The Central Family Resource Center:
An Interview with Linda Durham

Aired March 17, 1999

David C. Barnett–Linda Durham is on the front lines of easing the transition from welfare to work as coordinator of the Central Family Resource Center, which is a program sponsored by the Cleveland Public Schools through its Office of Adult and Continuing Education. Welcome, Linda Durham.

Linda Durham–Good morning.

DCB–Who is the typical person that you work with? Is there such a thing?

LD–We work with a lot of people from the inner city, most of them are on welfare and are trying to make this transition from welfare to work. A lot of them come in for our educational programming, and again, this is where the vouchers come in that she was talking about. The problems that they have in getting their vouchers, once they even register for the class, and you have to register for the class before you can get your voucher, and then it's finding the child care, and sometimes that takes them quite a long time, so it's quite a while before they can start their program.

DCB–Does it ever get down to this kind of terrible dilemma of choosing a good child care program like we just heard about versus one that you can get to, a convenient one. Quality versus convenience, do you run into that?

LD–I think often, especially we have a lot of younger parents, 16, 17, 18, 19-year olds who have a tendency not even to look at child care, they automatically choose family and relatives, although that may not be the best placement for their child, and then others I think often just choose what's closest, what's most convenient, what they can get to most easily, without actually looking at the quality.

DCB–Is there such a thing as a rating system for the facilities?

LD–Not that I am familiar with. We try to teach our students that come to us what to look for in quality day care, the amount of space that's available, if the children seem to be having fun, if it's clean, how the child care providers interact with the children, if they're learning to develop independence by having structured areas to put toys away in, and those kind of things, so we try to help them learn how to choose a quality day care.

DCB–I'm wondering if the designation, when the person does or is applying for the job in the form that it has to say "single parent," I wonder if that works against one of your clients? You think psychologically that might?

LD–I don't think that seems to affect them much. I mean, the single parent is not uncommon, it tends to be more the norm of the population that we work with. It's much more unusual to have someone that is married than it is to have the single mom. Then single mom is who we see most frequently.

DCB–What do you think the county could do better, or what sort of things are inherent in the system right now that could make you life easier?

LD–I don't know it's so much making my life easier as it is making these women transitioning. I think it's very difficult to all of a sudden have to pick up and get all these young children off someplace and get yourself to work on time, too. I think planning for back up, you know, if the children are sick what's the policy of the child care that you take them to, do you have relatives, do you have somebody that can back you up during that time. I think it's helping to educate and support, I think these women transitioning need support for a longer period of time. I think we have expectations to change a whole lifestyle in a very short period of time.

DCB–Do you have concerns about, we're a year-and-a-half away from that October 2000 deadline?

LD–I think a lot of people have made a lot of strides, and they're going to continue to do that, and I think it needs to be on an individual basis. Some people need more support, and lots of times they don't actually get what they're individual need is, it's not like a herd of cattle that everybody needs the same thing, so there needs to be some individual consideration when you're making decisions and working with people.

DCB–The words of Linda Durham, who is coordinator of the Central Family Resource Center, a program sponsored by the Cleveland Public Schools through its Office of Adult and Continuing Education. We'll extend this discussion by talking to a young woman who is going through the child care dilemma herself. Tracy will join us here in Studio B after April Baer fills us in with some news headlines.

--news break--

DCB–Tracy, welcome to INFOhio After Nine first of all.

Tracy–Thank you.

DCB–How many kids do you have?

Tracy–I have four children.

DCB–And do you have that, the woman we heard before sounded like she had an assembly line going on in the morning.

Tracy–Yes, exactly, and sometimes, like I said, if they don't get your vouchers to you, then that creates a problem because if you have a job to go to, and your kids can't go to day care, you know, that can risk your job.

DCB–So why don't they give the vouchers to you?

Tracy–I have no idea.

DCB–Is it a governmental bureaucratic delay, you think, or what?

Tracy–I really don't know. Sometimes it has to do with when they set up your appointments for you to come into the office. That's a big issue with me because I can't get my worker to work with me. I work a full-time job now, and I have to leave my job to make these appointments, you know, and that makes it really hard when you're trying to make it on just your salary alone. You have to take time off from your job, and they still expect you to make all these appointments, and then sometimes everything is just still screwed up.

DCB–How did you pick your day care facility?

Tracy–Well, I was going to school and I needed something close because I didn't have transportation, and then I wound up not getting my vouchers and my kids lost their spot. So then I had to go out day care hunting again, and then I was able to pick and choose. I had a little bit of time, just a little bit, but I was able to pick and choose and I went in to see if they were giving quality care, what the place was like, if it was clean, how their meals went, if they were taking good care of my children, if they were learning anything or if they were playing all day. You have to look for things like that in a day care, make sure it's safe for your children.

DCB–What was your experience, were most of them OK, some better than-

Tracy–No, no. Some I went into, I wouldn't leave a pet there.

DCB–Really.

Tracy–The people didn't seem like they were properly trained to take care of children. Then another that I went to, that I'm dealing with right now is I'm seeing different staff all the time, so it's different people in and out over my children, but right now I can't take time off of work and go hunt out another day care.

DCB–So, I was asking Linda Durham a couple of minutes ago, what can we do to make the system work better, from your perspective?

Tracy–I think they should be a little more lenient because as Linda was saying all situations are not the same. As soon as you find a job they take everything from you, so you're basically left just getting whatever you can. If they would be a little more lenient and give you a little time to pick and choose, or if they could maybe come out with, this day care-people have said this day care is not so good, or like a ratings system, like you were talking about, something like that would help too.

DCB–Tracy, thank you very much for sharing your story with us this morning.

Tracy–You're welcome.

DCB–The Federation for Community Planning is a key player locally in the implementation of welfare reform and still to come we'll hear about a conference the Federation is holding this coming Friday, as INFOhio continues here on 90.3.