Child care + quality = happy employees: good, affordable child care is essential to the work force, but Alaskans have a hard time finding an opening.

• Author: Campbell, Melissa

When Stephanie Gould accepted a job in Anchorage, she made a special trip from her home in Fairbanks to look at day care facilities for her daughter, now 2 years old. She came to town in March 2002 and visited several places.

She found limited options and long wait lists.

Still, while she was here, Gould said she "signed up with everybody and their brother."

"A lot of them were crowded," Gould said. "Sure, they met the guidelines and standards, and for my daughter's age group at the time they were fine. But for the next group, well, I wouldn't want to be in a room that size with that many kids."

One facility she visited was pure pandemonium, she said. In another, she was discouraged by the tone of a provider's voice toward the children.

But she was impressed by another facility, one which she ultimately chose. While Gould was visiting the infant care area, a couple of the residents started crying. This set off a chain reaction of sobbing babies. The two workers overseeing the brood of 10 tiny ones didn't flinch. Still, her daughter didn't start at the center until December, thanks to the long wait list.

If she couldn't have found this place, Gould said she would have had to either settle for a facility she wasn't comfortable with or would have had to turn down her job at ASCG Inc.

Hers is not an uncommon story.

Finding quality day care is a task that thousands of men and women face every year as couples become families and households demand two incomes. Child care costs have become as essential an element in household budgets as the mortgage payment.

"Child care plays a very critical role in the ability of parents with children to be able to work," said Michael Huelsman, a research analyst with the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development. "Studies have shown that if the parent has reliable child care, she can focus on the job she's in. And when people can focus, they advance faster and are more successful in life."

But Huelsman and others in the industry say there are not enough state-approved, licensed facilities in the state.

It's often the result of too few providers, said Candace Winkler, the associate executive director of the Child Care Connection Inc., a resource and referral service based in Anchorage.

State guidelines have specific provider-to-child ratios according to age group.

Several child care facilities around the state have a shortage of qualified providers.

Often, child care facilities have a license to care...