The Able and the Disabled Blend at Child Center

SAN FRANCISCO —  It is no coincidence that Careth Reid wears running shoes at work.

Watch the 60-year-old director of the Whitney Young Child Development Center sprint after a youngster in a speeding wheelchair and the need for such footwear becomes obvious.

Perched at the top of a hill in the heart of one of the city’s low-income neighborhoods, Whitney Young serves more than 200 youngsters as San Francisco’s only 24-hour child-care center.

The center, named after a celebrated civil rights activist, prides itself on a program that focuses on putting able-bodied and handicapped children together in the same learning environment.

“You’ve got to treat them all alike,” Reid said as several children greeted her with hearty hugs and a cheerful, “Hi, Mrs. Reid!”

A girl with cerebral palsy, who doctors said would never walk, now goes roller-skating, thanks to Reid and her staff.

A boy who is blind in one eye and has an underdeveloped brain never made a vocal sound until he came to Whitney Young. Now he calls out to his friend Camelia to play catch with him.

And the “illness” that kept postal workers home because they couldn’t find affordable night care for their children was cured after Reid opened the center’s doors to night shift workers.

For the first 12 hours of the day, Whitney Young is a bustling child care and learning center for low-income children ages 2 to 14. A third of the children are severely disabled, but they play and learn with able-bodied children.

“If you have a disabled child that you want to be as normal as possible, you need a good model,” Reid said.

In between giving instructions to staff and applauding four youngsters showing off a new dance routine, Reid said, “If you put a child with an orthopedic disability with all children that have an orthopedic problem, how can that child even conceive of running?”

Tommy, who is autistic; Leo, the youngster who couldn’t talk; and Camelia, who has Down’s syndrome, were among a dozen youngsters swinging on the bars and playing ball in the center’s yard.

But even as the sound of laughing children subsides, the center’s doors remain open because there are at least a dozen children who need a nighttime guardian and it is the city’s only 24-hour day care center.

“I’ve seen a lot of changes and it gets better all the time,” said Lynn Beeson of the mayor’s office, who has worked with Whitney Young for 15 years. “It’s one of the most creative environments I’ve had the pleasure of working with.”

Overnight care, initiated two years ago by Karen Wing of the San Francisco local of the American Postal Workers Union, serves anywhere from three to 15 children Monday through Friday.

Wing discovered Whitney Young after an exhaustive six-year search for a center that could deliver around-the-clock service for the general mail facility workers.

Before finding Whitney Young, postal workers “had to make do,” Wing said. “We did surveys and a lot of people were taking sick leave to take care of their children.”

Though no follow-up survey has been done, Wing suspects fewer workers call in sick to take care of children.

Whitney Young has relieved some pressure on night shift workers, but they still face problems such as infant and weekend care.

“Night shift workers are being discriminated against,” Reid said.

She said California does not subsidize child care for parents working night and swing shifts. A parent eligible for state subsidized day care pays about $2.83 per day per child, Reid said. Whitney Young, where night care is not subsidized, charges a minimum rate of $1.50 per hour per child, one of the city’s lowest rates.

Ernestine Lawson, a night shift machine clerk at the post office, used to spend $289 every two weeks for private care for her 5-year-old daughter, Tamara. At Whitney Young, Lawson pays $230 a month.

“Most other centers I found, they don’t want to take you on a drop-in basis because they feel you’re blocking the space of someone else. They feel they can make money on someone who’s there five days a week,” Lawson said.

The terms of care at Whitney Young are more accommodating, she explained. “If you don’t use it, you don’t pay. It’s open. All I have to do is give them a notice and someone is there.”