Zamora said she opens early, stays late and works weekends

Monica Martinez, a field worker with three children, said the continued subsidies help her family stay Rosetta Stone afloat."I'm grateful," she said. "It's the best help."For a lot of parents like Martinez, child care centers are not an option or they prefer home-based care.Many work in jobs at night or on the weekends, times when centers are closed. Athena Marks picked her mom to take care of her 3-year-old son, who will be starting preschool soon."He needs to be put to bed and given a bath," Marks said. "They don't have the best choices for child care at night."And some prefer the comfort of a home.Martinez takes her children to Elsa Zamora, who cares for almost a dozen children at her home in Oxnard. Zamora's home is state-licensed, and she takes training classes to stay up to date. She's proud of the things regulations can't measu home cooking, a family atmosphere and flexibility.Zamora said she opens early, stays late and works weekends.Martinez, for example, may need care from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. She sometimes works on Saturdays as well.Her children — ages 7, 9 and 13 — have been coming to Zamora's home for almost five years.Even though the oldest child no longer qualifies for subsidies, the caregiver still takes him."I don't charge," Zamora said. "They're not ready to be alone."Government doesn't knowAbout 1,400 children of CalWORKs parents in the county and an estimated 95,000 in the state are in state-subsidized unlicensed care.Child care researchers say the care may be fabulous or not, but the government doesn't really know. Rosetta Stone American English California requires that the caregiver be 18, care for no more than one family other than his or her own, and pass a criminal background check. Aunts, uncles and grandparents do not have to submit to the background check.The state imposes minimum standards on licensed providers, but inspections are conducted just once every five years unless the facility is being monitored for problems. Complaints are checked out within 10 days, said Shirley Washington, spokeswoman for the state Department of Social Services.License-exempt homes do have an economic benefit: They command cheaper state payments while putting more money in the pockets of low-income families.Reimbursement rates reach $156 a week for children ages 2 to 5, almost $20 less than the rate Rosetta Stone Chinese for licensed family day care homes and about $30 less than child care centers.Many have used exempt careHowever, the oversight is up to the parent, child care specialists say.Gladys and Hector Melendez play outside while being cared for by Elsa Zamora at her home in Oxnard. Faced with the need to leave their children for hours every day, many mothers pick people they know and trust. "What happened as a result of welfare reform was that not everybody could be accommodated in better quality child care programs and not everybody wanted those programs," said Marcy Whitebook, a researcher at UC Berkeley's Center for the Study of Child Care Employment."In practice what has happened is many, many people have used exempt care. They don't have to be licensed, [Rosetta Stone ] and no matter who is taking care of them they don't have to be trained. A lot of kids who are subsidized got into good settings, but lots and lots of them went into situations where we have no real knowledge of what those programs are."The state is moving now to withhold payments until the license-exempt providers pass the criminal background check. That process can take anywhere from a week to four or five months depending on the person's background, Vomund said. No other restrictions are now being pushed in the Legislature, state child care officials say.Faced with the need to leave their children for hours every day, many mothers poor or not pick people they know and trust.Tanya Huzzie, 28, of Ventura takes care of a 5-year-old niece and 7-year-old nephew for her younger sister. The $1,300 she draws every month as a CalWORKs provider is her only income, and she eventually plans to get another job, but it works out for now, she said.Huzzie, who holds an associate degree from Oxnard College, said her sister feels comfortable with her."I know how to get the job done. I think she'd rather have me do it than a stranger. She's very cautious when it comes to her kids."