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THE CHALLENGES OF EARLY HEAD START SERVING RURAL AREAS: CENTRAL IOWA

Kathie Readout
Mid-Iowa Community Action Early Head Start

Mid-Iowa Community Action (MICA) chose a home-based model as the best way to reach the largest number of Early Head Start-eligible families throughout five central Iowa counties. The home-based model was appropriate to the widely dispersed population that MICA serves. MICA's five-county service area stretches 120 miles east to west and north to south. The area averages 60 people per square mile, compared with 2,500 in Des Moines, Iowa's largest city, or with 20,000 per square mile in a metropolitan area such as Chicago. Half the population lives in towns with less than 10,000 people or in unincorporated areas. The largest city in each of the two "urbanized" counties has 27,000 and 50,000 inhabitants, respectively; these cities are 45 miles apart. Only two cities in the three rural counties have more than 3,000 inhabitants. Towns with populations of 2,000 to 5,000 people are found 20 to 30 miles apart.

This geography affects how low-income families live their lives. Families live in small towns because they grew up in them and so they can be near extended family. Some families seek out the lower housing costs in small towns. Unfortunately, growth in the economy over the past decade has concentrated in larger towns and cities. Families living in small towns have been pressed more and more to seek jobs and services outside the communities in which they live. Welfare reform has cut the TANF rolls in half. Yet despite historically low unemployment rates (three to four percent in MICA's service area), low-income adults are not able to obtain jobs that support their families. Low wages have made Iowa the state with the second-highest percentage of families in which both adults work: 82 percent, compared with the national average of 65 percent. A third of MICA's Early Head Start parents work. But the jobs for which the greatest number of openings exist in central Iowa (retail, services, manufacturing) pay modest wages ($8 to $10 per hour); they are the jobs least likely to be full-time and the least likely to include fringe benefits such as health insurance. Fourteen of 77 (18 percent) Early Head Start children are covered by private, third-party health insurance.

Because of these low wages and the limited job opportunities in small communities, the most common reason for children exiting Early Head Start is a family move out of the service area, moves primarily driven by the parents seeking jobs elsewhere. The 1998 Bureau of Economic Analysis (U.S. Census) placed Iowa second to the bottom in average income per job when compared with the six contiguous states: $25,861 per year, or an hourly wage equivalent of $12.43. In contrast, average wages per job in Missouri, Minnesota, and Illinois were 12, 21, and 42 percent higher, respectively. The second reason parents give for taking their children out of Early Head Start is that they do not have time to meet with staff for home visits. This is because the parents are under pressure to seek employment-or education and training in preparation for employment.

A home-based model is responsive to families with at least one adult at home with the children because staff members visit the family. Such families can be physically isolated because transportation is unreliable or because the working adult must use the only family vehicle to get to work. Consequently, these families cannot take children to centers, doctors, dentists, WIC, or other basic services.

Working adults in rural families nearly always have to commute, because most of the desirable jobs are in larger cities. These adults must have a personal vehicle, as public transportation is too limited and inflexible to be useful for getting to work or for keeping most appointments.

Working low-income adults struggle to locate adequate child care they can afford. One Early Head Start parent recently lobbied for her child to be selected as one of the eight children in MICA's toddler room, because she was going to school and had found no acceptable care alternative. Few small towns can support center-based child care. Family child care is the predominant choice for most low-income families. Iowa family child care providers are not required to be licensed or registered, although they must meet minimal conditions if they do register. MICA has recognized three distinct responses it must offer to meet Early Head Start family needs for quality child care:

1. Center-based services in the largest cities with the population density to support centers

2. Home-based services to a small but important group of families

3. Family care provider support, technical assistance, and professional development to raise the quality of care available where centers are not an option

Geography affects how rural low-income families live their lives; it also shapes program options. A single Early Head Start model cannot meet the work schedules and child development/child care needs of families in towns of dramatically different sizes that are distant from one another.

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