Corporations’ $11.8-Million Initiative Aims to Improve Child-Care Training

The state of child care today is a lot like that old joke about the food at resorts in the Catskills: It tastes terrible and the portions are too small.

The problem with child care in the United States is not only that there isn’t enough of it, but that what does exist is wildly divergent in quality.

To address child-care needs, a coalition of 38 major corporations and foundations Thursday announced an $11.8-million initiative to improve programs around the nation.

The money will not be devoted to building child-care centers or to offering more referrals to child-care providers. Instead, the funds will go to improving quality by developing and enhancing training programs for the staffs and directors of child-care centers and for family child-care providers.

One of the programs for training child-care professionals is based at Pacific Oaks College Research Center in Pasadena.

“When projections show that within the next decade, 70% of American workers will have children in need of child care or after-school care, then it is easy to understand why we are so concerned about this issue,” said Ted Childs, vice president of global work force diversity for IBM.

IBM is one of the participants in the American Business Collaboration for Quality Dependent Care, a group led by 22 corporations that two years ago committed to spending $100 million over six years to improve and expand programs that care for children and the elderly. That group is contributing $9.4 million of the $11.8 million and the rest is coming from a coalition of 16 foundations called the Early Childhood Funders Collaborative.

“The studies that we are doing of employee needs and concerns in many of the 68 communities involved in the American Business Collaboration virtually always show that quality is a key concern for working parents,” Childs said.

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And with good reason.

A 1995 study by four universities including UCLA and Yale found that most children in day care spend their days in programs ranging from indifferent to harmful. An estimated 12% of those in child care are in “poor-quality centers that are detrimental to their development,” and 74% are in “mediocre programs that neither harm nor promote development,” the study stated.

The coalition identified credentialing of child program directors as a key issue, citing research showing that well-trained and motivated directors make for quality child-care programs.

The Pacific Oaks program, which has been six years in development with input from more than 200 child-care professionals around the state, is part of a $2.4-million effort to expand and diversify leadership in early childhood education. The pilot projects--others exist in Oklahoma, New Jersey, and Wisconsin--are helping develop the first nationally recognized credentialing program for directors of early childhood programs, and are working to increase diversity in leadership in the field.

The Pacific Oaks program looks at “what needs to be done to create a stable and qualified work force for child-care centers,” said Carol Sharpe, program director.

Other projects include:

* Funds for technical assistance and consultation for more than 425 child-care centers in 30 communities that will enable centers to receive accreditation.

* A three-year training program for family child-care providers in Phoenix.

* A project focusing on reducing stress and improving productivity of parents of children at 30 centers in New Jersey with more flexible schedules and extended hours, among other things.

But the participants in the coalition--which includes such well-known corporations as Xerox, Johnson & Johnson, Hewlett-Packard, Chevron and Bank of America--said much more is needed.

“In order to make real systematic change, other corporations, foundations and governmental agencies need to devote considerably more resources in the battle to improve quality,” said Stacie G. Goffin, senior program officer of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, which is part of the Early Childhood Funders Collaborative.

Corporate and philanthropic contributions make up less than 5% of the total dollars invested in early child care and education, the coalition said. Government and individuals, primarily parents, pay the rest.

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Has your company developed an interesting way to help employees balance work life and family life? Write to Balancing Act, Los Angeles Times, Business News, Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles, CA 90053. Or send e-mail to nancy.rivera.brooks@latimes.com