Will new child care plans help these Army Special Forces families?

A long-awaited military child development center is officially in the works for Army Special Forces and other service families in the Florida panhandle north of Eglin Air Force Base, Air Force officials announced.

Due to the lengthy military construction process, the center won’t be completed until the end of 2028. In the meantime, Army and Air Force officials are working on interim child care solutions.

For years, soldiers in the 7th Special Forces Group at Camp “Bull” Simons and their families, along with Navy and Air Force members in the area, have faced a child care shortage.

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It’s a decision Army families have long anticipated — and fought for — but it’s not exactly the best solution for everyone, said Molly Tobin, the wife of an Army Special Forces officer. The center will be built about 20 minutes northeast of Camp “Bull” Simons in the Crestview civilian community, where 60% of the 7th SFG families live, but families have been fighting for it to be built on the actual compound.

Tobin, who was formerly the family readiness group leader for the 7th SFG’s 3rd Battalion, and her husband relocated to another base in Florida a year ago. Despite the move, she continues to advocate for families at Camp “Bull” Simons.

Families are worried about the security of children at an off-base location and the inconvenience for soldiers not living in Crestview. Although the Air Force will build the center to strict military construction guidelines, the absence of guards at an installation entrance raises questions about security. Information about specific plans for the security of the center wasn’t immediately available from Eglin Air Force Base.

“The Air Force plans to construct the Crestview CDC in accordance with DOD child care facility integrated base standards,” said Gabe Myers, spokesman for the 96th Test Wing at Eglin, in an email to Military Times. “Commanders and the Crestview CDC program coordinators will ensure it meets the emergency, operation, unit readiness, and training mission requirements.”

Air Force officials are working on the process to acquire land for the future center, and the funding for the center will be part of the fiscal 2026 budget request.

Camp “Bull” Simons, an Army installation that is technically part of Eglin Air Force Base, has faced disagreements between Army and Air Force officials over the construction of a child care center.

In October 2022, Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth announced plans to build a child care center on the camp. Specifically, Army officials and 7th SFG families wanted the center near the chapel out of convenience for soldiers. Air Force officials, however, have raised safety concerns due to the post’s proximity to Eglin’s active bombing range.

The camp, which was carved out of a remote area of Eglin as part of the 2005 Base Closure and Realignment action, includes a chapel, troop clinic, barracks and an AAFES shopette but lacks family housing and a commissary. About 2,600 military and civilian workers live and work there.

Finding affordable, high-quality child care has long been a challenge for many military families, with issues varying by location. For the 7th SFG — one of the Army’s most elite units handling covert missions across Central and South America and the Caribbean — child care has been a persistent struggle since the group relocated from then-Fort Bragg, North Carolina, in 2011.

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Aside from the 60% of families living in the Crestview community, many others reside south of Camp “Bull” Simons, meaning they would need to drive past the camp and then back south to drop off and pick up their children at a Crestview CDC, Tobin said.

“The convenience factor is gone for anyone outside Crestview,” Tobin said.

It’s uncertain what civilian housing availability in Crestview will be by 2028.

“Families are upset the center won’t be on the compound,” Tobin said. “There are parents who are very frustrated. It’s not the convenience we requested, the security we requested, the number of spaces we requested.”

The Air Force’s Crestview center will offer 250 spaces for military children, but, according to the most recent count, there are over 400 children of child care age in the 7th SFG alone. While not all need child care, the exact number is unclear because some families have given up on finding child care, Tobin said.

In the interim, other options

Meanwhile, most families with young children living there now will miss the chance to enroll their kids in the CDC, as their children will be too old by the time the center opens in 2028.

In response, Air Force and Army officials have explored other options to improve child care options in the area. Despite ongoing child care worker shortages, they increased staffing at the current Eglin CDC and opened two more classrooms. The Air Force is also restoring a CDC on Eglin to care for 118 children. While this will assist some families south of Camp “Bull” Simons, it still will require additional driving time, Tobin said.

The Air Force has doubled the number of Air Force-certified family child homes in the last year — to a total of 17 homes — with the capacity to provide care for up to 102 children. Another 13 homes are in the certification process.

The Army is initiating a one-year pilot program to provide hourly, part-time and intermittent child care support for up to 100 active-duty Army families beginning in the fall.

The Air Force and Army are also in contact with a local commercial child care provider that plans to open a new facility in the Crestview community by late 2025.

Still, Tobin said some families feel the solutions are falling short. She said one Army parent who attended a recent town hall detailing the decision told her, “The Air Force said they’d take care of us. They’re just trying to shut us up.”

“Once again, our child care has been pushed to the side,” said Tobin. “My 7th Group family lives there. Just because I moved doesn’t mean I don’t still have heartstrings back there. I have friends who are giving birth to babies. I have friends whose kids are 2, 3, 4 years old. They’re still hurting because there’s no child care,” she said, adding that inflation has made a dual income even more of a necessity.

“If you’re a service member who is concerned about the child care provided for the family … the mind is going to be somewhere else,” she said, rather than focused 100% on the mission.

7th SFG leaders understand that completely, and have been supportive of their soldiers and families, Tobin said.

“The 7th Group command team has excelled at that and advocated for families consistently, whether it’s [attending] meetings, surveys requested or any other hoops that the Air Force has thrown at them to slow processes of taking care of our families.”