Late night child-care offered Child-care teacher Kassie Cook looks on as Dominik Cook gets in some playtime after lunch at All About Kid's Day Care Cente (photo by H. Marc Larson). By Anna Krejci News-Chronicle Parents who work the night shift have one overriding concern. What do I do with my children? Into the void have stepped several Green Bay child-care centers. Children are staying longer and later than ever, local child-care workers say. "I do see children being in care longer," said Janet Williams, center director of programming for Encompass Child Care's Rose Bush Center. "They're in care for almost 10 hours a day," she said. The Rosebush Center is unique from other Encompass Centers in the area because in addition to daytime child care, it offers late-night care from 12:30 p.m.-midnight Monday-Friday. Williams said she sees parents in a variety of professions using the evening-hours child care. Parents working in health care, the retail and restaurant industries, and college students with evening classes use the program the most. "We always have had a waiting list for evening-care programs," Williams said. Williams said 15 parents are on the waiting list, although she said sometimes a parent will sign up for a slot in the evening programs so they can be placed in a day-care program as soon as a slot opens. Recently, enrollment for the evening-hour child-care program has increased by four, when the program began taking children under age 2. A noticeable percentage of parents are asking for extended child-care hours, according to records at Community Childcare Connections Inc., a referral service helping parents choose a child-care program from a pool of 67 group centers and 81 home-based child-care programs in Brown County. Of 650 families that requested referrals in Brown County in 2003, 94 requested second-shift care, about 14 percent of the requests made. Twenty-six families requested weekend care. In the county, there are six licensed group centers and four licensed family providers that offer care past 6 p.m., some of them providing care until midnight. Early Times Child Care in Oneida is open 24 hours, seven days a week. Community Childcare Connections is making referrals mostly for children under 2 years of age. In 2003, it made 416 referrals - about two-thirds of its total - for children in that age group. Williams said the Rosebush center takes every step possible to give its evening-program children the same opportunities as their day-time care counterparts. The only difference is children in the evening program go to bed on cots instead of taking naps. Night-care kids take field trips like the day-time children. They participate in the activities offered by the Brown County Central Library during the winter, and in the summer have picnic dinners at Bay Beach and go to the wildlife sanctuary. "They should not be offered anything less," Williams said. Steve Schroeder, co-owner of All About Kids child care in Green Bay, said his staff tries to simulate home as much as possible for the children ages 6 weeks to 12 years, and allows for unstructured time. "It's as much like home as possible," he said. Kids work on homework with help from the staff or watch television. At bed time the children lay out their sleeping bags on mats. On average, three or four children stay at the center each night until 11:30 p.m. The center closes at midnight. Child-care centers are challenged to find qualified individuals, and especially those willing to work late hours. Williams said the Rosebush center relies on education majors from area universities to help staff the center during the evenings. Schroeder, too, said finding qualified staff to work evenings is difficult. Two years ago Schroeder's center expanded child care to include evening hours. The industry as a whole would benefit from any kind of legislation that offers better benefits for child-care workers, he said. A September national survey conducted for the YMCA showed that a majority of parents believe child care is a community issue and want organizations, employers and governments to help communities answer the demand for quality, affordable child care. Voters with no children under the age of 18 were more evenly divided as to whether governments and organizations should take more responsibility to provide child-care options. Some 800 individuals were surveyed in the study orchestrated by Lake Snell Perry and Associates, a national research firm whose clients include the PEW Foundation, the Democratic National Committee and the AFL-CIO. Legislation introduced Monday by state Rep. Spencer Black, D-Madison, proposes making child-care workers eligible for Badger Care, the state's health-care program for individuals whose incomes are below 185 percent of the federal poverty level. According to a news release from Black's office, child-care workers with qualifying incomes would be eligible for coverage whether or not they have dependents. Other bills Black is introducing call for reimbursing a portion of student loans taken out by early childhood education students after they have worked full time in child care for 12 months in Wisconsin. The bill includes reimbursements each year for up to five years as long as an individual is working in the field. The program would pay for 10 percent, or a maximum of $1,000, of the outstanding portion of student loans each year. A third proposed bill would aid families who use child care by reinstating the child-care state income-tax credit that was discontinued in 1986. Black's bill would permit Wisconsin taxpayers to claim 50 percent of the federal child-care and dependent credit on their state taxes. It would translate into a $525 tax credit for one dependent if a family's gross income is less than $15,000. If the same family has two or more dependents, the maximum tax credit would be $1,050. "Wisconsin is facing a childcare crisis," Black says on his Web page. "Quality, affordable child care is harder and harder for working parents to find. The proposals I am introducing will help families afford quality care and will help make sure that our child-care system is equipped to provide it." "One of the biggest reasons child-care quality suffers is the rapid turnover of employees. Child-care remains one of the lowest-paid professions, which makes it difficult for child-care centers to keep qualified employees with training in early childhood development. "These proposals are designed to help child-care centers keep good employees and help working families afford the cost of quality care." "Good child care," Black added, "leads to good students in our elementary schools." Wisconsin Public Radio reported Tuesday that Black said he hopes the Legislature would opt toward giving working families tax breaks, even if it means giving fewer tax breaks to corporations. He said the key to a productive workforce is good child-care options employees' children. Paula Breese, executive director of the Community Childcare Connections Inc., said she knows of several employers in the area who have relationships with child-care centers and subsidize or partially subsidize child care. Among them are St. Norbert College, Schreiber Foods, Cerebral Palsy Center Inc. and the area's hospitals. Rose Jensen, human resource specialist for Bellin Hospital, said the child-care arrangements made with the Encompass Bellin Health Center about 10 years ago are beneficial. The child-care center offers regular or drop-in child care at a discounted rate to hospital employees. Jensen said she believes it does lessen absenteeism among employees. "The relationship has worked out very well," Jensen said. "It strengthens our ability to recruit and retain employees and it strengthens our relationship with our employees - that we do care." Bellin is not the only hospital to have child-care benefits for their employees. "It's almost an expectation in our community," she said.