There's a shortage of child care and access to child care.

Childcare is extremely expensive.

A new report says childcare problems are holding back Kentucky's kids.

I know she's going to go and touch a lot of lives, so that makes it all worth it.

You've met the facility dogs at Norton Children's Hospital.

Now you'll meet the women who trained them.

It just it's a way it's a format for us to bring people into the studio and get them exposed to glass here.

And how a Lexington artist is making his art form accessible to others.

Production of Kentucky Edition is made possible in part by the KET Endowment for Kentucky Productions, the Leonard Press Endowment for Public Affairs and the KET Millennium Fund.

Good evening, everyone.

I'm Renee Shaw.

Welcome to Kentucky Edition on this Wednesday.

We're midway through this thing.

I'm Renee Shaw.

Thank you so much for joining us.

Kentucky ranks 40th among the states for child well-being.

According to a new kids count study out today from the Annie Casey Foundation.

That study says access to child care and child care costs are factors hurting the quality of child children well-being in Kentucky.

We spoke to a mother of four who knows that problem firsthand.

Before I had kids, I worked at a car dealership and Internet sales.

I really loved it.

I went on maternity leave after looking at how much it would be to put her into daycare.

We kind of sat down and ran the numbers and realized it would be my entire paycheck.

So it just didn't really make sense for us to leave her with someone else when I could just stay with her.

I mean, I was basically not going to be working for a paycheck anyway.

I was just going to be working to pay for daycare.

Then we made the decision for me to just stay home.

And fortunately, we know this in Kentucky as well as throughout the U.S. but there there's a shortage of childcare and access to child care.

Child care is extremely expensive and working families often have to make a lot of sacrifices to make sure that they can cover the cost of child care.

And many low income families have difficulty affording childcare at all.

Some families have to drop out of the workplace.

So actually, a lot of the women in my area are stay at home moms because the cost is just so high and you just can't find like a good quality daycare to send your child to a single parent If they're having to pay for childcare, it could be up to 28% of their total income to pay for one child and child care.

And then if you have more than one child, it can be very overwhelming.

Even a family with two parents.

The average is over 8% of their total income for one child.

And then again, multiple children can really strain on a family's overall benefit.

And while this is costing so much for a family to pay for, childcare providers are in the bottom 2% earning of all the jobs that are available.

We don't have the money for a lot of extra stuff like even just trying to pay for.

You know, if I wanted to put one of the kids into dance class or karate, that would be like a pretty big burden for us.

We we basically live paycheck to paycheck because as I do not work, but if I did go back to work, I mean, even if I made 40,000 a year, the majority of that would be going to daycare for my two youngest ones.

If we don't have more access to childcare than we are, we're not going to have enough people to contribute to the economy.

And we know that in in any of the individual states, when there's not enough childcare, that the economy can lose up to 1.2 billion per year for a state who already has more than 50%, more than 60 of our 120 counties that don't have enough child care.

That's going to be really hard if we lose more.

And so we need to speak to our state elected officials and tell them that Kentucky cares about child care in order to make the economy work and that our state needs to contribute more to child care as well.

According to the report, in 2021, one in three Kentucky children lived in families without a parent who had a full time year round job.

It appears the Fayette County Public School system will follow the Kentucky Department of Education Interpretation of Senate Bill 150.

Now, as we told you last week, the new law bans any instruction on human sexuality in grades K through five or instruction on gender identity or sexual orientation for all grades.

The department says the use of the conjunction or instead of and Maine schools have the choice of one or the other.

At its meeting last night, the Fayette County School Board indicated it would opt for the elementary school ban, meaning the ban wouldn't apply to children from the sixth grade or up.

Now, this is all according to the Lexington Herald-Leader.

Senator Max Wise, a Republican from Campbellsville, was a sponsor of Senate Bill 150.

He says this interpretation is an absurd effort to skirt the law.

Governor Andy Beshear says this is what happens when a bill is written and passed too quickly.

Now we're going to discuss Senate Bill 150 and LGBTQ plus issues next Monday on Kentucky tonight.

That's going to be at 8:00 Eastern, seven Central right here on KCET Lexington.

