AGENCY TO PROVIDE CHILD-CARE REFERRALS

Finding day care for a child can be tough. A new Child Care Resource and Referral Agency might make it easier.

Southeast Missouri State University will run the agency with federal block grant money provided by the Missouri Department of Health.

University and state child-care officials announced the service at a campus press conference Friday.

Parents can call the agency at 1-800-811-1127 to find out names and telephone numbers of day-care centers and homes, as well as information on the ages of children that the various centers and homes serve, approximate costs, and whether they have openings.

Parents also can receive information about public subsidies and other financial aid that might be available to help them with day-care costs.

The agency will advise parents as to what questions to ask and what to look for in choosing a day-care facility.

The agency will provide information on state-inspected day-care centers and homes in 23 counties in Southeast Missouri, including Cape Girardeau and surrounding counties. The list will include licensed facilities and church-run facilities, which aren't licensed.

The agency also will offer training and technical assistance to day-care providers.

Telephone calls will be answered Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.

It will be the eighth such agency in a statewide network of federally funded referral offices.

Dr. Charles Kupchella, Southeast's provost, said the school is "working on real-world solutions to real-world problems."

Missouri Department of Health official Ann Hall said parents want the best child care but they often don't know where to start.

The referral agency will provide a good starting point, said Hall, who works for the child-care safety and licensure office in Cape Girardeau.

There are 559 licensed day-care centers and homes in the Southeast Missouri region. Combined, they can serve 12,000 children. But many facilities don't take infants, health department officials said.

Two Cape Girardeau child-care providers contacted by the Southeast Missourian said the referral agency could benefit consumers.

Kaye Clemens, who directs Cinammon Bear, said some parents feel the educational setting is the most important factor. Others base their decisions solely on cost, and then still others are somewhere in between.

Both Clemens and Leslie Martin, director of A Small World Pre-School, said the agency should offer parents a choice of facilities and not base its advice solely on child-care costs.

The university will operate the resource and referral program with a $55,000 grant for the federal fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1.

Southeast received $16,300 for start-up costs this summer. Much of the money was used to purchase a computer and the needed software to keep up-to-date records on day-care facilities.

Dr. Susan Haugland, a professor and director of the Center for Child Studies at Southeast, helped secure the grant.

Haugland said the grant will pay for salaries, equipment, telephone costs, postage and printing. The agency will send packets of information to parents who call in.

The agency will operate with a full-time staff member and a part-time employee. It will be housed in the human environmental studies department's Workshop on Wheels office in the Scully Building on campus.

Workshop on Wheels is a program that serves child-care providers.

Maryiln Schlosser, who directs the Workshop on Wheels program, will coordinate the referral service, along with Dr. Gloysis Mayers, an assistant professor of child development.

Satellite offices might be established in the future, including one at the Bootheel Education Center at Malden.

Haugland said the referral agency will begin answering calls from parents immediately even though information on day-care facilities is still being compiled.