THE SUNDAY PROFILE : A Step Up in Life : Alice Walker-Duff firmly believes that money spent on child care pays off. But can she convince America?

These are desperate times. Usher in Act I of desperate measures:

“What is this? A lounge act?” whispers one be wildered late arrival, eyes wide, sliding into his seat.

Certainly it’s not a starched-and-pressed affair of the Roberts Rules of Order variety; these proceedings have shades of some circuitous Lucy Ricardo-Ethel Mertz scheme to usurp the Tropicana, if only for a day.

For its staff appreciation luncheon, Crystal Stairs, one of the state’s largest nonprofit providers of child-care services, goes all out--with talk of menus, costumes, music, intricatechoreography.

But their skit, “As the World Turns at Crystal Stairs” is more dire than satire.

Alice Walker-Duff, Crystal Stairs’ executive director, looks on during rehearsal as Karen Hill-Scott, stealing the scene for a moment with her Casio keyboard, vamps on a few familiar themes. Taking five, she then doles out alter egos to the assembled employees: the Voice of the Future, the Rich Lady, Newt Gingrinch. . . .

“Your roles are relatively small, but significant to Alice,” says Hill-Scott, shifting the spotlight back to the new boss, who sits quietly behind broad-framed glasses, scratching notes, her hand a blur, like a student in seminar.

Her unspoken wish: If only the real Newt Gingrich could be as easily defeated as a powdered-hair and Sunday-suited effigy. Plans for his demise? If all goes well, he’ll be felled by a brief rain of Nerf balls.

The underlying theme of this skit (penned by Hill-Scott), however, is more dire than satire.

The Republican-backed “contract with America” promises severe repercussions for many federal and state social services. Walker-Duff and Hill-Scott, who oversees development for Crystal Stairs, have done the math. And the numbers are no laughing matter. As much as 82% of their $19-million budget could go by the wayside in the next few years, jeopardizing child-care resource and referral services for parents citywide, a child-care center, a food program and GAIN (Greater Avenues for Independence), which provides employment and job training.

“It would be a shame if the funding on the state and federal level was cut,” says Charlotte Allen, assistant director of the Hollywood-based social service agency Home SAFE, who also stares at the future with uneasiness. “But if I know Karen and Alice,” she adds with a conspiratorial chuckle, “ they will have a talk with President Clinton themselves. And get it taken care of.”

Since the beginning, the duo has made for intriguing foils: Hill-Scott the bluster, Walker-Duff the calm center of the storm. Walker-Duff, 48, co-founded with Hill-Scott the precursor to Crystal Stairs, the nonprofit Childcare Resource and Referral Service, in the late ‘70s. Their fledgling organization set up shop, using funds from the Joint Center for Community Services, in a couple of storefronts--one in Leimert Park, another in Inglewood--staffed by half a dozen or so students and mothers, the curious and others, who touched down to help out for a spell. But “temporary part time” somehow protracted into 15 years.

Levi Kingston, board chairman of the Hoover Intergenerational Child Development Center near USC, remembers the landscape as not only barren but indifferent. “There really wasn’t much happening in South-Central in terms of child care. People of color didn’t have much representation. And when you thought about child-care providers, they were generally out [in] the Valley,” he recalls. And no one at that time had anything to do with policy.

Ara Parker, then director of the neighboring YWCA child-care program on Vernon Avenue, quickly made the newcomers’ acquaintance. “They were the only black alternative program in the state,” says Parker, who now serves on the board of the Washington-based Black Child Development Institute. “They were involving as many community people as they could. And from the very beginning . . . all races.”

Parker has heard a range of fervent testimonials--formal and otherwise--from mothers: “. . . that Crystal Stairs allowed her to go back to school. To get off AFDC [Aid to Families With Dependent Children]. . . . What people have to realize, if families don’t have safe child care . . . they won’t get into the [training] programs. And they won’t be able to move out in the working world.”

That issue is one of the primary engines driving this child-development movement, and Crystal Stairs has been a catalyst.

“I knew that they were both leaders. Not just in their community, but in the child-care community as a whole,” Patricia Siegel, executive director of the San Francisco-based California Child Care Resource & Referral Network, says of Walker-Duff and Hill-Scott. “The skills they have are unique. They’ve been able to bring child care this broad vision.”

Incorporated in 1980, Crystal Stairs, which takes its name from a line in the Langston Hughes’ poem “Mother to Son,” now operates from sprawling headquarters in a quiet business park within a holding pattern of Los Angeles International Airport.

