Large Firms, Government Unite to Fund Child-Care Services

Heeding pleas from government leaders and their own employees for more and better child care, several large California employers this week formed an unusual coalition with the public sector to finance the recruitment and training of child-care providers.

And, on a second front in the war for child-care, Los Angeles-based Union Bank disclosed that it is building a child-care center on the first floor of its new bank building under construction in Monterey Park. It is believed to be the first Los Angeles company to offer its employees child care at the site of employment.

The coalition, called the California Child Care Initiative, said it will give $400,000 to six state-funded child-care resource and referral agencies, which in turn will recruit and train new child-care providers. The funding also will help the recruits meet state licensing requirements and begin delivering child-care services.

“We took this project on because we recognized early last year that there was a substantial community need,” said Rosemary Mans, associate director of the BankAmerica Foundation, lead organizer of the statewide drive to improve child care.

“After considering our own employee needs and the encouragement from the White House for private sector initiatives, we decided our dollars would be most effectively used by taking advantage of the momentum these local referral agencies have developed in building the supply of child-care providers.”

The approach is unusual because it focuses on a long-term, statewide solution to the child-care shortage, encourages both public and private participation and is altruistic.

“We could have put the money into a fixed facility only for our own employees,” said Barry Lastrah, manager of contributions for Chevron USA Inc., a major contributor to the coalition.

“But that doesn’t really improve the quantity or quality of child-care facilities, it doesn’t do anything for the community and, in the long-term, it doesn’t do much for our employees. A coalition and long-term solutions makes much more sense.”

Another consideration was the growing concern over child abuse at child-care centers, exemplified by the McMartin Pre-School molestation case.

“By focusing our efforts on recruiting and screening . . . we hope this will give us some measure of control over the quality of services available in the community,” Mans said.

With the latest baby boom and the growing number of working parents, the child-care shortage has reached a critical stage. The United Way estimates that, in central Los Angeles, for example, child-care agencies receive up to 200 requests per month for infant-care services, but only 650 spaces exist.

To try to ease the problem, employer-supported child-care programs have proliferated nationwide.

In June, 1982, about 415 U.S. companies provided some type of child-care assistance; today, the number is 3,000, said Sandra L. Burud, a Los Angeles consultant and author of a study on child care.

Of these, she said, about 650 offer on-site child-care centers, the approach that Union Bank decided to take.

When Union’s child-care center opens in mid-1986, it will serve about 60 infants and preschoolers, said Carolyn Savely, a Union vice president and manager of service- center personnel.

Although the details haven’t been worked out, she said the bank expects to subsidize the cost through a sliding-scale tuition based on the child’s age and the employee’s salary.

The bulk of the funding for the other program is being provided by BankAmerica Foundation, Chevron and Mervyns, each of which has contributed $100,000 to the effort. The Clorox Co. Foundation, Pacific Gas & Electric Co. and San Francisco County gave $25,000 apiece. McKesson Corp. contributed $15,000 and Contra Costa County gave $10,000.

In the first phase of the test program, the corporate contributions will go to aid recruitment and training of child-care providers in Santa Monica, Long Beach, Bakersfield, San Francisco, Concord and Sacramento.

Umbrella Organization

Specifically, these child-care referral centers, all of them state-funded, will receive funds: The Children’s Home Society in Long Beach, Connections for Children in Santa Monica, the Children’s Council of San Francisco, Contra Costa Children’s Council in Concord, Child Action Inc. in Sacramento and Community Connection in Bakersfield.

These agencies will be linked by an umbrella organization called the California Child Care Resource and Referral Network, a nonprofit organization founded in 1980 to support and promote child-care referral services.