Ilene:  What a dilemma to find yourself in!  It is really unfortunate that
our programs are not coherent in their understanding that if mothers of
young children are either employing or volunteering that they have rights
to caring childcare in the same way that the breastfed baby has a right.
It is indeed more unfortunate that this is a WIC program where the program
facilitators and supervisors ought to be providing a model for the
fulfillment of mothers and children's rights and needs.

There is a wonderful organization, ARUGAAN (which means nurturing) in the
Philippines, that started up as a result of a similar situation.  The
breastfeeding counselors were part of a large, successful organization, but
many were young mothers with infants, toddlers and pre-school children. The
parent organization did not want to support them for day-care, so they
started their own day-care center, eventually becoming a model that is
being copied in many parts of the Philippines.

In the breastfeeding NGO that I worked with once, in Honduras, we faced
similar problems and worked them out by asking the moms to cooperate by
supporting child-care workers to take care of their kids.  Now the
officials of the organization are talking about building a special module
for the young children of the employees (Don't know if it will work out,
but at least they are considering it).

A women's NGO that I worked with in Guatemala, started their own
community-based Montessori school, in a very poor community outside of
Guatemala city when they realized that child-care was a problem for them in
their micro-enterprise program.  The school is such a success that they are
now organizing to build and staff a Montessori primary school.

I say all this in order to make the point that if there is a desire to
resolve this problem, there are many ways in which it can be handled.  You
say that the concern of the supervisor is basically the quality of care of
the older children.  Actually, this is a positive concern.

Would the supervisor or clinic officials be willing to dedicate some space
in the clinic to housing the children?  Are there family members or peer
counselors who might be willing to volunteer one day a week, or one day
every two weeks to care for the children?  You know, I support you, you
support me -- idea??

Caring child care can be taught... there is really great material around
and in the US there is access to this material, especially from Zero to
Three and the Early Head Start programs.

Here in Honduras, the wife of an owner of a duty free zone is setting up a
day-care center for the 11 factories in the zone (6,000 kids--she is
starting with 60) and she is training herself and the future staff of the
day-care center in Montessori, by correspondence.

(I don't mean to suggest by any means that Montessori is the only method
that works with young children, it is just one that has a more well know
name and possibly more easily accessible information!!).

I would imagine that where you live there are universities that have people
specializing in early child education. Zero to three is the coming area
here. There may well be student teachers who could help develop a program.
A small program was developed by a university in Barranquilla, Colombia, in
part as a response to the need for practice for students,  that is now one
of the models of these types of programs for the country and the region.

As I have worked with programs supporting breastfeeding in many different
places, it has become increasingly clear to me that getting the
breastfeeding right is only the first step.  Breastfeeding is really caring
for children-- and that task doesn't stop when the baby or toddler weans.

If your supervisor is concerned about quality, a discussion with the peer
counselors  might be the first step -- because they themselves probably
have concerns about not being able to give their older children the
attention they still need...

The best strategy is not to keep this as a problem between you and your
supervisor, where you become the bad guy because you have to give the bad
news to your peer counselor, but to present this problem as the social
problem that it is.  The WIC center has a wonderful source of cheap
promoters in the peer counselors that help them to really improve their
programs.  The work of the peer counselors, the self-confidence that women
develop as they see that they are able to provide for their babies is the
first step to being able to one day get out of the WIC program -- and
clearly the peer counselors are helping to accomplish this task...

This is a real area for strategic planning...everyone needs to sit down and
rethink this issue...clearly, as the peer counselors themselves will point
out to the supervisor, the answer is not to prepare and train the peer
counselors, hire them and then make it impossible for them to work as soon
as their babies start to become mobile.  Your supervisor needs to think
about the parenting model that this will provide to both clients and staff
alone:  support them for a while and then abandon them (in the case of both
mothers and babies, this is what is happening).

So what if other WIC clinics don't do this.  Yours can always be a pioneer
center.  I'm sure that there is even grant money for setting up such a
program -- then other WICs can come and learn from you.

Good for you to be concerned about this issue.  I hope that you can turn it
around into the wonderfully positive experience (not to say that it will be
easy) that it could be.

Good luck.  If you want more specific information, please write to me
privately.

Judy


Judy Canahuati, MPhil, IBCLC
PO Box #512
San Pedro Sula, Honduras
Telephone: +504-50-9737
Fax:       +504-50-7482
E-mail:    [log in to unmask]

"The future is not some place we are going to, but one we are creating.
The paths are not to be found, but made, and the activity of making them
changes both the maker and the destination."  John Schaar