Pat Goodman spends Mondays lunching with friends and playing mah-jongg, activities enjoyed by many other retirees. The rest of the week, however, the energetic Highland Park resident has only limited time for leisurely pursuits.
Four years after retiring from the child-care licensing division of the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, the 69-year-old is busier than ever working on myriad committees and task forces dedicated to improving day-care facilities.
Currently president of the Child Care Coalition of Lake County, a board member of the Illinois Association for the Education of Young Children, an advisory board member of the Family Network family-support program and a prime mover in the drive to establish a day-care network for Highland Park and Highwood, she views retirement as a wonderful opportunity to extend her productivity.
“Given the focus of my professional career,” Goodman explained, “I’m much too aware of the shortage of good quality day care to simply sit on the sidelines. I’ve got the experience, the time and the opportunity to really make a difference; it would be terrible not to make the effort.”
Like so many women of her generation, Goodman joined the work force at a time when day-care options were practically non-existent. She moved from Los Angeles to be near her parents when she was divorced more than 30 years ago. With two young children to support, going to work was a necessity.
“Our district had no in-school lunch program, and there simply wasn’t any day care available,” Goodman recalled. “A neighbor agreed to take the kids at lunchtime, and my mother pitched in as needed, so we managed. But for most working mothers, positive solutions were much more elusive.”
Affordable, good quality day care is still a relatively scarce commodity, and Goodman thinks the situation is especially acute for infants and toddlers.
“Well-equipped, well-run facilities for the very youngest children are in extremely short supply,” she said. “And given that most maternity leaves are limited to six or eight weeks, the problem is only going to get worse.”
Goodman views the still-forming Highland Park-Highwood Home Child Care Association as a move in the right direction. Fellow retiree Marilyn Straus, director emeritus of the Ravinia Nursery School and a resident of Highland Park, chairs the association, and Goodman is helping to organize the group in conjunction with the two cities.
According to Straus, the association expects to have a network of six to eight supervised, in-home day care facilities, all located in either Highland Park or Highwood, in place by September. Overseeing the network will be a paid supervisor to do on-site visits, establish and maintain a lending library for toys and educational materials, and offer training sessions for day-care providers.
Straus and Goodman think the latter is critical. As Goodman put it, “Lots of people still consider child care to be a simple intuitive task, so long as you’re female and breathing.
“People running child-care homes frequently have little training or expertise in the area of early childhood education,” she added. “Young children are eager to learn; offering them nothing more than a safe environment equipped with a few toys and a television set isn’t nearly enough.”
In that vein, Goodman has devoted some of her considerable energy to developing instructional materials called Caboodle Kits for day-care providers. Done in collaboration with the Child Care Resource and Referral Program at the YWCA of Lake and McHenry Counties, the initial project was funded by a grant from Mallinckrodt Group Inc., a medical-products company based in St. Louis with an office in Mundelein. Six Caboodle Kits (Going Places, Colors and Shapes, Number Fun, Seasons, All About Me, and Family and Friends) are being used by in-home providers who have attended the requisite YWCA-sponsored workshops.
Cynthia Raitt Hepner, program director for the YWCA of Lake and McHenry Counties, explained, “Each kit offers a wide variety of guided activities and includes lots of visual and hands-on materials.”
The original grant provides funding for two additional kits, Alphabet Fun and Animals, which are already being developed. Goodman plans to expand the concept and market the kits commercially in the near future.
Educational concerns also motivate Goodman’s efforts on behalf of the Illinois Early Childhood Education and Care Act. The bill failed to win passage in the Senate in its first outing and is being revised. Goodman said the bill would provide modest grants to day-care centers interested in improving early childhood education and care.
Rep. Verna Clayton (R-Buffalo Grove) was the bill’s House sponsor. “Education should be part of every day-care environment, and these grants, while modest, would help accomplish this goal,” she said. “Pat understands the linkage and is willing to devote a great deal of time and effort to achieving passage.”
As president of the Child Care Coalition of Lake County, Goodman has taken an active role in planning both “The Week of the Young Child” this week as part of a national observance and the coalition’s Business Roundtable workshop “Child Care and Business–The Bottom Line,” held April 16 at the Marriott’s Lincolnshire Resort.
“Good day-care benefits the business community,” she said. “Knowing their child is well cared for helps employees concentrate on their jobs, in addition to reducing absenteeism and employee turnover. In the long run, quality day care will also help to create a better educated work force. Our children really are our future.”
Lake Forest resident Charlene Ackerman, executive director of the Paul Kennedy Child Care Center at the Veteran’s Administration Hospital in North Chicago and a member of the Child Care Coalition of Lake County, has chaired “The Week of the Young Child” in Lake County for the last five years. “Young children are increasingly at risk in our society,” she said. “Events like `The Week of the Young Child’ focus the public’s attention on the problems and create an atmosphere conducive to positive change. Pat Goodman has taken an active role in educating the public; she makes good things happen.”
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The Lake County observance of “The Week of the Young Child” opens at 12:30 p.m. today in the Show Court at Gurnee Mills shopping center, with musical entertainment, a toy weapon turn-in, voter registration and several displays promoting care for young children.