Walker-Duff and Hill-Scott, both of whom are married with grown children, have learned to negotiate the career-slash-family minefield without bruising too many egos. Both live an easy drive from work--to allow for less road and more family time. Both speak glowingly of their spouses and of their children’s accomplishments--of the importance of being grounded.

But the duo’s job-scope continues to be ambitious--now including child-care research; resource referral; child development; a food program that reaches 12,000 children daily in Los Angeles, Orange and Riverside counties; parenting classes; employment training programs, and SAGE, a child-care center in the Nickerson Gardens Public Housing Development.

“They have a great reputation for getting things done,” says Stephanie Brady of Children Now, a public policy and advocacy agency on the Westside. “They don’t step away from a fight. If they identify a need and it goes beyond their set parameters, they are not afraid to push beyond.”

For many just starting out as child-care providers, a big part of the puzzle is learning to negotiate the system, developing business as well as legal acumen. Hill-Scott and Walker-Duff took it as their charge to gather information and spread the word among their colleagues.

“Early on,” recalls Charlotte Allen of Home SAFE, “Karen and Alice had a sense of the politics before others did. They really knew how to address the issues with the powers that be.” As the eyes and ears of those too swamped to keep their fingers on the pulse of governing bodies, Allen says, “they help us to see the light in terms of legislation. In Washington, Sacramento, they make our needs known.”

With 5,000 children now on waiting lists for its various services, Crystal Stairs has more than tripled in size and reputation in the past 15 years, primarily through word-of-mouth. But for some in the child-care community, it has not only grown dramatically but has become remote--removed.

“I think Crystal Stairs has gotten a little bit too big, as far as serving the community needs,” says one child-care provider who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “In dealing with parents I hear complaints about being on the waiting list for years--that they put their name on when the baby was born and now the child is 10 years of age.”

That shortcoming has trickled down and re-emerged in other ways.

“I remember when they first started, when they were working with the community. Now, the most we see of Crystal Stairs is their nice building,” says the child-care provider. “They need to get back and get in touch with the community. Explain to people why, out of all the money they receive, they can’t do more? Why families get accepted to other programs but not theirs?”

Wilma Kiel, Hoover Intergenerational Child Development Center’s project director, hears the dissatisfaction, yet clearly sees the dilemma. “There are many parents who complain about the length of the waiting list. The demand is overwhelming. Crystal Stairs has really become a beacon in the child-care community, and therefore parents look to Crystal Stairs to answer everything. I think constant reminders to the community as to what they do would really dispel a lot of . . . misinformation.”

Indeed, Crystal Stairs’ growth has been startling. Tremendous. For an upstart that began with a staff that could fit in two rooms into one whose embrace includes a good portion of Southern California, some things could be anticipated.

But they didn’t, or rather couldn’t, anticipate the challenge waiting for Walker-Duff just as she settled into the corner office as executive director two years ago. She stepped in when Hill-Scott stepped down to pursue a new career as a consultant for children’s TV programming.

Walker-Duff thought her focus would be on delegating new duties, easing staff into management positions, embracing a multicultural service population. But it wasn’t so simple shifting from storefront to corporate office. “And then I was somewhat annoyed when the buck stops here, “ says Walker-Duff, pressing her fingertips on her desktop. “And Newt comes along. It was not supposed to be like that.”

*

“Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair,” the mother tells the son.

The poem, one of Langston Hughes’ most quoted, acknowledges life’s uncertain corners, yet is shot through with the spiritual optimism that Hill-Scott and Walker-Duff felt should embody their mission and philosophy.

This landing, one could say, is full of tacks and splinters--but they know they can’t turn back.

The seeds for Crystal Stairs were planted in a classroom project for an urban planning class Hill-Scott taught at UCLA.

“A philanthropic group, the Neighbors of Watts, wanted to know the feasibility of developing child care in the Watts Industrial Park,” she recalls. “We hit on the reality that nobody in the city knew where all the child care was. . . . I knew then that we had information nobody else had.”

Most people were lost in their search for child care, according to Hill-Scott’s findings, and the existing centers were experiencing unstable enrollment.

By the time the state began allocating funds in the late 1970s, to experiment in reducing the cost of child care, Hill-Scott was ready with the proposal.

