Lt. Governor Molly Gray’s ‘Recover Stronger’ tour in St. Albans on Wednesday

Kate Barcellos poses a question to Lt. Governor Molly Gray, Todd Bauman, and Danielle Mitchell.

ST ALBANS — Lieutenant Governor Molly Gray visited St. Albans this week on her “Recover Stronger” tour and spoke with local town and city officials and leaders at Northwestern Counseling and Support Services about plans to help struggling Vermonters and their communities moving forward.

“Each week, we are spending a day in a county just to listen to Vermonters,” Gray said. “To meet communities, community leaders, nonprofit leaders, business leaders where they’re at. To figure out what are our lessons learned? What do we need to do differently coming out of the pandemic?”

What do you hope to accomplish on your tour?

“Our plan is, at the end of the summer to put together a concrete list of priorities –be it telehealth, regular access to broadband and childcare at home for a lot of Vermonters…we have to invest in equitable, quality, affordable childcare…until we figure out how to pay childcare providers enough, make sure that there are enough childcare providers and make sure childcare is fully affordable and accessible, we are going to have communities and families that are in crisis.”

Who in the workforce have been impacted the worst by COVID?

“Women have been disproportionately impacted,” Gray said. “Women have left the workforce at a higher rate here in Vermont than nationally…families have had to choose between staying in the workforce or leaving the workforce to care for children.”

“We’ve had a hard time filling all of our positions in part because people can’t come back,” said Todd Bauman, Executive Director at NCSS. “Because they need to be home with their kids because they don’t have access to quality childcare.”

“A lot of our families have historically struggled with poverty,” said Danielle Mitchell, Director of Children, Youth & Family Services division. “We have a lot of our families that are migrant workers, and because of a lot of the politics and policies in place who (may not be able to ) access our services. We’re looking at families who have been impacted by trauma. All of these are just different populations that are even more impacted by COVID.”

What could the future of family, community and childcare look like?

“I think it’s (about) taking models like NCSS…ensuring families have access to food, to childcare, to mental health and support services and being an integrative one-stop-shop where families can go,” Gray said. “This is the model that works in Vermont, but we have to set up a funding stream that isn’t year-to-year. That doesn’t work. It has to be a long-term, consistent funding stream that allows NCSS and other providers to thrive and to plan for the future.”