Has a new team to fight the opioid crisis.

Mayor Linda Gordon today announced the city's new Opioid Abatement Commission.

The 13 member team will advise city leaders on how to use money available to Lexington from a national opioid litigation settlement.

The city has already distributed 34,000 doses of Narcan, which is an overdose reversal medicine.

But Gordon says there is still more that needs to be done.

Overdose deaths continue to increase.

We have had significant setbacks because of the pandemic and the isolation it produced and because of the introduction of fentanyl, which is deadly, as we all know.

We've come a long way, but we have such a long way to go.

But with the help of God and all of us, the hope is that we take back our loved ones, that we take back our communities and bring a sense of healing to all.

Mayor Gordon stated that this bill will be a long term approach and that Lexington will use the money for good, sustainable solutions.

There have been 75 homicides in Louisville this year so far and more than 200 non deadly shootings.

Today, Louisville's mayor and interim police chief released details about a new task force called the nonfatal shooting Squad.

The team has been in operation for about a month now.

It includes two sergeants and six detectives, as well as two agents from the ATF.

Mayor Craig Greenburg says this kind of resource is what the city needs to help keep the community safe.

Oftentimes, the same people who pulled the triggers in nonfatal shootings commit homicides and other crimes.

So we want to elevate the work of investigating nonfatal shootings.

That means making these types of cases a higher priority and providing officers investigating these cases with specialized training and resources.

In partnership with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

Mayor Greenburg also announced he's donating roughly $37,000 remaining from his inaugural funds to Kentucky.

And a Crime Stoppers.

The nonprofit allows people to anonymously report crimes and tips.

Officer Nicholas Wilt continues to improve.

This is good news.

Officer Wilt, you'll remember, was shot in the head while responding to the old National Bank mass shooting in Louisville on April the 10th.

He's now in rehab and the Louisville Metro Police Foundation says he can now speak in 2 to 5 word phrases and is even making some jokes.

He's walking on a treadmill and he can now support his own weight while standing.

The foundation says he's maintaining a positive outlook.

And we wish him all the best.

Time now for our midweek check in of some major political developments this week so far with Rylan Barton, managing editor of Kentucky Public Radio.

Good to see you right here in our Louisville studio.

You too, Renee.

Yeah, So lots of things have happened and then not so much.

It's interesting.

Let's start with on the national level.

Of course, we had the big arraignment yesterday of President Trump and those counts, federal charges that he's up against.

It's interesting to see and compare and contrast Daniel Cameron's response and Mitch McConnell's response.

Yeah, all eyes on the Republicans who have, you know, supported Donald Trump or just kind of had to exist in his universe over the last six years or so.

So Daniel Cameron has been repeating the phrase that he's not so concerned about it, but what he's concerned about and Kentuckians who are concerned about the weaponization of government saying, you know, suggesting that this investigation is politically motivated.

And I mean, this is something that we've seen before throughout the former president's legal troubles, both during and after office of Republicans, especially elected officials who've been endorsed by Trump or kind of, you know, running, you know, running with his name, you know, kind of attach to their names as well, have been really reticent to to have to leave that it's been the best thing going for kind of elected Republicans in recent years.

And and Daniel Cameron is no different.

So he's been that's the tagline as of now but there's you know this is something is going to be drawn out for for many months, if not years.

And meanwhile the Senate minority leader who has connections to Daniel Cameron, seems to be very muted in his response to all that's going on in Trump world.

Right.

In Congress yesterday, outside of the Senate, Mitch McConnell was asked, you know, what's you know, what's your take on the on the indictment of the former president?

And he said he's he's there's he's not going to weigh in on any presidential candidates when he's pressed on.

He said there's there's a lot of candidates out there and he's just indicating he's not going to stray from this line.

This is this is really what mostly what McConnell has been doing since since 2021, since the you know, since Donald Trump left office, since the January six insurrection.

He's really declining.

He doesn't really want to weigh in that far.

But in Kentucky, here we have this really interesting dichotomy between, you know, Daniel Cameron, former protege of Mitch McConnell and McConnell, who's kind of like the the Republican who's really trying to distance himself from Trump world and Cameron, who really needs to try and stay within it.

