Category: Q&A

A look at child care accessibility in New Hampshire

Amy Brooks is the executive director of the Early Care and Education Association, a nonprofit organization that works to expand and improve pre-K child care in New Hampshire and Vermont. Brooks discussed some of the biggest child care issues affecting child care providers and families with young children in the state.

What are some child care challenges New Hampshire has faced, even before Covid?

The funding structure for child care obviously just doesn’t work. … When children aren’t successful in school, it’s rarely because they’re not smart; it’s because they struggle emotionally or socially. … About 80 percent of a child’s brain is developed by the age of 3, and 90 percent by the age of 5 … so investing in high-quality programming for children under 5, especially for children under 3 and for children living in poverty … [would result] in a lower need for special education … and help to stabilize the child’s life so that they’re ready, especially socially and emotionally, to go to public school. … The fact that people who work with these young children are paid very low, and rarely with benefits, just doesn’t reflect the value of what is required of them. With the funding structure we have right now, the only way to raise wages for child care providers sustainably is to raise tuition, which falls on the family’s back. We need to start looking at a different model.

How has Covid made it more difficult for New Hampshire families to access child care?

When a child at a public school has a symptom, the school nurse does a screening, which may include a [Covid] test, to decide whether the child stays at school or not. Child care centers don’t have an RN like public schools do. When they’re dealing with a 2-year-old who is teething, [child care centers] have to make that judgment call: Are they just teething, or could they have Covid? They aren’t doctors or nurses — they don’t know — so most of them just turn the child home. … So the biggest issue is really keeping the kids in care.

Has this led to any child safety concerns?

One of the ramifications [of limited access to child care] for families is that they’re having to go into unregulated situations. At the beginning of the pandemic, it was encouraged by DHHS and the governor to create neighborhood ‘pods’ where [families] would take care of each other’s kids during remote learning. Well, now, some of those people … [who also] have a 3- or a 4- or a 5- year-old are keeping those pods [for child care] because they’re so desperate. [The families hosting the pods] are not becoming licensed … and some of them are charging sometimes as much as what a child care center is charging.

What ripple effect does child care have on the state as a whole?

The entire pipeline of every [business’] staff has been disrupted. Just look at how many people are home after losing their jobs or not being able to go back to work because they have kids and can’t find child care. That includes people in high-need positions. … Health care centers are having to cancel clinics and cancel regular appointments because they’re lacking staff because their staff can’t get child care. … I know of a grandmother who [worked in] a senior position who left her job to take care of her grandchildren because she was the only one financially stable enough [in the family] to leave her job, and now, her [former] employer is struggling because a senior position is difficult to fill. These are key people being pulled out of the workforce, all because they don’t have child care.

What can New Hampshire families do to help improve the child care situation in the state?

[Share] their story … about the impact of the loss of child care on their family, whatever that may be. … Right now, it’s important that we keep giving [the issue of child care] adequate attention so that we can really move things forward on a state level.

Featured photo: Rick Rossi. Courtesy photo.

New Hampshire welcomes Cybersecurity Advisor

Meet Rick Rossi, New Hampshire’s first Cybersecurity Advisor, a newly created position within the Integrated Operations Division, Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency of the Department of Homeland Security.

When and why was this position created?

This position was created by Congress in the fiscal year 2021 National Defense Authorization Act, so I’m a federal employee funded by the Department of Homeland Security. It was created to improve communication as well as awareness of resources and collaboration between the federal government, state and local governments and critical infrastructure owners and operators.

What is your background in this type of work?

I come into the role with prior experience with the Department of Homeland Security and the Intelligence Community. … I’ve been with the Department in some form or fashion for almost 16 years now. I’ve done a lot of work with critical infrastructure owners and operators in terms of hardening their defenses and mitigating threats from our foreign advanced adversaries and other significant criminal cyber actors.

What exactly does this position entail?

My role as the Cybersecurity Advisor for New Hampshire is to offer cybersecurity assistance to critical infrastructure owners and operators, as well as state, local, tribal and territorial governments. That assistance can take the form of many different things, including introducing organizations to the myriad cybersecurity services and products that are available to them at no cost, as well as other public and private resources. … Additionally, my role includes providing cyber preparedness assessments, protective resources, strategic messaging, working group support and leadership, partnership in public-private development, as well as incident coordination and support in times of cyberthreat disruption and attack.

What do you hope to accomplish?

One of the primary goals is to make contact with as many critical infrastructure owners and operators, municipalities and government entities as possible … and [develop] a robust partnership between the public and private sector in terms of information sharing, cooperation and thought exchange. It’s not ideal to be exchanging business cards in the middle of an incident; it’s very useful to develop those relationships in advance. The secondary [goal] is to make sure that entities are aware of the cybersecurity resources available to them. … Oftentimes, we find that municipalities and smaller organizations … are very reticent about cybersecurity in terms of the investment monetarily … and aren’t always aware of the breadth of resources that are available to them at no cost through … public and private means.

What is the biggest challenge?

[Cybercriminals] generally gravitate toward targets of opportunity. New Hampshire has a number of very small towns and small businesses, and oftentimes those smaller entities don’t have the budget to put together a robust cybersecurity program. Oftentimes, there’s a misconception … smaller entities [have]: ‘Why would anybody want to attack us?’ The truth of the matter is, to a cybercriminal who’s after monetary gain, the size of the organization doesn’t matter. If it’s an easy buck, they’ll take the easy buck. So one of the challenges I have is [increasing] the knowledge that … the size of an organization doesn’t always [factor] into [cybercriminals’] targeting decisions.

Has Covid contributed to cybersecurity threats?

Early on during the pandemic, we saw the cyberthreat environment really ramp up, the reason being that most organizations weren’t prepared for a near-100-percent remote work environment. You had a lot of smaller businesses and organizations that don’t traditionally have people working from home having to employ remote access solutions to their networks, and when you’re trying to do something in haste, oftentimes, unfortunately, security doesn’t always take a front seat. We saw a lot of [criminals] … looking to take advantage of that situation where we didn’t always have security at the forefront.

How can New Hampshire residents protect themselves and their families from cybersecurity threats?

They can create strong passwords for their home WiFi network … as well as email accounts and social media. … If you have a simple password, like a dictionary word or something that can be easily guessed, like your pet’s name … [cybercriminals] could enable a password cracker [that uses] algorithms to guess your password. … You want to use passwords that are more complex, that aren’t dictionary words, that can’t be easily guessed, and that involve uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers and special characters.

Featured photo: Rick Rossi. Courtesy photo.