Need for day care expands into night - Military Careers, Second Careers - Air Force Times

Need for day care expands into night

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — Shortly before 8:30 p.m., after the last snacks have been eaten and hands and faces washed, Venus Schrader pushes out a cart filled with blue and red mats and places them on the floor of her overnight child care center.

A gaggle of wobbly toddlers and other young children settles in for the night.

Venus and her husband, Randy, are in their second year as this city’s first 24-hour child care center, Teddy Bear Junction. Theirs is part of a quiet but growing industry, tending to the children of parents whose jobs take them into the lean hours of the night and even overnight. Another 24-hour child care center in Sioux Falls, Kids N’ Us, recently began to operate through the night, and there are eight in-home child care providers.

But parents’ needs appear to outpace available spots for care at odd hours.

“There are a lot of businesses that aren’t closing,” Schrader said. “But there are very few day care centers that aren’t closing.”

The need for late night and overnight child care services has developed as round-the-clock businesses have evolved. Call center operators, hospital staff and meatpacking plant workers make up the vast majority of the client base, child care providers said.

Their spots are nearly always full, and many parents looking for child care must be turned away, providers said.

That is especially true for parents looking for weekend care, which is scarce, said Alyson Dufault, child care coordinator Sioux Falls’ 211 HelpLine. At least 10 percent of the calls coming into the HelpLine are for evening and weekend care.

Before finding a 24-hour child care provider, Jared Lewis, a single parent and overnight employee at John Morrell, juggled day care for his three children between family members and baby sitters who often were unreliable.

“Honestly, if I didn’t find a 24-hour day care, I probably wouldn’t be able to work,” he said.

His sons have made the transition to overnight care easily, he said.

“For me and my situation and the circumstances, it was perfect,” Lewis said. “It makes my world a lot easier, and my kids are happy.”

Karen and Justin Rieck began their in-home 24-hour child care center, Miss Karen’s House, in January 2004.

The couple worked late nights and weekends at previous jobs and saw a need in Sioux Falls for specialized child care service. They said the need for overnight child care is growing.

“If I had the financial means, we would offer a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week center,” Karen Rieck said. “And we would set it up to look very similar to a home.”

Providers offer a variety of services: food, diapers, activities, field trips and even pre-school learning activities. Some also provide transportation to and from school. Children arrive and are picked up at all hours, caretakers said.

While providers see a need for additional 24-hour services, the city is not seeing a boom. Factors that prevent more new child care businesses include fears of losing important family and personal time, the high cost of private health insurance and the difficulty of finding insurance to cover 24-hour child care, Karen Rieck said.

“I think people are scared that it will take away from their personal time, their family time,” she said. “It takes the right kind of person to do 24-hour care.”

Sioux Falls companies have tried offering 24-hour child care, but it failed to take hold. Many businesses look for other means to ease the burden.

While not offering on-site day care, Wells Fargo offers its employees two programs to help defer the cost of child care expenses: employees can set aside up to $5,000 a year for child care in a pre-tax spending account and receive a 10 percent discount from eligible child care providers.