If past years are any indication, the Show Court at Gurnee Mills shopping center will be jammed on April 9 with more than 2,000 youngsters, their parents and grandparents.
The 11th annual event, the Week of the Young Child Kickoff, is sponsored by the Child Care Coalition of Lake County, a partnership of private and government organizations and individuals who support quality child care for the infant-through-8 age group. Held first in 1990, the event will feature children’s entertainers, paint and paste activities and information about quality child-care benchmarks and Lake County child-care resources.
But the occasion is about more than providing a family outing, according to former event chairperson Charlene Ackerman.
“It’s a parent-education piece, but filled with fun to capture the community,” said Ackerman, executive director of the Paul K. Kennedy Child Care Center, an accredited day-care facility at the Veterans Affairs Medical Hospital in North Chicago. “It’s a chance to educate the public to what quality child education and care is all about. It’s a wonderful, free-to-the-public event. We try to appeal to the whole family, not just toddlers.”
Educating the public about the day-care needs of young children is easier than it was when the coalition incorporated a decade ago, members said. Features on TV and in print on early child development and the child-care needs of working parents have made the public more aware of child-care requirements, such as care facility equipment and adult-child ratios.
The organization also has highlighted a need for accreditation for day-care facilities; in the last decade, the number of Lake County day-care centers licensed by the state has increased to 170 from about 75, and the number of centers meeting the standards of the National Association for the Education of Young Children, a national organization with stringent requirements, has grown to 27 since the list began in 1985.
Local child-care experts credit that greater awareness to the efforts of coalition members.
“It’s among the leading groups of its kind in the nation. It’s done wonderful things,” said Cherron Chambers, director of Dearhaven, an accredited Lake Forest Hospital child-care facility. Formed 10 years ago so that hospital staff would have a safe, close-at-hand place for their children, Dearhaven was among the first corporate-sponsored child-care facilities in Lake County.
“The biggest thing they’ve done recently is to bring in leading people in the preschool and toddler care field to teach the teachers,” Chambers said. “That’s extremely valuable.”
The organization began informally about 12 years ago when two area health officials who are now retired–Pat Goodman, then an Illinois Department of Children and Family Services regional licensing supervisor, and Barbara Haley, a Lake County Health Department Health Facilities Department director–were lamenting the lack of good child care in the county. “Back then, child care was nothing more than glorified baby-sitting. It was not given the importance then it is today,” Goodman said.
Haley and Goodman shared their concerns with a handful of other child-oriented organizations, including the Central Baptist Children’s Home, the National Council of Jewish Women, Head Start, A Safe Place, the Welfare Council of Highland Park-Highwood, the YWCA of Lake County and the Lake County Cooperative Extension Center. The result was the Child Care Coalition of Lake County, which today has more than 100 individual and agency members.
Their goals at that time included the identification of child-care needs; development and implementation of quality day-care standards; advocacy of quality, safe, affordable child-care services; the sharing of information among agencies and county departments; and the development of parent education programs.
“We believe that if parents understand what to look for, the informed parent would wisely choose quality child care and that would help create demand for quality child care,” Haley said.
Retired since 1998, Haley, now a child-care consultant, recently sat in the coalition’s closet-sized office in Highland Park with board member Carol Brusslan of Highland Park. Although Haley pointed out that child care has “come a long way” since the coalition was founded, she and Brusslan noted that the goals are basically the same.
“The need for quality day care seems to be greater now than ever before,” Haley said. “There’s more pressure on parents today. . .to go back to work. There is a real need in infant and toddler care and after-school care.”
Recent grants from Illinois organizations and the state, including a $200,000 grant obtained by State Sen. Terry Link (D-Highwood) in 1997, have allowed the coalition to expand provider education and accreditation assistance.
Goodman, the organization’s point person on legislation and child care advocacy, was recently asked if the coalition has achieved what she wanted.
“It has gone way beyond what I dreamed,” she said.
WEEK SPILLS OVER ITS BOUNDARIES
The Child Care Coalition of Lake County celebrates the Week of the Young Child with the following activities:
– The 5th Annual Poster Contest based on the theme “The Kindness of Children” for students in preschool through 3rd grade. Entry deadline is Saturday. Call 847-604-4405 for more information.
– The Young Child Kick-Off Celebration, Gurnee Mills Show Court, 12:30 to 3 p.m. April 9.
– TV Tune Out Day April 10, to promote more parent-child time.
– Parents Are Special Day April 11, on which child care providers are asked to do something for parents, such as morning doughnuts, afternoon tea or a pot-luck supper.
– Take Your Child To Work Day April 12, on which parents are urged to wear a picture (or paper-doll cutout made at Gurnee Mills or care center) of their child to work as a reminder that work has a direct connection to child care and the family.
– Community Awareness Day April 13, on which child-care providers are asked to inform people in their communities about local social services.
– Celebration of the Kindness of Children Day April 14, on which everyone is asked to emphasize kind acts at home, at child-care centers and any place where children interact with each other or with adults.
– Lecture by Vivian Paley, author of “The Kindness of Children,” at 7 p.m. April 27 at the College of Lake County. Open to the public. Cost is $5 advance, $8 at the door. For more information, call the Child Care Coalition, 454 Central Ave., Highland Park, at 847-604-4405. (Child Care Coalition membership is $15 individual, $25 an agency.)
