Group Pledges $100 Million for Dependent Care : Workplace: U.S. business consortium seeks to address family concerns expressed by employees.
Responding to family concerns that are widespread among American workers, a consortium of 21 major U.S. employers pledged Wednesday to spend $100 million over six years to improve and expand programs that care for children and the elderly.
The announcement marks an expansion of an effort launched three years ago by the consortium, known as the American Business Collaboration for Quality Dependent Care, to enhance child care and elder care in communities across the country.
Southern California is among the 56 regions designated to receive a share of the $100 million, but specifics have not been resolved on which programs will be funded locally. Although none of the 21 companies leading the latest ABC initiative are based in the Southland, several of them--including Bank of America, AT&T; and IBM--are expected to spend some of their money in the area.
In some cases the group’s funds will go toward building day-care centers, but most of the money will be spent on such things as extending the hours of existing child-care and elder-care programs, expanding after-school programs and providing improved training for providers of dependent care. Typically, the programs funded by the consortium are open to the entire community, but preference is given to dependents of employees of the participating companies.
Company officials emphasized that the spending is intended to relieve the problems that many employees face trying to provide care during working hours for their children or ailing parents. These difficulties, employers say, often undermine workers’ performance and lead to absences.
“We are trying to meet real business needs,” said Rod Libbey, a Bank of America vice president in charge of work-and-family programs.
The depth of concern among U.S. workers has been underscored by various studies. For instance, a survey released in 1993 by the Families and Work Institute, a New York-based research organization, found that 38% of workers with children under age 13 would be willing to give up some of their pay or benefits for an employer that provided a child-care center at or near the workplace.
The coalition touts the $100-million commitment as possibly the largest private sector investment ever in child care. Officials conceded, however, that some of the companies would not necessarily be spending more on dependent care than they have in the past; instead, they would be simply rechanneling what they had been spending into collaborative efforts with other companies.
Although officials involved in the consortium acknowledged that their funds would be a drop in the bucket toward meeting the nation’s dependent-care needs, they expressed hope that the initiative will encourage other companies to expand their own efforts.
That’s what happened, for example, at the North Hollywood-based Child Care Resource Center when the nonprofit group received an ABC grant shortly after the consortium was launched in 1992.
The center used the $79,750 from ABC to lend books and toys to under-equipped centers providing day care for up to 12 children in private homes. In addition, ABC money was used to send consultants to these day-care centers to provide professional advice to the child-care providers.
After the ABC funds ran out, other corporate sponsors saw the value of the program and provided additional funds to keep it going, said Lorraine Schrag, executive director of the Child Care Resource Center. The ABC money, Schrag said, “gave us a jump-start to do something that made a qualitative difference in the lives of children.”
