Countywide : New Panel Will Seek Child-Care Options

Representatives of businesses interested in providing child care for their employees will hold their first meeting Wednesday.

The Ventura Child Care Consortium was formed after a conference on child care organized by the city of Ventura earlier this month.

About 30 employers are expected to attend, with the objective of finding common solutions to child-care problems, said Ellen Coleman, Ventura Child Care Project coordinator.

By pooling resources, the businesses may be able to build a facility or raise funds for alternate day-care programs, Coleman said.

“It would be a lot easier to do as a larger group,” Coleman said. “Small businesses just can’t do it alone.”

Although the costs of providing on-site day care are high, many business owners are finding that they cannot afford to ignore the problem. Workers who stay home to care for a sick child or leave early to pick a child up from school are costing their employers money, she said.

The group will follow up on ideas developed during discussions at the April 2 child-care conference, which was attended by about 55 people.

Aside from providing on-site day and sick care for children, the business owners said they wanted to explore ways to make child care more affordable and improve the quality of existing services, Coleman said.

Similar consortiums already exist in Los Angeles and other metropolitan areas, but it will be the first time in Ventura that a group of businesses will join together to provide child-care services, according to Coleman.