"How Important Is Quality Child Care?"

Tusculum students explore this question in their Service-Learning class

Making quality child care a reality for more Greene County children is the aim of two projects completed by the fifth block service-learning class.

The 17 students in the "Service Learning in Greeneville and Greene County" course divided into two groups to complete their projects. One worked with three local industries to conduct a survey about child care needs of their employees with the results to be used by the companies in making a decision of whether to establish a day care facility. The other group developed a brochure to inform parents why quality child care is important during early childhood.

"To change things for the better is the reason for doing this, and we hope to help child care improve in Greene County," said Reggie Jones of the class projects. Almost all the students in the class participated in presentations about their projects during a community discussion forum on Jan. 31, the last day of the fifth block.

"We learned that there are no private child care facilities in the Mosheim area," said Mike Klossner. "If the industry survey does well, there is a possibility of the establishment of a child care facility in that area."

The students were welcomed in their efforts with the brochure and the survey by those involved. "All three of the human resource managers of the companies involved wanted to have a survey completed," Amelia Watts said. "But, they were surprised that a group was willing to take on the project."

"We have been concerned about child care for some time," said Cal Doty, human resource director at DTR Tennessee, about the project. "When Joyce Doughty (one of the instructors for the course) called to ask if we would be interested in a survey, it came at a great time. It is a good project, and something that needed to be looked at here." The survey was completed for DTR, the Vistawall Group, and Wal-Mart Distribution Center, which all have facilities within a mile of each other.

Students in the class also spent a few days a week volunteering at Holston United Methodist Home for Children. Telling about his time at Holston Home, Adam Meltzer said he tutored one teenager who was classified as a freshman in high school, but whose educational skills were on a second grade level. "I helped him learn his multiplication tables," Meltzer said. "It was good for him, but it also showed me how I could have a positive influence on someone's life."

Attending the forum were teachers and administrators from the Greeneville and Greene County school systems, professionals in state youth service agencies, and members of local organizations seeking to improve child care quality.

Jennifer Berven of the Northeast Tennessee Community Services Agency commended the students for their efforts in the two projects and their informational presentation. "I have been impressed with the students and their grasp in three and a half weeks of this issue," she said. "I applaud them for their efforts."

Robin Fife, one of the instructors for the class and interim director of the Service-Learning Center, recounted that Berven had a role in the focus of the class after she reminded Fife of a commitment to focus on the issue during a future Service-Learning class. Fife and Joyce Doughty, community service coordinator for the Service-Learning Center, had driven vans for the "Child Watch Tour," an event last year to heighten the awareness of the need for good child care.

"I may have planted the seed," Berven responded, "but these students nurtured this to make it come about."

Exploring existing facilities
One of the first activities for the class was a visit to Laughlin Memorial Hospital where they learned about various aspects of quality child care. The students then traveled to various child care facilities where they saw many of those aspects in practice.

Each of the programs the students toured were different, but all were quality programs, said Trevor England. The students visited Asbury United Methodist Church's Child Enrichment Center, Holston Home's Children's Center, and the Head Start program for three- and four-year-olds from low-income families.

The students in the class also explored what can happen to individuals later if they do not have a nurturing environment early in life.

Visits to Juvenile Court were a learning experience about the various problems that do exist, but it also illustrated that there are solutions to the problems, said Greg Rush.

Reggie Jones said the students saw cases of parent neglect of children, but also of good parents who had exhausted all the possibilities they could before coming to court to see what could be done for an unruly child.

When asked what they learned to be the basics of quality child care, England responded that one of the most important factors is a person who can be a steady part of a child's life for a long period of time and provide one-on-one attention.

Attention is important, Jones said, as the students found many of the children who had misbehaved later in life were doing so to get the attention they need.

Responding to a need

Meeting with human resource managers of DTR, Vistawall and the Wal-Mart Distribution Center, the students found that child care was a concern for all three employers in that a facility could increase productivity by reducing the time that employees may miss work due to lack of child care.

In developing the survey, the group created a series of questions with a focus on care for preschool children based on what they had learned in the class. However, when they met with the human resource managers of the three companies, Amelia Watts said, they found a great interest in after-school activities as well so the questions were changed to gauge needs for parents with children 0-12 years of age.

The group distributed 2,200 of the surveys on Jan. 25, and the employees have until Feb. 4 to return them. The tabulation of the results is a project that Dr. Jerry Gehre's Statistics course in the sixth block will undertake.

Providing education to the community
After exploring what constitutes quality child care, the next question is will people pay for that care, Fife said. "How do we let people know how important it is and what it is going to mean to the development of their children?"

Answering this question was the focus of the group developing the brochure. RaShaun Strickland said the group wanted to help fill in a gap they found in information about early childhood development. "There is a lot of information about pregnancy and then the importance of getting a good education, but parents don't hear a lot about the development of a child from when they are born to when they go to school," he said.

The physical, social, emotional and intellectual development of children, the benefits of quality child care in that development, and the costs of child care are the three topics of focus in the brochure. One-on-one attention, interaction with other children, and positive reinforcement are among the aspects of quality day care emphasized in the brochure, said Seth Easton.

Since so many people care for their children at home or have a family member care for them, the brochure also emphasizes that a home environment should also provide the same type of environment and activities to help nurture a child's development, said Katie Wellman.

To compile information about the costs of child care in Greene County, the students called all the day care centers they found listed in the telephone book, finding that the average cost of child care locally is $74.17 per week with prices ranging from $60 to $100 per week.

The brochure is in its final stages of development, and various opportunities to distribute it are being explored.

Fife said the next step is to find community support for the issue to build on what the students have been able to do during the course. Suggestions were made by those in attendance about involving other community groups to continue the effort and where the brochure can be distributed to reach parents throughout the community.