I'm focusing today's update on what we’re doing to provide child care for our essential workers and how we’re helping our providers stay afloat through this crisis so that our kids still have a place to go when we get to the other side.

During this crisis, children who can stay home should stay at home – and that means really at home, not going on playdates or hanging out with friends.

As hard as it may be, we need our youngest Illinoisans to follow the guidance, just like everyone else.

We have essential workers and health care professionals who can’t stay home with their kids because they are heroically going out to do their jobs.

They deserve to know their kids are safe and cared for in a small and affordable group setting.

Effective April 1st, all essential workers in health care, human services, essential government services & essential infrastructure now qualify for Illinois' Child Care Assistance Program, meaning the state will cover most, if not all, of the cost of care.

That includes everyone from nurses and doctors to support staff in hospitals to grocery store clerks and food producers.

Full details & applications are available now on our @ILHumanServices website and our state COVID-19 response website: http://coronavirus.illinois.gov .

As of this weekend, over 550 centers are running under the Emergency Child Care permit.

Additionally, over 1,500 home child care providers are still providing care, many of them on the critical night & weekend shifts that are so important to our essential workers.

These emergency child care providers are just another example of the incredible ways in which Illinoisans have stepped up to maintain normalcy where we can while we take up the fight against COVID-19.

We can’t thank them enough.

Last week we announced that we were providing one-time stipends to providers to soften the financial impact of this crisis – already, over 1,100 homes and centers have applied, and those who haven’t yet can do so by downloading the application from http://coronavirus.illinois.gov .

We also made sure that our Preschool for All grantees and Prevention Initiative grantees had the flexibility they needed to use grant funds to address emergency child care needs in their communities.

Today in Illinois, we’re building on our support for emergency child care centers, helping out the ones already running & encouraging others to join.

Effective April 1, we're paying them 30% above typical rates to reflect the added costs of providing care in smaller groups.

Child care centers that are interested in re-opening as emergency centers can still apply for a permit through the @IllinoisDCFS.