Building Strong Bonds with Program Sponsors

Summary of Article's First 150 Words

Total word count: 2009

Some directors in the child care field are autonomous. We own and operate our own programs. Such stand-alone program directors are beholden to family clients, licensing, and perhaps accreditation agencies, but not to a higher layer of bureaucracy.
However, the majority of child care programs collaborate with other groups to provide services. We depend upon an assortment of program sponsors and/or funding agencies. For instance, some of us are housed in religious institutions, parks and recreation programs, universities, corporations, community social service agencies, high schools, malls, or even grocery stores.

When a child care center is housed within a larger organization, our programs function as a small cog in a much larger wheel. Such centers are subject to decisions umbrella organizations make in terms of facilities, utility payments, custodial services, and a host of other issues that crop up unexpectedly. If implications for child care are not considered throughout the decision making ...