After School Child Care

Essay by PaperNerd ContributorCollege, Undergraduate October 2001

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The purpose of school-age child care is to provide balanced activities which challenge and enrich a child's life. The program will be planned to complement the job of the home and the school, thereby serving as another vital family resource in our community of the quality child care services that all children deserve. In today's society after-school programs are needed to reduce teenage pregnancy and juvenile crime.

After school programs provide adult supervision that is needed to keep our children out of trouble. As stated by Ellen Goodman in the Herald Dispatch, "Most teenage pregnancies and juvenile crimes occur between the hours of three and six o'clock in the evening ."� It seems that both would decrease if more children attended the after-school programs. Many families work or have something important to do after school, causing the child to go home alone. This "free time"� that the children are having after is being used to do things that their parents normally do not let them do.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, providing an after-school program will engage the children with what we know they lack and need the most, that is adult supervision. If children are placed in a type of after-school program then they would receive the adult supervision and support needed to help them in life. In programs I have witnessed locally, I have seen a mutual respect, trust, and honesty which allow the parents and children to feel good about coming to after school care. Some parents worry about sending their children to daycare or after- school programs, but knowing that they are being supervised can put their mind at ease.

Most after-school programs are safe. According to the National Association of Elementary School Principles, while school run programs may meet or exceed licensing standards for...