
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, April 14, 1991                   TAG: 9104120464
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: E-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Jane See White
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

COMING SOON: A SYSTEM TO FIND - AND RECRUIT - HOME DAY-CARE PROVIDERS

There's a new kind of home-based day care in the works in Roanoke. A local agency is planning to become a licensed family day-care system and to recruit providers for businesses that want to help employees find child care.

Called Child Care Connections, the system will be operated by the Council of Community Services. The council's Pam Kestner-Chappelear hopes it will be licensed by the state and in business by September or October.

Here's how it would work: As a licensed day-care system, Child Care Connections would recruit, train and monitor a stable of home day-care providers. Parents whose employers pay a fee to the system would receive free referrals.

"Also, if a company had an employee who needed a provider in Botetourt and we didn't have one there, then we'd recruit someone," Kestner-Chappelear said. "It will be shaped by what people need. If there's a need for more care in Northwest Roanoke, that's where we'll go to find more."

Child Care Connections also hopes to recruit and train providers to care for disabled or handicapped children, to find more providers who will keep children on weekends or on late-night work shifts, and to keep a list of caretakers who will stay with sick children.

Many Child Care Connections providers probably will take in just two or three children, Kestner-Chappelear predicted. "Many parents prefer a small setting, but providers who just keep one or two children can't be licensed," she said.

Child Care Connection providers will have to undergo 22 hours of training. The system will also run records checks to make sure no provider has been convicted in Virginia of any crime against children. And the system will monitor the homes by making unannounced visits four times a year.

The council is getting help in organizing the project from the Junior League of the Roanoke Valley. League committee chairman Virginia Blackwell and Kestner-Chappelear enlisted help from Maid Bess president Glenn Thornhill to host a breakfast at the Jefferson Club downtown in February to introduce local companies to the plan. About 50 people showed up.

"We are trying to target small companies as well as big ones," Blackwell said. "And also companies that already have some child care as well as those that do not."

Kestner-Chappelear said the plan "offers business the chance to provide a child-care option without the cost of setting up a center. And it enables them to offer an option many parents prefer - home-based care."

So far, the council hasn't signed up any companies for the program. "We've made a few sales calls . . . but we're still ironing out details. It's looking very positive, though," Kestner-Chappelear said.

by CNB