As we’ve all heard by now, there is a federal hiring freeze. What this means for military families is that spouses may have a delay in gaining employment for certain positions until the freeze has lifted.
This also affects child care on post in a few ways. Since there is no new staff being added to work at the facilities on post, priority has been given to military readiness. Active-duty parents will still be able to take their children to day care.
Families can stay proactive is by making plans for alternate child care ahead of time.
So far, child care on two Army bases has been affected by the hiring freeze. Let me explain why it’s not the end of the world:
I’ve noticed that social media has been up in arms, sharing notices about the closure of certain programs. On one of the affected bases — Fort Knox, Kentucky — the half-day preschool program and hourly child care options were closed until further notice.
In Wiesbaden, Germany, only the half-day preschool program was closed until further notice. For both bases, full-day child care has remained untouched and will continue. This means that military personnel will still be able to report to work. The memorandum released by Garrison Wiesbaden also explained that they are trying to secure hiring exemptions, but that those take time.
Adding onto that, once hiring exemptions are made, those employees must pass background checks. The entire process can take months before a new staff member can begin.
Like anything else affecting the military, this hiring freeze has caused a slight panic and rumor mill. Of course, with the majority of the chatter being done on social media, misinformation runs rampant. Some people rely on half-day programs as their source of child care when the spouse also works with a more flexible schedule. Since it’s basically preschool and geared more toward being educational and less toward simply day care, the half-day program was naturally the first to be cut.
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Since the child care programs employ military spouses, this means that staff are constantly rotating due to moving. The programs that are crucial to the Army mission have to take priority, which means those extra programs that are nice to have but aren’t mission essential must go.
Like any other hiring freeze, this one will not last forever. Military families know better than anyone that things change at the drop of a hat and have a great deal of resilience. One of the ways families can stay proactive is by making plans for alternate child care ahead of time.
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While the hourly programs offered through child care on post are nice, there are also arrangements that can be made with facilities off post. For single and dual military active duty personnel with children, it is a requirement that they submit and maintain a family care plan. This covers all the bases for those service members where dependents are concerned.
Personally, I think it’s unrealistic to fear that child care for active duty personnel would completely shut down before hiring exemptions are made. There are spouses and veterans alike currently waiting in limbo for the hiring freeze to end.
Angelina Newsom is a U.S. Army veteran and an OpsLens contributor. She served 10 years in the military, including a deployment to Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. She studies criminal justice and is still active within the military community. This OpsLens article is used by permission.
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