1-29-06

Grundy residents work on child-care solutions

• Part of CommunityWorks: Meeting attendees discuss local problems with eye to creating better situation

By Christina Chapman

Staff writer

MORRIS — Grundy County child-care advocates gathered Thursday night to brainstorm issues and solutions for child-care providers and user needs.

The CommunityWorks Advisory Committee of the Morris Community Foundation and the Grand Victoria Foundation are sponsoring numerous forums on three issues: early childhood care and education, workforce development and land use and protection. The next meeting, on land use and protection, will be at 7 p.m. Tuesday at First Presbyterian Church in Morris.

The Grand Victoria Foundation has teamed up with Illinois community foundations in a five-year partnership on a $12 million project to create endowments for the communities to spend on future projects. If the Morris Community Foundation raises $250,000 by June 2008 for its endowment, Grand Victoria will match the sum. The foundation must spend $50,000 in grants by June 2006 on child care, workforce development and land use and protection.

A group of day care center workers, in-home care providers, parents, grandparents and residents met at First Presbyterian Church to discuss issues and their effect on Grundy County residents. The group discussed problems, what can be done to help solve them, who can help, how much it will cost, how feasible the solutions are and how much of an impact solution would have.

Topics included coordinating among child-care providers and local resource agencies to help employers realize and handle the connection between employee attendance and child-care problems.

"It is extremely hard for employees to deal with and hard for employers because they are losing money," said Valerie Vlk, communications coordinator for the Grundy Economic Development Council. "We can show employers how to help, like on-site day care."

A recurring topic was networking and communication among centers and home-based providers. Possible projects for this included a Web site, regular meetings and a newsletter for those who do not have access to a computer or the Internet, said Julie Buck, MCF executive director.

To aid those who do not have access to certain technology, the group thought of creating kiosks around the county with child-care information available 24 hours a day. The costs are expected to be high, but the impact on the community is also high, Buck said.

Other issues included creating a more localized version of the Child Care Resource & Referral located in Joliet, approaching the YMCA about providing before-and-after school programs at the public schools and a child-care crisis center for emergency child-care needs.

Next time, the group will narrow down the issues and projects that will be proposed to the CommunityWorks committee for a larger impact plan and for grant help. The next child-care meeting has not been set, but for more information call the Morris Community Foundation at (815) 941-0852.

01/29/06