Title:

SCHOOL-AGE CHILD CARE ASSESSMENT AND DEVELOPMENT PROJECT

Submitted by:

Susan K. Walker, Acting State Specialist, Human Development
4321 Hartwick Road, Suite 209
College Park, MD 20740
301-403-4146
301-403-4154 (FAX)
sw141@umail.umd.edu

Approved by:

Martin Hamilton
Howard County Extension Director

Frankie Schwenk
Program Leader, 4H Youth and Families

Introduction/Situation:

The need for afterschool care for children has long been important for working families. As maternal employment rates have risen dramatically in the last two decades, so have the number of working families who experience the time gap between the end of the school day and the end of the business day. These families face daily concern for the well-being and whereabouts of their school-age children in the late afternoon hours. Employers notice this, and have coined the phrase Athe 3 to 6 syndrome@ to describe the drop in productivity they notice when many of their employees begin worrying less about their work and more about their children's safety at home alone. Of course, the afternoon latchkey hours are not the only problem. Many employed parents also experience work schedule conflicts in the before-school hours, and all day during the school summer vacation.

With the advent of welfare reform legislation putting time limits on the receipt of benefits and requiring poor parents to find work, the need for care for the children before or after school hours will only stand to increase. Without adequate care situations, many children may be left home alone, some under the legal age of 8 years. Others will spend their time in situations, such as shopping malls and libraries, that may be public, but are not supervised, and are hardly quality experiences. Most employed parents feel they must choose between being good parents or good employees, but that they cannot be both. Clearly, this situation is threatening to the productivity of workers today, and to the development of the next generation. To solve this problem we need community-level supports for employed-parent families.

The Howard County School-age Child Care Assessment and Development (SACC) project is a first step toward addressing this need in Maryland. With funding, we hope to begin this amazingly low cost project in one county, and replicate it county by county statewide. The SACC project will be modeled after the highly successful and effective program developed by Wisconsin-Extension (University of Wisconsin-Extension, 1992). At its core the SACC project is a community-based needs assessment of parents of elementary-aged children. The results of the assessment provide the content for both community education and community development efforts. The SACC project has proven highly effective at moving communities to real action on behalf of school-aged children and their families. For example, a six-year impact report (University of Wisconsin-Extension, 1993) indicated that in response to data from assessments reported in 69 communities,

• 92 new school-age child care program sites were established,
• 406 employees had jobs in these programs, and
• 6,754 children were kept safe and productive in these programs.

In addition,

Extension educators started and served on 42 community task forces and wrote successful grant proposals totaling over $155,000. Because the assessment also detects the need for parent education and self-care assistance to children, during the 6 year reporting period, over 16,000 families received face to face teaching from Extension on self-care and school-age care, and over 47,000 families received Extension educational materials.

As even stronger evidence of the project's impact, an evaluation of 64 SACC programs serving 2,664 students in 15 states reveals that the programs had multiple, positive effects on children, families and their schools (Riley, et al, 1994). For example, principals and classroom teachers said that the SACC program caused children to become more cooperative with adults, to handle conflicts more constructively and that grades improved due to participation in the programs. In addition, principals reported that the SACC program led to decreased vandalism in the school. There is no reason not to expect that such an impact from Maryland's implementation of the School-age Child Care Needs Assessment and Community Development Project can be achieved in this state in relative numbers. Riley, D., Steinberg, J., Todd, C., Junge, S. and McClain, I. (1994). Preventing problem behaviors and raising academic performance in the nation's youth: The impacts of 64 school age child care programs in 15 states supported by the Cooperative Extension Service Youth-at-Risk Initiative.

University of Wisconsin-Extension (1993). School-age Child Care: Seven Year Impact Report, 1986-1992. Madison, WI.

University of Wisconsin-Extension (1992). Project Manual: The SACC (School-age Child Care) Community Assessment and Development Project. Madison, WI.

The objectives of the Howard County School-age Child Care Assessment and Development (SACC) project are to 1. Conduct a needs assessment of school-age care in five elementary schools within a region of the county with a significant portion of lower income families, and 2. Using the results of the assessment, develop high quality after-school experiences for elementary age children in those areas, through the development of SACC programs, improvement of the quality of existing SACC programs, or through self-care educational programs, and 3. Using the results of the assessment identify future needs for SACC programs or additional self-care programs.

