanent facilities in
appropriate locations throughout the rebuilt areas, based on
returning population and demographics” (p. 75). The Office of
the Mayor subsequently announced a plan to develop the Unified
New Orleans Neighborhood Plan (New York Times, July 6, 2006).
Thus, assessment of current and future needs for child care
requires at least one of the following: (a) a projection of
where within the parish families with young children will most
likely move, or (b) a strategic plan for community
redevelopment.
The assessment described here was a pilot project of ECI’s Early
Childhood Emergency Preparedness Initiative. Lacking current
population data at the planning district or neighborhood level,
ECI relied heavily on location and capacity of open schools with
grades Pre-Kindergarten, Kindergarten, or First as indicators of
where families with young children have returned or relocated
and potential early childhood program strength across the 0-8
age span.
46 Blackjack Rd. / P.O. Box 6013
/ Mississippi State, MS / 39762 / tel. 662-325-4836 / fax 662-325-5436
© 2004- Mississippi State University
