More Day-Care Homes for Spanish Speakers in Works

A new course designed to improve Spanish-language child care in Orange County has attracted a waiting list of 600 women eager for help to complete stringent state licensing requirements.

Called Entre Nosotras (Among Us Women) and offered by the Delhi Center in Santa Ana, the course shows how to get a license to provide day care at home for children under 5. The six-week program has received more applicants than executive director Irene Martinez ever imagined possible.

“But it’s not hard to see why women are interested,” Martinez said. “It gives them a wonderful opportunity to become self-sufficient while staying at home.”

If successful, the program could lead to the creation of 75 new day-care homes, she said. Most of those would be in Santa Ana, where there are only 103 licensed homes--each caring for fewer than 14 children--plus 49 other day-care facilities. The 1990 census showed 29,898 children under 5 in the city, a toddler population greater than in most California cities.

Martinez said she hopes the classes will improve and legalize day care in Santa Ana, where relatives and friends often care for each other’s children. Taking care of children from more than one family without a license violates the law, although generally violators are punished only if there are complaints.

Martinez said she believed hundreds of women had called about the program because so many who have raised their own children and cared for others would like to know how to get through the state’s strict licensing process.

Training Funded By Tobacco Taxes

The course teaches participants about first aid, nutrition and child development. Teachers also work with them to meet state requirements such as filling out a 12-page application, drawing floor plans of their homes and conceiving an evacuation plan.

The Delhi Center received $300,000 in state tobacco-tax money through Proposition 10 to provide intensive counseling that includes paying for and arranging fingerprinting, tuberculosis tests, smoke detectors, fire extinguishers and certification for CPR.

Applicants are also taken in a group by bus from Delhi Center to the offices of Community Care Licensing, a division of the California Social Services Department, for a required orientation session that is offered monthly in Spanish.

Mercedes Virginia Guzman, 36, who had been an assistant to a pediatrician in Mexico, said she appreciated the help because her financial situation has been rocky.

In a few weeks, she expects to receive a license that will allow her to care for eight children in her home.

“I’ve been around children my whole life,” she said. “This is something I really enjoy. But what I didn’t know was the steps I’d need to do this in this country.”

Guzman, a Mexico City native who has been in the United States 11 years, said she will probably charge parents a sliding-scale fee, depending on their incomes.

Martinez said most day-care homes will probably charge $100 per week per child. A woman with a license for six children would earn about $10 an hour before expenses and taxes, still more than minimum wage. A woman who later expanded her license to handle 12 children could be the family’s primary breadwinner, she said.

Mary Kaarmaa, district manager for Community Care Licensing in Orange County, said four Spanish-speaking employees will help monitor the new day-care homes.

Kaarmaa praised the program. “It’s helping meet a real need in the community. We always need quality child care. [Program teachers] are assisting them, training them. It’s very positive.”

Added John Gordon, spokesman for Community Care Licensing in Sacramento: “This is fantastic. You have to remember with Spanish-speaking folks, they may not even be aware that they need to be licensed. This helps them get on the right path.”

Gordon said market demand will determine if the program trains too many day-care providers. With so many children in Santa Ana and nearby cities, he said, there could be many more providers.

Since spring, 37 women ages 20 to 50 have gone through the training program.

Teachers of the first group of women encountered problems because some households had rented rooms to tenants who did not want to get fingerprinted or tuberculosis tests, which are required for every person living in the home.

Some husbands were also uncooperative. Further, some homes with exposed plumbing and electrical lines were in such bad condition they could not pass state requirements, she said. One woman went through the lengthy training only to be rejected because she tested positive for tuberculosis.

For these reasons less than half, about 15, of the first 37 women will get their licenses. In the future, screening will mean that only those with real chances of getting licenses are accepted, Martinez said.

Martinez said she conceived the program after seeing such training conducted by the Chicano Federation, a nonprofit organization in San Diego. There are only a handful of such programs in the U.S.

Martinez said she wanted to have an effect on preschool education. She hopes to attract women who are trying to get off welfare, who would not have to wait to be placed in class because of special funding for their course work. Meanwhile, she hopes to provide training to all those women who pass the initial screening.

“Women should have the ability to go to work and leave the kids in a place where they can learn,” Martinez said. “If they can’t, the children and all of us will pay later down the road.”