And it's just this this schism that a lot of Republicans don't want to talk about and don't want to exacerbate.

Right.

And meanwhile, before we started our taping, the Cameron well, the Cameron office, the office of the attorney general sent out another press release that he is suing President Biden yet again.

Right.

And this time it's over the EPA's decision to let California stop the gas powered vehicles manufacturing those by the year 2035.

So he's going to keep coming after Biden as much as he can.

Yeah, there's so much political fodder there.

So there's this case I think was just a couple of weeks ago he joined or at least joined a group of other attorneys general weighing in against a Biden immigration policy suing against the Biden administration's immigration policies.

You know, these go way back.

I mean, there's there's lots of abortion related ones.

There's lots of other environment related ones.

A coal fired power plant and Clean Power Plan related lawsuits seem tangential to what Kentuckians would probably care about, though, right?

I mean, energy we're always concerned about.

But some of these other things, immigration, the direct correlation to the impact on Kentucky, minimal and maybe some people's eyes, But I think that's hard to make.

I think probably within as people are talking about politics, though, I mean, if when you when folks are watching Fox News or any sort of national media programing, you know, these are the big topics that the commentators just can't let go of.

And it doesn't matter.

You know, this is for a nationwide audience, no matter how far you are from from the border.

And these are things that folks are interested in.

Granted, we didn't see in the primary election.

This is something that Kelly Craft was really trying to lean into.

She went down to the to the US-Mexico border, you know, didn't seem like that.

That message, at least, was one that was something you got a lot of or maybe just her carrying of it didn't resonate.

So let's keep talking about the governor's race and Governor Andy Beshear keeps racking up and the supporters of him keep racking up money and the ads that are on the airwaves.

There is one with the Mayfield mayor or Caffeine Man, who people remember back from those December 2021 tornadoes and rose really to national prominence.

And she's got to add.

And then, of course, he's still talking about his economic winds.

Yeah, I think he had something like six between him and supporting outlets in six different ads supporting Beshear out last week.

And meanwhile, Daniel Cameron hasn't gone up with the general election ad yet.

Beshear is on, you know, having these ads out, I believe, two days after the primary election, signaling, you know, they're really trying to invest in this.

I thought that that ad with Kathy Union, you know, signals a lot of what he's trying to do, which is, you know, claw together whatever votes he can in rural parts of the state and really remind people that, you know, he's the the consoler in chief, the governor who's kind of been in been governor while all these disasters took place.

So let's talk now about the Katy ese guidance on SB 150 and it comes down to a two word, two lettered word.

And it's interesting.

And we know now that like Fayette County Public Schools, they said, hey, we're going to go with the Katy guidance.

That's what we're going to do.

Yeah.

So this is the big anti-trans bill, part of which instructs schools to not teach kids about sexuality or gender identity.

And but the Kentucky Department of Education has honed in on this one or a word saying that if it is permissive, it'll it allows schools to set their own policies on or to not have to, you know, go down and adopt these restrictions.

So Fayette County Public Schools have said they're going to do this, having seen what J.C., Jefferson County Public Schools is going to do yet.

But I think that's something you're going to see a lot of in the coming months.

I mean, the governor's race in the backdrop of this is is a is a serious thing that will probably amplify this a lot.

But also with school coming back in in a session in August, I think that there's going to be a lot more attention.

Yeah, there's going to be a lot more attention on school board meetings now.

Right.

Because Fayette County just met this past Monday.

And so now as we approach, as you say, a bit of a track record for that, too, after, you know, during COVID.

That's right.

Folks being worried about mask policies and other distancing policies for coronavirus.

Yeah, we'll see how that plays out.

Well, thank you, Raelyn.

Thanks for you.

June is Alzheimer's and Brain Awareness Month.

The Alzheimer's Association is spreading the word that a few key actions can lead to a better life for those with Alzheimer's.

Our Kristie Dutton tells us more.

And this look at medical news.