In September, 1976, the letter arrived: Congratulations, you are funded. “And then I go, Oh no! I’m a full-time professor, I’ve been signed to run a program.”

That letter, however, dovetailed with Walker-Duff’s return to Los Angeles--with two new babies, Gingi and Laura, in tow. She had followed her husband, civil rights lawyer and former L.A. NAACP President Joe Duff, to New York while he served in the Air Force.

“I had this idea that maybe Alice would manage this project for me,” recalls Hill-Scott, adding that she knew full well that Walker-Duff, whom she had met in graduate school at UCLA, would find it outrageous. “At least till the end of the academic year. And I could figure out another plan.

“From October to June . . . eight short months . . . until end of the academic year.” Hill-Scott promised.

Walker-Duff thought it over. This wasn’t exactly part of her plan to work in politics.

“Eight short months,” Hill-Scott promised.

For a friend, Walker-Duff agreed.

“At least till the end the year . . . and I could figure out another plan. . . .”

*

Eighteen years later, Alice Walker-Duff has placed herself just shy of the 10 o’clock position at the conference table. A brainstorming session has been called to discuss ways to raise Crystal Stairs’ profile amid the possible budget cutbacks.

She is long-limbed, with graceful hands and the countenance of a leader. Yet much about her is muted, unobtrusive: her clothing, billowy slacks and oversized mud cloth vest; her face free of makeup; even her voice, as soothing and hypnotic as water on rock. Her calm she attributes to church and yoga. The patience of the ages. Tried-and-true methods for centering.

“She’s like so many women who are sort of deceptive,” says longtime friend Brenda Shockley, president of Community Build Inc., a nonprofit organization that is promoting business in L.A.’s African American communities. “The person that you see at first blush does not begin to show the depth of the person who is really there.”

“What I like about her,” says Brady of Children Now, “is that she is not looking for personal acclaim. She is uncomfortable in the spotlight, yet she knows how great the need is.”

This is where being an incurable optimist comes in most handy.

“Absolute worst-case scenario is we lose 82% of our budget. I don’t believe for a minute that we are going to lose that,” Walker-Duff coolly informs the assembly.

Her goals for Crystal Stairs are just as orderly as her laser-printed meeting agenda. Diversifying its funding is the first step. But the more difficult stretch might come further down the road--juggling finances with the need for image enhancement and outreach.

“Most important is that we are not just here pushing paper and spending money . . . that we are making a difference,” Walker-Duff says. “I really want to make sure our reach is a bit wider--people who don’t have children, who don’t need subsidies, who don’t need child care in the immediate sense. To let them understand that they need to be in a society that makes it possible for the people who do need it to get it, so that the whole society works well.”

With referrals coming from all directions--providers, parents, phone book listings--and thousands on the waiting list, Crystal Stairs finds itself in a double bind. “Our outreach to the general public hasn’t been as large because we were inundated. We had no ability to meet those needs and we didn’t want to say--come, we’ve got services to help you, when in fact we don’t. We are fully extended, fully used.”

Marshaling the time to simply carve out a plan of action has been the challenge. “I do recognize that we really haven’t done a very good job of letting people know the benefits of what we do,” Walker-Duff later confides, sitting behind a desk carpeted in papers of varying sizes, colors and import. “You get funded to provide the service. You’re not funded to provide the service and let everybody know how you are doing. But if we don’t let the public know, they won’t give their tax dollars.”

It’s pitch that seldom falls on open ears, Walker-Duff knows. The “me decade” took the first swing. Now, with the curtain up on the ‘90s, the drama unfolds--as safety nets unravel, many are left pulling lint from shallow pockets and fervently preaching bootstrap philosophy.

“It’s seeing the benefit for society as a whole,” Walker-Duff says. “Not just for parent and child. There is a connection between the way children are treated when they are young and how they behave. And if we don’t take care of children when they are young, we’ll have hell to pay when they grow up.”

Not long ago, even Walker-Duff was among the unconverted. “I didn’t have any burning ambition. Like Joe always wanted to be a lawyer. I never had that particular desire to be any particular thing.”

But she was quite clear about what she didn’t want. With feminism in full bloom, “women’s work” signified a clanking ball and chain. And this was a time of “relevance”--for women, for African Americans--requiring that every move be fleet and every gesture count.

“Child care was not the area I wanted to work in. But I got sucked up once I started.”

