‘90s Family : Who’s Minding...

Almost 15% of American children between 5 and 12 are unsupervised for various lengths of time when they come home after school, according to the Urban Institute, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington, D.C. Some must make their own way from school to their after-school care site. Others--the “self-care latch-key children”--go home alone.

“It’s a fairly dire situation and it is always a struggle because how are working parents going to get their children from the school to the program or from school to home,” says Dianne Philibosian, associate dean of Communication, Health and Human Services at Cal State Northridge and chairwoman of the state of California Child Development Programs Advisory Committee.

“There are still numbers of children in the county who are latch-key kids, who go home to empty houses,” Philobosian says. “Nobody watches them. It is scary. There are children who go to a family day-care home or a day-care center, a number of which are unlicensed. Some children go home to baby sitters or family members. Parents face a tremendous stress, they worry about their kids walking home alone, but what are you going to do when you have to work?”

The menu of options are after-school programs at school sites; parks and recreation department programs, often adjacent to schools; care by a neighbor or relative; part-time care at a child-care center; and the latch-key solution. Some programs--including YMCAs, Boys and Girls Clubs and some churches--have employees escort children from school to the care site.

There are after-school programs offered through the YWCA and YMCA that cost $185 to $265 a month for a 10-month plan, and $290 to $315 a month when the child is not in school. Children are escorted from their schools to the Ys.

For those who can afford them, many private schools offer extended care.

After-school hours are a very important, formative part of a child’s day, Philobosian says, and what children do during that time becomes a template for the leisure ethic of adulthood. Children who don’t have supervision or what Philobosian calls a “quality of life opportunity” are more likely to opt for “antisocial leisure” such as gangs, mischief and violence.

“They are in a stage of life that psychologist Erik Ericson called the age of industry,” Philobosian says. “They like hobbies, crafts, to put on plays, to create things, and if they don’t have a setting to do that in a real positive way, they go off in a group and become industrious.”

There are model programs, among them L.A.’s Best, an after-school enrichment program formed through a partnership of the Los Angeles Unified School District, the City of Los Angeles and the private sector. Primarily funded by the City of Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency, the program is open 245 days a year, five days a week, from 2:30 to 6 p.m. at 21 public schools. It serves only low-income families

“More than 200 cities across the nation have asked about it, and it is a nationally recognized and acclaimed model program,” says Carla Sanger, president and chief executive officer of L.A.’s Best, established in 1988. “About 200 children are served per school. The dramatic part is we are occupying 4 million hours with these children. These are hours that children would otherwise be in the streets. Reports of school-based crime goes down significantly with the L.A.’s Best program, gone down 60% overall, compared to schools without it.”

The L.A.’s Best program includes homework assistance. A third of its staff are credentialed teachers and the rest are college students, community volunteers and teacher aides. “Our turnover is extremely low; we give lots of training to the staff,” Sanger says. “Our goal is 50 schools in the next five years, but the challenge is where the money will come from.

Other after-school services include the Star Program, offered through the Los Angeles Unified School District. The program charges parents $220 a month for an enrichment program from 2:30 to 6 p.m. at 33 schools. Star, founded in 1986, offers instruction in languages, computers, study skills, dance and theater. About 5,000 children are enrolled throughout the county.

“The first thing you want to look for in after-school care is the quality of the interaction between the teachers and the children,” she says. “Too many of these programs are custodial and, in certain after-school programs, you have staff assigned to a program such as the playground and there is no sign-in and no sign-out. Children need to have meaningful things to do, someone to do them with, and they need age-appropriate activities. Children need to be supervised.

“There are fewer adults home in our neighborhood than at any time in history and that is a big problem. We know that kids who have a caring adult with them, who is actively involved with them, and someone who has high expectations for them, are not necessarily going to get into trouble with gangs and drugs. These are protective factors.”