The Alzheimer's Association estimates that over 75,000 Kentuckians are currently living with Alzheimer's and they encourage all Kentuckians to join the fight to end Alzheimer's.

Joining us now is Shannon White from the Greater Kentucky and Southern Indiana chapter of the Alzheimer's Association.

Early detection, early diagnosis is so important.

Why is that?

It is so important.

June is Alzheimer's Brain Awareness Month.

We refer to it as a BAM.

And this year we're really trying to encourage people to get diagnosed early.

And the reason is that there are new treatments that have come out that are FDA approved that can really help slow cognitive decline.

So even though it might be scary to get that diagnosis if you were diagnosed earlier, there are treatments and medicines and support groups and care that can really help in the journey with Alzheimer's or all other dementia.

So how do you detect the signs early on?

What signs are we looking for?

I'm not a doctor, so we always encourage people, Please talk to your medical professional.

You can have a cognitive assessment with your primary care physician.

But one thing that I always tell people, people say I lose my keys all the time.

That's not a warning sign of Alzheimer or other dementia.

If you are forgetting what keys are used for, that could be a warning sign.

So we encourage people to talk to their medical professional and see if they can have those kind of tests done early.

And getting an Alzheimer's diagnosis can be life changing.

And how does the association help people understand their emotions around that and help them move forward in a positive direction?

What we really try to focus on wrapping our arms around the entire family so we have support groups, we have programs and education that can really help the caregiver and the family understand what is ahead during the journey.

People often say once you've met one person with Alzheimer's, you've met one person with Alzheimer's.

It's very different person to person.

Each diagnosis is very, very unique.

So we have an upcoming two part series, a dementia education caregiver series with Trigger with you about health and that helps with understanding behaviors and some communication strategies that you can help your loved one along this journey.

Is there any costs for that?

No, it's free and it's virtual.

Okay.

And so you can just register.

I'm okay now.

I'm loving this.

Tell us about the Longest Day.

The culmination is coming up next week on the summer solstice, which is June 21st.

And as you know, that's the day with the most light of the year.

And so we use that to really drive out the darkness of Alzheimer's.

And so people do all kinds of activities.

We have bike rides and five ks, bake sales, pickleball tournaments.

People bring awareness and they also help us raise funding to fund the mission.

Okay.

And there's more information about this on the website is Absolutely.

Shannon White from the Alzheimer's Association, thank you so much for raising awareness and for being with us today.

Absolutely.

Thanks so much, Kristie, back to you.

And thank you, Kristie, for support and more information you can call the Alzheimer's Association 24 seven.

Their helpline at one 802 7 to 3900.

You can register for the Free Dementia Education series on the Alzheimer's Association website at ALS dot org.

Melissa Sanchez wanted to make a difference in someone's life.

Now she's getting that chance through Paws with Purpose, a Louisville based nonprofit that works with inmate to train service dogs.

We spoke to Melissa and Paws with Purpose volunteer Alan Baldwin to learn more about the program and how it's changing lives.

Paws with Purpose Trains and Places highly skilled assistance dogs in the Louisville and surrounding area in Kentucky.

These dogs are placed with individuals with mobility disabilities or are placed in facilities such as hospitals, therapeutic environments or training programs centered around two correctional institutions where the inmates are primary trainers for the dogs.

One is the Kentucky Correctional Institution for Women in Pui Valley and the Federal Medical Center facility in Lexington.

Separating.

I've been in the program a little over two years, and this program has taught me a lot about, you know, the behaviors of dogs and how to train through those behaviors.

I came in here thinking that, you know, I have probably know everything because I had dogs out there.

And this is totally different.

They're trained to like, lift and lower the pedals on the wheelchairs.

They can take your shoes off, take your coat off.

They're just trained a lot just to be able to help somebody that is disabled.

Pause with purpose places the dogs into the training environment.

Beginning around 8 to 10 weeks of development and they usually stay in the program until around 18 months to two years.

During the work week, the inmates are the primary trainers and then on the weekends they go with volunteers so that they're exposed to more things in the public sector like children, crowds, cars, things that they wouldn't get in the prison programs.

Ben Kiley is my first dog and she's getting ready to go.

