—PRESS RELEASE—
Date:
Thursday, September 1, 2011
Contact:
Terry Carter—(213) 700-5617
Broken Child Care System NEEDS A CHANGE
Pasadena child care agency is first stop; Kicks off a series of actions across Southern California.
Pasadena, CA—Today, nearly 50 local child care providers and the parents and children they serve lined the sidewalks, chanted with picket signs, and delivered diapers with their messages to draw attention to the role they play in keeping California working and the bad payday policies of Rainbow FCCHEN, which leave many area families at risk of losing their children’s quality child care.
Rainbow is responsible for administering payments with independent child care providers who help low-income families to afford high-quality child care as they return to the workforce. Because the state doesn’t regulate these agencies and their payment policies, agencies are left to devise their own. Rainbow has not paid some providers since June. They have no established pay date, and at this point say they don’t know when these providers will be paid. This means providers running their small businesses struggle to pay their assistants, buy materials, and even provide food for the children they care for because the State cannot ensure proper oversight for its funding.
“These unregulated payday policies have forced many child care providers to close their doors, in turn forcing families to scramble to try to find alternatives,” explains Rainbow child care provider Robin Every. “We are challenging Rainbow administration to join us in calling on Sacramento to fix our broken child care system.”
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