Agenda - 09-02-1980 - Laserfiche WebLink

Browse Search

�. ✓ -"r- I11. Day Care Needs in Northern Orange County The need for day care in Northern Orange County is great. While Headstart has provided a substantial, service to this end of the county, because of their hours and days of operation, Headstart can not serve the needs of working parents. JOCCA has approximately fifty children who they were not able to serve and are on their waiting list for Headstart. Protective service staff have identi- fied twenty children who need day care services as a protective/ preventive service, Additionally, Orange..County Department of Socia_ Services has over twenty families from Northern Orange County on the Agency's waiting list for day care services and subsidy. The Orange County Commission for Women found in August, 1979, that 556 of the county's AFDC recipients lived in Northern Orange County. It: seems possible that the percentage of AFDC recipients in Northern Orange could be reduced if quality day care was available and afford- able. The following is an excerpt from a Letter written by Alice Phalan, Director of the Orange and Chatham Counties' Headstart Program, that further documents the need for day care in this part of the county. "J'OCCA has operated community based programs in the Northern, Orange area for over ten years consistently assessing the need foi programs assisting families and children. J'OCCA operates a Head Start Center for seventy children with a waiting List of over fifty children. There presently are no available certified day care centers in the target communities of Cedar Grove, Hurdle Mills, Efland, Eno Riv'er and Cheeks. Parents have few options available to pro.- vide a safe early learning environment for their young children...Parents have indicated. a willingness to pay for the ser`rioes, ac--• cording to their incomes, yet they do not have, the oppartunity:'� 111. Funding Needs of Day Care in Northern Orange County s While the Northern part of our county contains one-third of the county's population and over one-half of th& AFDC recipients, it only has 5% of the certified day pare spaces in the county avai]ablle to it. The one existing certified center is located in Hills- borough. It operates solely through its own efforts to attract: parents and mobilize fundraising events. However, there is no community subsidy in the way of cash contributions to the center k as there is for many centers in Southern Orange County. Because of this, while the center serves primarily low income families, it can not afford to offer a substantial scholarship program. Be- ! cause the center maintains high quality certification standards, these families cannot afford to pay the total cost of the service_ Consequently, if there are no Title XX day care funds available, the center can not maintain full enrollment. This means that the few certified spaces that are available are not being utilized because funds are not available to subsidize the families who would use this service. Only the equalization of the distribution of funds for day care throughout the county will rectify this problem. { i sk FF �i yFk + I) i