Nashville, Tennessee.

She's going to start working in therapy.

It's going to be a little bittersweet, but I know she's going to go and touch a lot of lives.

So that makes it all worth it.

When the dogs start off as a as a puppy at eight weeks and to then see the progress that they make in one year's time is very rewarding for them.

It builds their confidence.

It builds their personal skills.

It takes away some of the loneliness.

I don't even feel like I'm in prison.

This has become part of my life and I will continue when I get out of here.

I'm going to Ashland University and I'm trying to get my degree in sociology so I can become a Christian counselor.

And I want to open a halfway house for drug addicts and what I'm going to do is incorporate this that dog training and try to give these people, you know, some kind of stability in their lives to be able to, you know, make a living just so just thankful to God that he's allowed me to be a part of this program because it has impacted my life tremendously.

Wow.

Talk about second chances.

Ellen Baldwin says Paths with Purpose was the first organization in Kentucky to develop a prison program for training dogs to serve the community.

That program began 20 years ago.

Have you ever been to a lounge that made the glass you drank out of?

Trifecta Glass?

Art Lounge has found a way to combine three different attractions into one spot More and our arts and culture segment we call Tapestry.

The Trifecta is a three component business.

Here we have a fine art gallery that features incredible glass work out front that kind of fronts the space.

You see that my working studio behind me, and then we have a speakeasy lounge experience that connects our visitors with the glass blowing that's going on in the studio behind me.

So eventually all the glassware will be made in house.

And so the idea here is that it connects our visitors with the vessel, with the drink, with the experience, everything is handcrafted and from the glass side of things to it's just been wonderful.

You know, I'm so excited to be in Lexington.

This area of the state and this region really hasn't been exposed to glass as much.

And so it just takes a little bit of time to develop a collector base, develop an interesting glass.

And so we had to create a financial model that would support us until those things kind of marry up.

I mean, of course people love the speakeasy aspect.

We've got a really sleek lounge.

I mean, for for this area of the country, we've had so many people come in and say, we feel like we're in New York City or whatever.

You know, I wish everyone loved Glass as much as I do, but I think there's something magical about glass making and there's because there's fire and smoke and commands being made between teammates, there's a real connection and this kind of base need in our human condition to see that kind of activity.

And I think people really get absorbed in it.

It's probably the intensity and the drama that goes with it.

I am a pretty excitable person, you know, high energy and but what I think maybe the the thing that captures the most is the amount of focus that's required in that intensity.

When you sit down with glass, there's there's only one thing you can focus on as an art medium.

It to me it reflects spirit.

Often the transmission of light, the capturing of light.

I think that's there's a very spiritual element to it.

I think it's why a lot of folks well, I mean, you can look at stained glass in cathedrals all over for centuries.

There's something that that calls the human spirit.

And I find that really exciting about the material.

But the process itself, you know, the team aspect of it is so much fun.

You know, we blessed the loud music and we joke and then we'll cut up.

But then at certain moments, we all have each other's back.

We know where the focus needs to be placed.

And I don't know, it just makes for a really unique connection when you're making work, you know, it's not this isolation in a studio somewhere.

It's very active with with a fun team of people.

So not only do I think Glass in Kentucky is is good for, you know, Kentucky craft, but I think it's going to add to the tourism aspect of our state.

I grew up in Shelbyville and serve Kentucky boy at heart and I'm glad to be here, you know, carrying on the legacy that I was taught from my mentors.

Impressive, indeed.

That art piece is based on an oak tree located on Star Hill Farms.

Once finished, that piece can be viewed at the Maker's Mark Visitor Center, along with five other companion pieces now expressing creativity through arts and music.

That's the goal of a new group in Louisville, their outlet of choice percussion.

Find out more about the Louisville Drumline Academy that's going to give us a beat tomorrow as we join them for practice and learn how to how they aim to prevent violence in their city.

We'll have more on that tomorrow on Kentucky edition at 630 Eastern, 530 Central.

We hope to see you then.

I'm Renee Shaw.

Have a fantastic night and I'll see you right back here again tomorrow.