Child Care

A week after a high-profile study cast a negative light on child care, researchers - including the study's lead statistician - are sharply questioning whether their controversial work has been misrepresented. As publicly reported last week, the study showed that the more time preschoolers spend in child care, the more likely their teachers were to report behavior problems such as aggression and defiance in kindergarten. But several academics involved in the study feel that its conclusion was overstated and that other important findings never reached the public.

There has been a lot of conflicting information in the local and national press recently about pre-kindergarten. As longtime practitioners of the art of early childhood education, the Maryland Family Network would like to offer some perspective and broaden the conversation. First, publicly funded pre-K is just one piece of a much larger system of early care and education. This system consists of child care centers, family child care, Head Start and a range of other early learning settings, such as private nursery school.

Kathy Lating-Wise of Havre de Grace and Elizabeth "Libby" Lawson-Lilley of Cub Hill recently released their first book, Letters of Advice for Child Care Providers - a compilation of early elementary child-care questions and advice. The book is a series of queries sent from day-care provider Lating-Wise to pediatric nurse practitioner Lawson-Lilley, who answers questions in a "Dear Abby"-type manner. Chapters such as health, development, socialization and eating habits categorize 100 child-care problem scenarios, conveyed with humor by Lating-Wise.

While I respect where Ms. Santo is coming from I can't sit by and not address some issues she neglected.  If every life begins at conception - where is that support when that baby is born? It is one thing to say every life is sacred and then stand by silently while WIC is gutted and Head Start is defunded and child care is difficult to find and in some cases out of reach for the working class. Where are all of these day-to-day supports that these children will need? Where is the prenatal care for the uninsured pregnant mother when Planned Parenthood has had to close so many of its doors?

Many parents who enjoy traveling pursue one of three strategies when they hit the road: leave the kids with a willing relative, take a nanny along or plan a vacation at a child-friendly resort. But sometimes none of these is an option, so to get at least one dinner out by themselves, Mom and Dad need to find a baby sitter in an unfamiliar locale. For those who find themselves in this situation, the ease of finding child care depends on a number of variables -- as does the range of the services available.

Every weeknight, Cheryl Sibiski, a Rosedale widow who works nights as a Baltimore Post Office mail sorter, drops off her 8-year-old son, Joey, at Marshella Merritt's nearby house around 8:30.Joey plays Atari Jaguar in an upstairs bedroom, and then Merritt tucks him into bed. "I ask him if he wants a hug," she said, "and tell him Mom will be there for him in the morning." And then he's off to sleep.It's not a slumber party, but overnight child care -- a niche service about a dozen women in the Baltimore area provide for other people's children, giving them a place to sleep, bathe, play and snack while their parents work nights.

This month, parents across the nation were greeted by a flurry of media coverage on a topic of perennial debate: the long-term effects of sending children to child care. During the past 20 years, parents have been buffeted by contradictory information about the effect of child care on aggressive behavior, attention span and cognitive ability. The new data from the Early Child Care Research Network did little to reduce uncertainty. On one hand, the new findings report that teens who were in high-quality child care as young children scored slightly higher on academic and cognitive assessments and were slightly less likely to "act out" than peers who were in lower-quality child care as young children.

Marguerite Austin-Gorham, a retired child care provider and housekeeper, died of Alzheimer's disease complications Nov. 27 at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. The East Baltimore resident was 88. Born Marguerite Clark in Baltimore and raised on Edythe Street, she was a 1941 graduate of Dunbar High School. She became a housekeeper and worked for many years at the Old St. Paul's Episcopal Church Rectory at Saratoga and Cathedral streets. She assisted in child care for the Rev. Halsey Moon Cook and for the Rev. William C. McKeachie, who were rectors of the downtown church.

Child care service provider Bright Horizons plans to open a 20,000-square-foot child care center this fall at Tide Point in Locust Point. It will be the 12th facility in Maryland for the Massachusetts-based company and will serve the community-at-large rather than one specific employer, according to spokesperson Bridget Perry. Bright Horizons has negotiated a 10-year lease to occupy the waterfront space formerly occupied by the Board of Child Care in the Cascade Building at Tide Point, the old Procter & Gamble plant soap factory converted to offices by Struever Bros.

A state audit found that the Maryland State Department of Education did not conduct routine but critical inspections of child care facilities and failed to follow up on red flags raised by background checks of staff working for the programs. The audit, released Tuesday by the state's Office of Legislative Audits, found that the department did not perform 31 mandated inspections of child care facilities in the region, primarily in Baltimore and in Prince George's County. The inspections "ensure that child care facilities protect the general health and safety of children under their care," such as supervision and cleanliness, according to the audit.