The Howard County Extension Educator and Human Development state specialist will work with a steering committee to develop a local task force around school-age child care. The Howard Co. public schools will be represented, as will child care specialists, parents, community development professionals, and youth recreation professionals and others. A presentation about the importance of identifying needs of school-age care will be made, as will an overview of the assessment procedure. Five elementary schools will be identified to conduct the needs assessment. An orientation of the assessment procedure will be conducted with personnel in each school involved.

A three-page questionnaire will be sent home with an estimated 2800 K-5th grade children at the five schools along with report cards (Howard County Public Schools, 1997). A letter to parents will accompany the questionnaire. Parents will be asked to return the questionnaire with the children's signed report cards. This method has proven itself to be a low-cost (eliminates postage), yet highly effective (over 60% response rate on average) way to collect assessment data. The results of the survey can answer questions such as:

Where do children go after school in this community? How many are unsupervised by adults (latchkey children), and at what ages?
What programs would parents prefer, in answer to specific needs?
Would parents like educational services from the Extension office on this issue, and how would they prefer to receive those services?

To complement the parent information, the SACC task force will complete a community checklist reflecting available school-age care facilities, policies, and coordination of school and work activities for local families.

Data entry of the returned parent questionnaires will be done at the Howard County Extension office. Data will be sent to the Human Development specialist, who will conduct an analysis of the data. Together, the specialist and the county extension educator will produce a report of the questionnaire results. This report will include graphs and charts for easy understanding of the results, and will be produced in both long and summary versions. The co-authors will present the results to the SACC task force, and to interested others.

The task force will examine results of the parent survey, matched to the child care facilities and policies and other community information collected. Together they will determine the next best steps for school-age care in the local area. This may include the development of additional SACC sites in public schools or in other locations, consumer education about the selection of quality after school care for children, and/or an education campaign about self-care skills in children.

To establish new SACC sites, technical assistance will be sought from the region VI Child Care Administration licensing office. Someone from that office will consult with the task force on such activities as site identification, hiring personnel, establishing a budget, incorporating a non-profit, and activities for school-age programs.

Another outcome of the survey process is to increase the quality of existing SACC programs. One way for Extension to be directly involved in quality enhancement is through the establishment of 4H clubs at school-age child care sites.

Parent and child education about self-care of children who are at home alone before or after school may also occur. Maryland Extension has a strong history of work in this area through the development of AKids: Taking Charge@ in Montgomery County and self-care programs in Wicomico and other counties.

It is hoped that replication of this project will be picked up by other elementary schools in the county after seeing the results of the survey process. This project can be self-supporting if in-kind assistance for data entry and materials duplication can be guaranteed. Optimally, elementary principals will either provide this support on site, or will provide funding to cover Extension's costs.

Further, this project lends itself to replication in other counties in Maryland, facilitated by county Extension Educators and the acting state specialist in Human Development. Following Howard County's experience, the questionnaire, reports, and graphics can stand as templates for other counties to adapt. Once data has been collected and analyzed, Extension Educators can simply mark up the template report with local school information, statistical results, and graphics can be redesigned to reflect local results for interpretation.

Personnel:

Data entry (per hour): $11.50/hour x 56 hours (estimating a minimum of 30 questionnaires/hour and 1680 returned questionnaires) = $644

Desktop publishing (per hour) for report design, graphics production, questionnaire formatting: $20/hour x 30 hours = $600

In-state travel:

Acting State Specialist to Howard County for project meetings and presentations (60 miles RT @ $.29/mile) x 6 trips = $105

Supplies and Materials:

Duplication of 2800 questionnaires (3 pp each double side x .$.10/page) = $840 Duplication of cover letters (1pg. X .07 x 2800) = $196 Duplication of reports (long; 30pp. x 50/ summary: 1pp. x 250) = $225

Others

Incentive to schools for personnel assistance (e.g., $50 gift certificate to purchase books for library) x 5 schools = $250

Award to classroom returning greatest number of questionnaires (e.g., software package @$65) x 5 schools = $325

Total budget requested: $3185