County to Undertake Census of Child-Care Needs

To the parent who has had to drive like crazy to retrieve a child from day care before costly late fees kick in, or endured a frustrating search for quality care at affordable rates, or panicked when seeking child-care options for an 8-week-old, Orange County wants to know: What do you need?

Beginning this summer, officials here and in other counties around the state will conduct a comprehensive survey of child-care providers and legions of working parents to create the first clear statewide picture of child-care supply and demand.

The survey is mandated by last year’s state welfare reform legislation and requires that counties take an inventory of the child-care scene at least every five years.

“We really want to do a good, comprehensive look at what are the child-care needs,” said Maria Balakshin, director of the child development division of the state Department of Education, which will review the survey results.

“This will give us the very best data we’ve ever had.”

The welfare reform legislation sets minimum standards on the data to be collected in the survey, officially dubbed a “needs assessment,” and for the first time allows for county-by-county comparisons.

Information from the assessments, due to be completed by March, will help set child-care policy, including funding decisions, into the next millennium, local and state officials said.

Some experts argue that increasing the supply of affordable, quality child care is crucial to the success of welfare reform. With that as a backdrop, officials hope to use the survey to spot the holes that need to be stitched in the existing child-care patchwork.

“This will tell us where the need is, where we can make any priorities in terms of funding recommendations,” said Ellin Chariton, a member of the Orange County Child Care and Development Planning Council.

The county will spend $13,000 on a consultant who will interview child-care providers and collect data from the county Social Services Department to complete a needs assessment on day-care availability for low-income families.

A consultant will be selected through a bid process; the deadline to apply is Aug. 5.

Orange County’s most recent survey on the need for subsidized child care was conducted in 1994. It found that the following cities were lacking enough spots for low-income infants and children, in order of greatest need: Santa Ana, Anaheim, Garden Grove, Huntington Beach, Fullerton, Orange and Costa Mesa.

Child-care officials predict that the upcoming needs assessment will show the same level of deficiencies.

“We really don’t expect there to be much change,” Chariton said. “Orange County has a tremendous need for additional resources for subsidized child-care services for low-income families.”

CalWorks, the state’s welfare-to-work program, will push into the labor pool at least 500,000 more Californians, 60% of whom are single parents with at least one preschooler.

In Orange County, about 21,000 children are on a waiting list for subsidized child-care spots, Chariton said. An additional 20,000 children may need child care under CalWorks, she said.

The new survey will be the first one conducted in Los Angeles County since 1986. The effort there, where an estimated one in six residents is on some form of public assistance, is expected to be among the most ambitious.

But area officials plan to expand the county survey, questioning not only state-licensed providers, including operators of child-care centers and family day-care homes, but also license-exempt programs, such as Boys and Girls Clubs and after-school activities.

In L.A. County, workers will attempt to assess the need from ground zero, fanning out to playgrounds, parks and other kid magnets armed with fliers for children to take home.

Although a primary focus will be on the needs of low-income families, Kathy Malaske-Samu, child-care coordinator for Los Angeles County, said workers will contact some parents in all areas of the county and across a range of income levels “so we can draw good, firm conclusions for the work.”

“We need to look at care across the continuum of age and income,” she said.

Nearly $160,000 in public and private funding has been earmarked for the local survey, which is being launched as Los Angeles County prepares for an influx of about 97,000 CalWorks children.

Although most counties began planning for the assessment months ago, state officials said some, like Los Angeles and Orange, are just now beginning the actual survey.

Anecdotally, local child-care experts say they already have a good hunch about what areas will be found lacking: infant care, child care on evenings and weekends, and care in some of the more remote regions that are popular with growing families but have yet to catch the eye of the $30-billion-a-year day-care industry.

Lisa Nunez, of the Los Angeles County Department of Public Social Services, noted that even in areas where there are child-care vacancies, the problem of after-hours care remains.

“Even if [the supply] is wonderful, it still doesn’t hit the nontraditional-hours-care that’s needed,” she said.

The state also requires the assessments to include data on:

* The needs of families eligible for subsidized child care.

* Waiting lists.

* Child-care needs in migrant farming families and of children with special requirements or in protective services.

Malaske-Samu stressed, however, that the ongoing effort is more than just a head count.

“It’s about getting to the right people and posing the right questions,” she said.

“We’re taking this whole thing very seriously, so that when we go back in three to five years, we’ll have an accurate base from which to measure.”

Times staff writer Liz Seymour in Orange County contributed to this report.