A state audit found that the Maryland State Department of Education did not conduct routine but critical inspections of child care facilities and failed to follow up on red flags raised by background checks of staff working for the programs. The audit, released Tuesday by the state's Office of Legislative Audits, found that the department did not perform 31 mandated inspections of child care facilities in the region, primarily in Baltimore and in Prince George's County. The inspections "ensure that child care facilities protect the general health and safety of children under their care," such as supervision and cleanliness, according to the audit.

This month marks the 20th anniversary of the U.S. Family and Medical Leave Act. The 1993 act is a federal law requiring employers to provide employees 12 weeks of unpaid leave for qualified medical and family reasons, including pregnancy. On this anniversary, we should reflect on how the U.S. is unacceptably lagging behind on parental leave and on what we should do to overcome this gap. Researchers at McGill University's Institute for Health and Social Policy compared policies across the globe and found that among the 173 countries studied, five did not offer any paid parental leave.

As a caregiver, Richard DeCaro knows that a little kindness goes a long way. And now he has a local nonprofit organization to thank for making his life a little easier. The Dorsey's Search resident began taking care of his wife, Ellen, in 2008 after she was diagnosed with an aggressive form of brain cancer at age 50. She had been teaching consumer science at Dunloggin Middle School in Ellicott City, the happy result of a late-in-life career switch, when she awoke from a nap one day and didn't know who she was, he says.

Sunday, Jan. 20 Celebration The 28th annual Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday Celebration will be held at Howard Community College's Horowitz Visual and Performing Arts Center, 10901 Little Patuxent Parkway in Columbia. The reception takes place at 2 p.m., and the program begins at 3 p.m. The celebration is free to the public, but attendees are asked to bring a canned food item to support the Howard County Food Bank. Attendees will have the opportunity to sign up for volunteer opportunities.

Carroll County Public Schools Superintendent Stephen Guthrie will be the featured speaker at a Family Forum hosted by the CCPS Parent Guides group on Monday, Jan. 7, from 7 to 8:30 p.m., at the Board of Education offices, 125 N. Court St., Westminster. The topic will be "The Future of Carroll County Public Schools. " Light refreshments will be served, and child care and activities for children will be provided. Those attending are asked to RSVP before Jan. 3 by calling Pat Levroney at 410-386-1680, or email ptlevro@carrollk12.org .        

The earthquake struck without warning during children's naptime. Fortunately, Judy Tribby and her fellow staff members at the YMCA-Arc child care center in Bowie knew exactly what to do last August, when the ground started to shake. Within seconds, well before the crying children were fully awake, the caregivers began placing infants and toddlers into evacuation cribs. They grabbed ready-to-go emergency bags prepared for each child and quickly moved all 40 children, including a number of children with disabilities, into the main hallway away from the windows.

Baltimore firefighters were investigating the cause of a carbon monoxide leak Friday that prompted the evacuation of 48 people — 36 children and 12 adults — at the Pleasant View Gardens Child Care Center. Fire union officials initially described it as a "mass casualty carbon monoxide incident" and said the victims were being hospitalized, but reports from the scene indicated that those affected were being evaluated outside the building in the 1100 block of E. Fayette St. and no one appeared to be showing symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning.

MARYLAND'S network of child care resource centers is in danger of collapse, but legislators can keep this critical program going by reversing the most recent cuts in its funding. The regional resource centers connect parents to quality child care providers, train providers and help them open and expand their businesses. Each center has local expertise, such as working knowledge of city bus routes and the strengths of each caregiver, to help parents make smart decisions. When the network's budget was slashed from $5.8 million in fiscal year 2003 to $3.8 million in 2004, it closed one center and dropped most of its work helping providers obtain licenses and open much-needed slots for kids.

Shalita O'Neale and the Maryland Foster Youth Resource Center deserve much praise for their work to assist youth to prepare for life after foster care ("Preparing foster teens for life," Aug. 20). "Ready by 21" is just one of a number of initiatives implemented by the Maryland Department of Human Resources to improve its services to foster youth since Ms. O'Neale's time in care. Ms. O'Neale is also to be commended for publicly acknowledging that a group home provided much needed stability and helped her find herself.

Four-year-old Hylah Haynes had an hourlong car ride each day this past school year to get to her Head Start program in Ellicott City. Franora Gray said the ride was worth it. "The program has so much," Gray said, noting that her daughter has received instruction in Spanish before even starting school. Gray spoke before County Executive Ken Ulman, Councilwoman Courtney Watson of Ellicott City and members of the county's General Assembly delegation at an event last month held by the faith-based group People Acting Together in Howard, or PATH, urging them to allocate money to move two Head Start classrooms from Ellicott City to Columbia's Long Reach village.