FOR THE KIDS : A Symbolic Gesture : Vanity license plates can soon contain symbols in their messages, for an extra fee. Revenues will go to children’s causes.

Heart, star, handprint, plus sign.

Soon you will see these symbols on California license plates, bringing a new dimension to vanity plates--one that’s designed to benefit children’s causes.

Imagine: I(HEART)2JUGL, (STAR)TREKER, (HAND)SUM, or for the affectionate minded, GP(PLUS)JP.

They’re called Kids’ Plates. The money you pay for a new tag bearing one of the symbols will fund tighter monitoring of day-care homes and centers, along with an education program about child abuse and accident prevention.

Because of the budget fiasco, state funds for things like inspections of day-care centers and homes have dwindled, so the Legislature came up with the new plates as a fund-raising idea. Advocates say Kids’ Plates eventually could bring $10 million to $20 million into the state’s coffers each year for these kid causes.

Here in Ventura County, day-care operators and children’s agencies welcome the program.

“Folks are excited about it,” said Debbie Bergevin, Ventura County’s child care coordinator. “It’s a good opportunity to collect extra money for children. Word in this county is just getting out about it.”

How do you get one? First go to one of the Target, J.C. Penney or Mervyn stores in Ventura County for an application. A personalized plate with a message costs $50. If you’re the shy type, but want to support the cause, you can get a plain numbered plate with one of the symbols for $20. (Annual renewals are $40, or $15 for a numbered plate.)

These costs are on top of the regular license and registration charges you already pay to keep your car on the road. After you send your application to the Kids’ Plates folks in Sacramento, expect a three- to six-month wait for the new shiny blue-on-white plates.

Why the wait? The state won’t start making the plates until 5,000 applications have been turned in, according to Steve Barrow, a spokesman for the Children’s Advocacy Institute in Sacramento.

Once the program is in place, car owners will get the plates directly from the local Department of Motor Vehicles, and it will only take about one month.

Since the new law took effect Jan. 1, the application forms went into the department stores this month, he said, and so far, about 500 people have sent them in.

“I don’t think many people know about this yet,” he said. “It’s just now starting to roll. But I think it will become quite a huge popular thing.”

It’s all on a first-come first-served basis, and so far, the heart symbols are the most popular. Already taken are I(HEART)JAZZ and WE(HEART)DOGS. Sports teams also are a hit. Someone has already grabbed I(HEART)49RS.

Barrow thinks Kids’ Plates, one of among several new vanity plates approved by the Legislature last year, will fund children’s causes the way the original vanity plate has supported environmental causes.

Half the money from the Kids’ Plates will be used for reforms in day-care licensing and monitoring by each county’s public social services agency, he said.

Funds for these activities have been slashed so deeply in the state’s effort to cut costs that dog kennels were being inspected more often than day- care homes and centers, backers argued before the Legislature.

Once money begins to flow in from the plates, child-care facilities will be inspected every year, instead of every three years. Unannounced spot visits also will be increased. Under the law, a fine can be imposed if a day-care operator fails to correct a health or safety violation.

The new law makes it easier for day-care centers to get liability insurance by pooling their resources, and it provides inspectors with special training aimed at sensitizing them to the economic hardships faced by day-care operators.

The other half of the money from the plates will be spent on child-abuse and injury-prevention programs. Barrows said more than 2,900 children in California are killed each year in traffic accidents, drownings, fires and by poison, gunfire, bicycle accidents and child abuse.

Nearly 600,000 children in the state are in licensed day-care, he said.

In Ventura County, there are about 17,270 spaces for children in licensed centers and homes, according to Child Development Resources of Ventura County. Unknown is the number of children in unlicensed facilities.

“There has been a lot of push to get more inspections,” said Dennis Trenten, licensing supervisor for the county’s social services agency. “I hope the (program) will mean a better standard throughout the day-care community.”

Trenten said the introduction of the Kids’ Plates shouldn’t be viewed as an indication that day-care facilities don’t do a good job.

“The vast majority do,” he said. “Some need a little prodding.” If the plates really do generate as much money as advocates claim, then regulations will be more evenly applied and better enforced, he said.

* FYI

Applications for Kids’ Plates can be found at Target, J.C. Penney and Mervyn stores in Ventura County. For more information, call 1-916-444-3896.