UCLA4U:
Finding quality child care
by cynthia lee
ucla today staff
For many UCLA faculty, staff and students with young children,
the panic starts to set in this month as the clock ticks down to
the start of the school year. That’s when they face the daunting
task of finding that trustworthy stranger with whom they can leave
their children.
The lucky ones will find Judy Bencivengo first.
Bencivengo has been UCLA’s key to finding quality child care
for 700 faculty, staff and student families a year for the last
25 years. On average, she spends a total of five hours per family
counseling parents on how to make this all-important decision, bolstering
their confidence during their search and checking on prospective
providers.
While August, September and January bring the most urgent requests
for help, Bencivengo, the child-care resource coordinator for UCLA
Early Care and Education, said she also hears from forward-thinking
employees and students who are newly pregnant, as well as from prospective
employees who are just coming in for job interviews. Her services
are offered by UCLA at no cost to parents or to childcare providers
on her resource list.
“It’s a nightmare trying to find a stranger you can
trust with your child,” said Bencivengo. “I’ve
had people crying on the phone because they feel so vulnerable and
so inadequate to the task.”
Bencivengo tries to keep tabs through repeat visits and phone
calls on all those on her resource list: 300 state-licensed family
child-care homes on the Westside, 250 child-care centers and a couple
of reliable agencies that provide nannies. And while she is prevented
by law from making a specific referral, she gives that list to parents,
along with information on how to evaluate providers on their own.
“We believe aware consumers can choose for themselves if
they are given the right information,” she said. “The
key is to look for a responsive environment where the quality of
human interaction is much more important than the number of toys
or size of the yard.”
Bencivengo leads a brown-bag talk on how to find child care on
the first Monday of every month at noon at the Center for Women
and Men, Suite B44 in the Student Activities Center. No RSVP is
necessary. For more information, visit www.childcare.ucla.edu/resources.asp.
|
