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

DATE: SATURDAY, April 20, 1991                   TAG: 9104200192
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A-5   EDITION: STATE 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: BIG STONE GAP                                LENGTH: Short

CHILD CARE FOCUS OF CONFERENCE

People from a spectrum of organizations involved with child care attended a conference on that topic at Mountain Empire Community College Friday.

They were welcomed by Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Abingdon, and college President Ruth Smith to get information on financial assistance for child-care payments and learn of new child-care programs in Southwest Virginia.

Boucher traced federal involvement in child care to the Head Start preschool programs of the past 26 years for low-income and handicapped children. Congress reauthorized the program last year to serve all eligible children by 1994 and enacted a child-care package as part of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1990.

Part of Friday's program was devoted to two new grant programs created in that package.

The conference was sponsored by Boucher's office, the college and the Lee and Scott County Offices on Youth. - Southwest bureau

by CNB