An interview with Barbara Reisman

Executive Director
Child Care Action Campaign

A decade ago, many Americans considered child care "as almost a personal problem for dysfunctional families," says Barbara Reisman, director of the New York-based Child Care Action Campaign. While progress has been made in the public's perception of the need, the quality and availability of child care are still grossly inadequate, she says.

The Child Care Action Campaign (CCAC), a national, non-profit coalition of individuals, organizations and businesses, was formed in 1983 to respond to the nation's child care crisis. CCAC was a leader in the national media campaign that helped persuade Congress to add $8 billion in child care funds to welfare legislation and saved nutrition programs and health and safety rules. CCAC has focused most of its efforts on defining good child care, spurring collaboration among business, government and private agencies, and assisting grassroots community efforts to expand the availability of good child care.

"Today, the public acknowledges that most families with children need some kind of day care or after school care," Reisman concludes. ''Also, over the past decade, child care professionals have arrived at some generally agreed-upon definitions of what constitutes quality child care -- including basic levels of health and safety, interesting and appropriately stimulating activities, and the child's ability to form a caring, stable relationship with their child care providers.''

But agreeing on the definition of quality and creating more quality child care centers, are two different things. As Reisman points out, some studies show that quality, overall, has actually declined in recent years, because the wages earned by child care workers have not kept up with inflation, and they were already low. "While some states have tightened child care regulations, other states are weakening them. A Virginia legislative proposal would eliminate the requirement that teachers have any specific training in child care."

Now comes welfare reform, which, by moving parents into the work force, will place added pressure on a system that is already overburdened. In 38 states, low-income parents eligible for subsidized child care are on waiting lists; in California, for example, some families must wait five to six years. "Unless states move quickly, they'll be in the awkward position of telling working parents who have been on the list for years that they still have to wait, while parents moving off of welfare are given help -- even though both sets of parents are making about the same income," she says.

Such an inequity, according to Reisman, could create a dangerous degree of anger among "working poor" parents, and that anger will likely be directed at parents moving off of welfare -- not at government.

While federal and state government must do more to shorten the waiting lists for everyone, government alone can't fill the need. Needed now: Community child care collaborations among all sectors of society.

Reisman points to a handful of communities across the country that are taking action, sometimes with direct CCAC help.

• In Ohio, CCAC has helped untangle conflicting regulations for child care centers, Head Start, and schools, allowing them to coordinate and improve services to children.
• In Florida, CCAC built support for the Child Care Partnership Act that increased local and private funding for child care.
• In Oregon, CCAC supported projects in six counties to link schools, child care, and Head Start
• In Georgia, CCAC demonstrated how social service agencies can streamline procedures so that parents can get the child care help they need to make a successful transition from welfare to work.
• In New York City, CCAC is working to link Head Start and child care centers so parents moving from welfare to work can get the child care help they need.

The key to successful community child care efforts is collaboration, and some of the most successful efforts involve public-private partnerships.

In Indiana, CCAC's Symposium on Child Care Financing spurred public-private teams in 63 counties to start new centers and create loan and investment funds for child care. In Miami County, Indiana, the Child Care Action Campaign and the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration have sponsored a collaboration between the state, a church, a hospital, and three businesses. The state provides some funding; the church offers space; the hospital supplies cribs, equipment and training for teachers, and the businesses have pitched in to build a playground.

"This is the kind of public-private partnership that has to happen all over the country," says Reisman. She would like to see every community mount a grass roots campaign to create such partnerships, and increase the availability of good child care.

A third of all child care programs today are housed in places of worship. "Churches and synagogues usually provide the space but don't pay much attention to the staffing and quality. They can do more to recruit and train staff and volunteers, and subsidize child care for lower- income families. Colleges and universities can also play a larger role. "For example, if the teachers don't have access to the training they need, the local college may offer courses or on-site training. Local businesses can offer scholarships to teachers to take those courses."

Indeed, businesses have a vested interest in good child care. Reisman points to a recent study, in which employees of Johnson & Johnson reported that the company's comprehensive work/family program had significantly reduced stress and improved their concentration on the job. Workplace policies can help: parental leave, flextime, staggered schedules, job sharing, telecommuting, and other alternatives for structuring work. But the availability of good child care is crucial.

For some companies, establishing an on-site child care center is a great solution, says Reisman. "But we're trying to convince employers that it makes economic sense to improve the child care programs that already exist, rather than to create new ones." That's what AT&T, with the help of two of its employee unions, is doing. Rather than creating more on-site care, the company is helping expand existing child care centers. "This way, AT&T is helping all the children of the community, not just the children of AT&T employees."

Businesses can work to set up networks of trained and licensed family child care providers who offer care to children in their homes. Employers can also grant child care vouchers directly to parents, to spend as they choose. Many companies contract with child care resource and referral agencies that help employees find and evaluate child care.

The best known business campaign is the American Business Collaboration for Quality Dependent Care, a group of over 150 employers that has made a ten-year commitment of $100 million to create or improve child care in 47 communities across the country.

Financial institutions can help, too. Often, child care providers don't have access to loans to expand their facilities. A little-known federal law, the Community Reinvestment Act, requires financial institutions to make a portion of their loans to organizations or agencies to rebuild community. "The easiest way to meet that requirement is to make loans in the area of housing. But financial institutions can also do it by helping expand child care choices."

Parents, already stressed and time poor, are unlikely to lead a community campaign for child care. Nonetheless, they can do more to increase and improve child care in their communities.

Reisman offers these suggestions for parents: Research local child care supply and demand; talk to your employer about family-friendly benefits for employees (such as child care assistance, flexible schedules, and job sharing), and attend political candidates' forums to ask them what they're going to do to improve the quality and availability of child care.

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For more information on what you can do, contact:

The Child Care Action Campaign
330 Seventh Avenue, 17th Floor
New York, NY 10001
Phone: (212) 239-0138
E-mail: hn5746@handsnet.org

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Richard Louv is Senior Editor of Connect for Kids and columnist for The San Diego Union-Tribune. He is also author of "101 Things You Can Do for Our Children's Future" (Anchor) and "The Web of Life" (Conari).

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