This article originally appeared in the May-June 2001 issue of the Children's Advocate, published by Action Alliance for Children.

Grassroots Snapshot

L.A. Family Child Care Providers

Group action resolves payment problems

By Jessine Foss

Juanita Harris, a family child care provider in Los Angeles, was frustrated. "I wasn't getting paid for all the hours I'd worked" caring for children with child care subsidies, she says. "I went to the R&R five or six times and brought all my paperwork, but my paycheck still didn't include everything. It's been almost six months and I've only been paid half [of what I'm disputing]." Providers, like Harris, who care for children receiving child care subsidies, are paid through Alternative Payment (AP) programs, mostly run by child care resource and referral agencies (R&Rs) in Los Angeles.

Then another family child care provider told Harris about the L.A. chapter of Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), a community organization that has begun organizing family child care providers to tackle issues like late or missing payments, reduced payments, and bounced checks. "We're not going one by one to the R&Rs any more," says Harris, "so they can't send us away one by one."

Action Gets Results

In the child care world, ACORN's tactics are unfamiliar—but they were effective. When ACORN members went in a group to meet with Crystal Stairs, the R&R agreed right away to create new "program liaison" positions. "ACORN wanted a complaint person; we want to figure out a system where there aren't complaints," says Crystal Stairs President Alice Walker Duff.

Even after a series of meetings, Equipoise, another R&R, hasn't committed to creating a liaison position, but has "solved some of the complaints," says ACORN Organizer John Jackson. Larry Carter, Equipoise's new acting executive director, adds that his priorities for the agency include "good customer service and timely payments."

The 14 AP programs in Los Angeles had already been meeting to design uniform payment procedures. ACORN members are working with this group, but in the meantime want R&Rs to improve the way they handle problems.

Over the last year ACORN has organized more than 200 L.A. family child care providers. They are pushing other R&Rs to adopt an "advocate liaison system" like the one at Crystal Stairs and are drafting a "bill of rights" for family child care providers.

Key Strategies

• Providers reaching out to others: Family child care providers who are members of ACORN contact other providers to introduce the campaign.

• Providers becoming leaders: ACORN staff members arrange meetings, carpools, and translation, but meetings are led by providers themselves. ACORN also offers workshops for providers on "knowing your rights," team negotiating, and lobbying.

• Advocate liaison system: ACORN has been involved in a similar system in L.A. welfare offices. When welfare recipients have problems, they can contact advocacy groups like ACORN, who call a designated welfare staff person to resolve the complaint quickly.

• Documenting problems: At Equipoise, some problems were resolved after ACORN members developed forms where providers could log their disputed hours and presented them to the executive director.

• Working with family child care associations: ACORN is working with the California Federation of Child Care Providers. Its president, Marilyn Allen, says "ACORN has helped people stand up and make noise." She recommends they also join the federation so they can "get more connected and be able to problem solve."

• Bill of rights: ACORN activists are drafting a family child care providers' bill of rights, directed not just to AP programs, but also to county and state policy makers. Rights include timely payment, treatment with respect, materials in multiple languages, and paid vacation and health insurance. ACORN members will ask R&Rs, the L.A. Board of Supervisors, state legislators, churches, and unions to support the bill of rights, which they will use as a platform for connecting with other child care organizations and lobbying the state legislature in May.

ACORN L.A.: (213) 747-4211

Action Alliance
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