What seduced her was the chance to effect some significant change from her little corner of the universe. Child care and politics were far from estranged. “It was about recognizing that child care really is an infrastructure support to our economy and trying to figure out what was the appropriate governmental role.”

Elevating this “female issue” to one of wider concern, she learned quickly, was certainly cutting-edge public policy. “Unfortunately,” she points out, “20 years later it still is. But now people are recognizing its importance. When they say work, they usually say child care associated with it. And when we first started, they didn’t. So,” she acknowledges, a shade of concern disrupting the calm of her face, “there has been progress.”

The “not enough” hangs in the balance.

*

Not too long ago it was just an ill-tended lot scattered with trees. Wild survivors.

And what has taken root in that space is a collection of khaki-colored bungalows, militaristic on the outside. But within, nurturing words and guiding hands see that bright futures begin to bloom.

SAGE is an oasis in the Nickerson Gardens Public Housing Development in Watts. It has been a laboratory to fine-tune the larger potential of what child care can be.

During Crystal Stair’s initial research, Walker-Duff recalls, it became clear that the parents who needed child care the most didn’t have money to pay for it. The addition of food made the equation even more complex.

“We found out that people in South-Central Los Angeles didn’t know that there was a federal food program,” she says, “that children who are in day care can also get nutritious meals.” They hitched a food program up to their engine in motion, “a way for providers to increase the quality of care that they had to offer.”

Based on their model to unify these elements, Crystal Stairs opened SAGE’s doors last year, after a five-year struggle to collect funds, the proper OKs and wade through red tape.

“At first the recruitment was hard,” Cookie Murray, 28, recalls. Two of her three children participate in the after-school program offering math, computer skills and the arts while she works and attends college. “The residents didn’t believe it was for them. Or they weren’t going to school or trying to find employment. But once they saw it working, you couldn’t get a place.”

Murray says SAGE has done much for the neighborhood, the spirits within it. “They have security here at night. And although there is crime everywhere in L.A., the guys don’t mess with the center. They look out for it. They know it’s an asset to us.”

*

SAGE is yet another landing--part of Hill-Scott and Walker-Duff’s dream to see that “children have lives with crystal stairs in them.” Something to help them reach the next landing.

The effort, however, must be a concerted one. “People really do need to express their opinions and let their elected officials know what they really think,” Walker-Duff says. Raise the voice just another notch or two, and the consciousness might follow. “Tell them: ‘I can’t work without it. Child-care subsidies mean something for me. . . .’ Child care,” she adds, “means that children are growing up strong and healthy and able to make a real future for the country.”

It is the counter-image that tests even the most devout optimist.

“I went to see ‘Die Hard With a Vengeance’ and I’ve been thinking about all these movies, about what it’s going to be like in the future. And they are all terrible visions. . . . I learned in graduate school about the self-fulfilling prophecy. And we have very difficult-to-dispute evidence that if teachers expect children to do well--lo and behold, they learn.”

Applying that to the future, Walker-Duff suggests that “if we don’t really start recognizing that positive things do happen, can there be a positive future? People can work for the benefit of everybody. And common good really means good for everybody. And if we don’t start letting people know that and getting people to work on it, we will have this dreadful future.”

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Alice Walker-Duff

Age: 48.

Native?: No; born in Harlem, lives in Los Angeles.

Family: She and her husband, attorney Joe Duff, have two daughters, Gingi, 22, and Laura, 19.

Passions: Church, yoga, writing.

On the dilemmas of modern motherhood: “I’m really thankful that I didn’t have the pressures that some mothers have now. I wasn’t torn between staying home and taking care of my children versus this ‘wonderful career’ that I could have. So I didn’t have that tension. I got to do things, like breast-feed my kids for a long time. Watch them grow.”

On the link between food and child care: “People who are making policy don’t understand the importance of good nutrition. Because they say, ‘Well, I grew up with hot dogs and potato chips. . . .’ But what they don’t realize is that they didn’t grow up in child care for nine hours a day and that wasn’t 80% of the meals they ate every day. . . . That has very serious consequences for the health and development for our children.”

On partnering in business with friend Karen Hill-Scott: “She’s a ball of energy. Fast-talking, fast-walking. She really is an unbelievable person, so working with her has been rewarding--creating something in a partnership. And we are definitely doing good work. We’d worked together so long, so we knew how to respond to one another. She has an unbelievable capacity to do things and is extremely generous. And I am the traditional achiever--I always do well in school--so I didn’t want to let her down.”