BRIDGETON - Tri-County Community Action Partnership will divest its child-care resource referral program after the state decided it was a conflict of interest for the group to refer children to child-care programs while simultaneously offering its own child-care services, according to Tri-County President and CEO Al Kelly.
Kelly said earlier this month that Tri-County's child-care resource referral program is currently in the process of being transformed into a separate corporation to conform with the state's decision.
"We're not going to shut down any of our services. We just need to divest ourselves from child-care resource referral," he said, but added he is upset with the move.
"In 17 years, we've never had anyone complain about this, said Kelly. "We refer people to child care through a computer that the state sets up. You can choose where you send your children. Do we ever refer anybody to our own child-care program? No. They can choose to come to us."
Tri-County plans to continue offering its Head Start child-care program, while its child-care resources referral program will become Quality Child Care Resources, a Vineland-based corporation.
"We looked at both programs to decide which would be better to retain. We felt as though it would be less of an inconvinience to the people we serve to do it this way," Kelly said.