In our Issue 22, Joan Blossfield asked: 

What are women's ministries doing to resolve the childcare situation?

We appreciate the responses from Becky Elhardt, Debbie Keck,
Janet Roark, Jill Savage and Suszanne Williams.


Suszanne Williams replies:

If the bible study must be during the day one option
during the school year would be to solicit the local
high school for volunteers. Students in most states
are in need of community service hours and/or service
learning experiences in their possible career arena.
The benefit and safeguards would be that the student
would have supervision provided by school personnel as
well as criminal background verification and
psychological status. Another option would be a
career-technology institute (formerly known as
vocational school) which has an early childhood program
and university students majoring in education. These
students would go beyond babysitting providing
instruction and planned activities. Finally, let's not
forget our senior population as a viable option. In
each case all involved would greatly benefit creating
a win-win situation.


Jill Savage replies:

We, too, have had problems in the past getting workers. We have over 300
children in a mom's program each Wednesday morning. We finally had to
advertise outside of our church. We place an ad in the newspaper and
interview all applicants. We also do background checks with the
Department of Children and Family Services (in Illinois those are free).
We do live in a college town so we often have many college students who
work in our classrooms--especially those studying Early Child Development
or Elementary Education. We hire over 50 workers for our program and
have found success this way.



Jane Roark replies:

We are a sister church to the E-Free church, which asked the
question about childcare. We have 50-60 women and 30 children.
We have 10 workers, but we have lots of babies. One thing we
have utilized is homeschoolers. It is a great money-making and
experience opportunity for them.
We should talk. We meet on Thursdays and we are close to
one another. I can be contacted at janetroark@aol.com.


Debbie Keck replies:

Hi..I am a member of Bible Study Fellowship Int'l and we also
have a large women's bible study and children's program. Is the
child care just that, more like babysitting or do you have a
"program" of teaching and activities? You may want to look into
how BSF conducts their children's program (headquarters in San
Antonio, Texas) We work strictly off of volunteers, no money
involved. What you might consider is having actual leaders of the
children's program and try to get more volunteers of the women
who are coming to the bible study. BSF's children's program
(2 to 5 year olds) couldn't exist without God's servants! We are
God's instrument in helping to bring up kids who know about
Jesus and the word of God!
AMEN! :) <><

Debbie Keck
Program Asst. III
Psychological Services Center/298
University of Nevada, Reno
Reno, NV 89557
dkeck@unr.edu


Becky Elhardt replies:
 
Hi. I'm the Women's Bible Study Coordinator at Crystal Evan Free
Church in New Hope, MN. We also pay a couple of workers and
ask each of the women who attend a.m. Bible Study to help out
once a year. It's hard to get the idea across that the sacrifice of
our time to take care of the kids is a huge ministry even if the time
we give up is only one week a year. We also are open to any ideas
for recruiting paid and unpaid childcare workers. We can't only be
sponges, soaking up what is fed to us in our Bible Studies, but we
need to learn to serve one another with a heart of love.
Becky Elhardt
selhardt@pclink.com