If you go by the hours of most child care centers, everyone works from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. In this world, working parents drop their kids off at day care after 8 a.m. and then easily finish work in time to get to the center by 6 at night to pick them up.
If you talk to a few parents, you'll get a reality check. Almost half of Illinois parents - 42 percent - work outside a daytime, Monday-through-Friday schedule, according to a report by Illinois Action for Children, a nonprofit group that studies and connects child care providers and parents in the state.
The child care needs of these parents continue to be unmet by local care centers. The same study shows that only 16 percent of child care centers and home-based care providers in Illinois offer evening hours after 6 p.m.
An informal phone survey showed few child care centers in the Southland where parents could bring their kids before 6 a.m. or pick them up after 6 p.m.
Extended hours
Phyllis Ward-Davis owns the Children's House day care centers in Park Forest and Markham, both of which are open from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m.
Ward-Davis said more than 70 percent of her clientele works nontraditional hours. These workers tend to be those who need child care the most - single moms or families in which parents can find only late-shift work.
"We started (extended hours) back in 1991, and we've been doing it since then," Ward-Davis said. "We don't live in a 9-to-5 society anymore. A lot of my clients work in the retail industry, real estate, in the medical field. The younger parents are beauticians or work in fast food."
Some parents work during the day but take college courses at night to improve their career prospects. Jeanene Haley is a full-time mom, full-time worker and graduate student and said she needs evening child care. The Park Forest resident brings her four daughters to the Children's House.
It wasn't easy to find a child care center that offered extended hours and would take all her children, she said.
For a while she brought the girls to family members' houses, but they lacked the structure and reinforcement of a child care center.
"They didn't get their homework done because they were playing with their cousins," Haley said. "Friends are not going to be strict and do what they're supposed to do because they know me. They'll blow off the responsibility because it's a family relationship."
It's also an imposition on their schedules, she said. Haley also worries about what her kids eat. When someone else is feeding her daughters dinner, she wants it to be a nutritious one. The Children's House gives them baked chicken and vegetables and other well-rounded meals, she said.
Food costs and other bills present obstacles to child care centers staying open later. When they're feeding kids dinner and a snack and keeping the lights on longer, costs add up.
Also, child care centers have to find and pay workers for extra shifts.
"We originally stayed open 24 hours but discontinued that after the third year," Ward-Davis said. "It's very difficult to find (Department of Children and Family Services) licensed staff for a third shift. It's hard enough to find them for a second shift."
Staffing remains one major concern for child care centers. Though they serve a 24/7 society, their workers want to go home to their families just like everyone else. Also, DCFS mandates a specific worker-child ratio.
Jennifer VonPerbandt hopes the location of her new child care center will bring in after-hours workers. When she opens Kidz at Play in Orland Park later this month, the business will be near St. Xavier University.
"I'm hoping to get college students who are majoring in child care who might need to work at a child care center (for class credit) but might not be able to work during the day because they're in school," she said.
Although workers may be most in need, other parents desire after-hours care as well. VonPerbandt noticed this in herself and other parents and decided to start the child care center, which will stay open until 10 p.m. or later most nights.
Kidz at Play also will offer drop-in care. Instead of signing up for a certain number of days per week or month, registered parents can bring their kids by whenever they need to.
"I've needed this care when I needed to go to a doctor's appointment and the kids don't need to go," VonPerbandt said. She will offer an hourly rate for drop-in clientele.
Ward-Davis said she has tried this strategy but found it too difficult to manage. She has to have enough workers there to watch the kids, so drop-in care is too unpredictable and not cost-effective. She does offer part-time care, though.
VonPerbandt said she thinks the need for after-hours child care is nothing new but center owners don't want to commit to it.
"It's a lot of responsibility to be open 105 hours a week," she said.