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| The Hubbards are Not Alone in Childcare |
The National Association for the Education of Young Children and the BBB team up to educate parents on choosing quality child care facilities
Bellevue, WA (BBB) - Bill and Mary Hubbard are among the many working parents whose children have primary care givers other than themselves 4 to 5 days out of every week. "That's a heck of a lot of time and influence that someone else has with our children." The US Dept of Labor reports that 7 out of 10 mother's, with children three to five years of age, were part of this country's labor force in the year 2000.
The Hubbards are not alone. The National Survey of America's Families reported in 1997 that 76% of children preschool age nationwide, who's parents are both employed, are regularly cared for by someone other than their parents. Yet as is reported time and time again, the good environments for children are hard to find. "Quality child care is difficult to find because 1. there aren't a lot of them out there and 2. parents don't always have the right resources or information they need to evaluate the child care settings that are available to them."
Ten childcare centers, all of whom are Better Business Bureau members, have joined to sponsor Who's Minding the Children? Choosing Quality Child Care, a DVD for parents that shows them how to recognize and find quality child care for their families. These businesses are donating copies of the video to ten Seattle public libraries as well as making it available for check out at their facilities. A list of participating businesses that have videos available at their center for viewing can be obtained from www.bbbvideo.com.
The BBB child care program, hosted by Mona Locke - the first lady of Washington, is a tool created especially for parents. The 39 minute video identifies the various ways to locate child care, shows parents how to evaluate the different environments, and helps them understand and recognize quality in child care. The video differentiates itself from other videos as being the first of it's kind to be endorsed by the National Association for the Education of Young Children.
Bill and Mary watched the videotape. "Every parent should be armed with this information before they set out to look for child care so that they can distinguish between the various places. Anyone can walk into a place and be wowed by cool playgrounds and great classroom designs but being able to evaluate the programs - that's a whole different awareness. We wouldn’t have known what to look for if we hadn't watched the video."
The program is filled with interviews from child care industry experts such as the National Association for the Education of Young Children, Child Care Aware, the National Association for Family Child Care, early childhood teachers and child care professionals. In addition, a free checklist that works in conjunction with the video program is available to download at the BBB Video Series' consumer resource page.
This video was created to address the 48% of working American families with childcare expenses. Current Department of Labor statistics show that these families spend an average of 16% of their earnings on Childcare. "You can spend the same dollars on poor child care as you can on quality care. We look at it as a bonus rather than a hardship because in our case the money is well spent - our kids are learning and developing in a quality environment." - Hubbards
"We are proud to be part of this video program. The information in the video is essential for parents who have children or are thinking of starting a family. A lot of parents make their child care decisions based solely on factors such as convenience and costs. It's great that this video outlines all of the factors that combine to make a quality environment for children so that parents may know to look for those factors as well."
The program is the first of it's kind among BBB members, and marks a change from just taking complaints to a new era of helping to provide high quality pre purchase information to consumers via video programs such as this one.
"We hope to make a difference by sponsoring educational programs like this. We hope that we can help families find the best quality child care and best environments for their children" - KinderCuddles
"We spend a lot of hours away from home working each week. Right now we may not have a choice about working but we do have options about our childcare and quality is critical to us." - Hubbards
ABOUT THE BBB
The Better Business Bureau is a non-profit organization funded by BBB member companies. The mission of the BBB is to promote the highest ethical marketplace relationships through self-regulation, education and information. In 2005 the BBB received nearly 90 million requests for information; the BBB Vides series addressed the top consumer inquires and provides consumer education resources.
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