Child care
training and retention programs get state Prop. 10 funds through
PACE office at UC Berkeley
14
Dec 2000
By
Kathleen Maclay, Media Relations
Berkeley
- A University of California, Berkeley-based center has selected
six programs to receive $4.2 million in state funds to boost
the number of preschool teachers and child care providers
in an era of unprecedented shortage and increasing demand.
"Especially
in this economy, providers are leaving at a rapid rate. So,
it's a crisis in this state," said Elizabeth Burr, project
manager with the Policy Analysis for California Education
(PACE) center at UC Berkeley.
PACE was
chosen by the California Children and Families Commission
as the lead agency for a two-year child care initiative to
expand the licensed child care workforce. The California Children
and Families Commission, established under state Proposition
10 in 1998, oversees expenditure for early childhood programs
of $700 million a year raised by a 50-cent-per-pack tax on
cigarettes.
PACE aims
to collect solid evidence of what does - and does not - work
in programs that promote child care workforce expansion and
retention. It will make recommendations to the commission
about how to effectively expand child care provider training
and how better to keep child care providers in the profession.
Licensed
child care in California meets less than a quarter of the
estimated need for care of children ranging in age from infancy
to 13 years, according to PACE. The center has found in earlier
research that insufficient infant care and after-school care
in the evenings and on weekends is exacerbated by an unprecedented
number of preschool teachers and child care workers leaving
the field.
"We're
losing so many providers," said Burr, tracing the problem
to the average child care worker's poverty level earnings
of $14,000-a-year and mandated class size reduction, which
has spurred some providers to leave for better paying elementary
school jobs.
From 20
proposals to help solve the problem, PACE has chosen the following
training models for state funding:
* Connections,
a collaborative program coordinated by UC Riverside Extension,
that includes on-the-job coaching and mentoring, training,
stipends and tuition help, as well as mental health support
for classroom interventions. The program targeting the cities
of Riverside and San Bernadino offers courses in several
languages and through online, distance-learning arrangements.
A 1999 study showed that families in Riverside and San Bernadino
counties face more difficulty than their counterparts anywhere
in the state in finding child care that meets basic state
standards for health and safety. Connections will receive
$900,000.
* A new
program of the Child Care Coordinating Council of San Mateo
County that offers child care and education classes in
Spanish, along with outreach efforts to draw people into child
care and education. Included in the council effort is professional
development for those caring for children through age 5. The
council will receive $690,000.
* Catholic
Charities of the East Bay is working with Contra Costa
Community College and the West Contra Costa Unified School
District's Adult School to expand a program helping refugees
and immigrants with limited English prepare for and land jobs
as child care workers. The program offers internships, academic
support for students with limited English proficiency, financial
help with books, tuition, transportation and child-care, and
cash incentives, as well as job preparation, placement and
support. Catholic Charities will receive $600,000.
* In Nevada
County, child-care workers can face major challenges that
include severe winter weather, isolation due to distance,
a lack of public transportation and a widening economic gap
between wealthy retirees and working families. With a mobile
training system, the Educator Support Project will
offer a cafeteria-style package of potential benefits - such
as health insurance - to be awarded after completion of agreed-upon
educational and professional development goals. The project
includes incentives such as wage supplements, equipment grants,
tuition and child care cost coverage. The program will receive
$430,000.
* The
California Early Childhood Mentor Program in select areas
of the San Joaquin Valley and the Northern California coast,
is based at local colleges and universities and uses a peer
recruitment and mentor plan for target groups such as Hispanic
and Hmong, American Indian, Asian and African-American. It
offers scholarships for students' books and tuition, and stipends
for classroom mentors. It also provides substitutes for child
care providers so they can attend class. The program will
receive $680,000.
* The
Chicano Federation of San Diego County, Inc. operates
a training program in Spanish and English for licensed family
day care providers in San Diego, Imperial and Orange counties.
The federation offers a wide range of in-home and on-site
services and counseling to help with academic, transportation,
child care and other issues. Providers also learn business
skills in the federal program. The program will receive $900,000.
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