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St. Louis Post Dispatch
Release Date: Wednesday, April 18th, 1990
Three years ago Sharon Graff canvassed friends, neighbors, friends of friends and neighbors of neighbors for a business idea that would suit her interests and the market.
"I've always been interested in women's issues," Graff said, noting that she had edited two women's magazines while attending a New England college.
"I found the most common need, as a barrier for mobility for women, was the need for childcare," Graff said. "It's difficult to find; it's difficult to screen; it's just spread out."
She first limited her business to referring parents to day-care centers. That lasted only a few weeks.
"They told me that instead of consulting, for goodness sakes, find alternatives (other than day care) for them," Graff said.
So three years ago, she founded T.L.C. for Kids Inc. in a small, one-woman office in downtown University City. She kept the referral service but added components that meet the needs of working parents. She provided child-care workers for sick children who had to stay home from school - and often kept their moms there with them.
As part of the service, she screened the workers with police checks, long interviews, psychological testing, reference checks - the gamut. Then she acquired liability insurance for her workers.
"It's expensive - 75 percent of the cost is screening - but we're dealing with people's babies," Graff said.
At first she hired the workers as employees, but providing regular paychecks nearly killed the company. So she began working as a free-based referral service for the in-home child-care workers.
Parents pay $6.50 an hour, most to the child-care worker and part to T.L.C.
But as she provided the care for sick children, she heard of other needs that required a response.Three years later, the company provides:
A nanny placement service. T.L.C. interviews women who wish to either live in or visit the homes of parents. Her clients are parents who would rather pay a nanny to keep their children at home than place their children in a child-care center. The same stringent checks go into the screening process, Graff said.
The parents pay Graff a finders fee. Then they deal only with the nanny. The pay runs about $200 a week for a live-in nanny.
"It's not just affluent people," she said. "Sometimes, the entire income of one parent goes into the payment of the nanny. It's an investment in the future."
The service is quite successful, she says, and has a waiting list for families that need live-in nannies.
"Customized group child care" for hotels and motels that host conventions. T.L.C. cares for the children of the conventioneers.
"One called me and said he'd heard about the service and asked if we could help them," Graff said. "We walk in and set up the day care right in the hotel. We supply the toys and the workers.
"The workers have fun at this, too. Sometimes they're taking care of the child of a rock star."
Recently churches and synagogues have called for that service, she said.
Training for child-care workers through a state grant.
Consulting for parents who need to find child-care that suits their income and needs.
"This is for people who can't afford the live-in or visiting nannies," she said.
Graff, 25, says she plans to add a new component to the business each year. But doing that is expensive, she said.
"We're not getting rich, but part of that is because we're continuing to grow," she said. "The nature of child care is not profitable. It's still not accepted as a needed part of society and that's something we have to change."
She recently opened a nanny service in Kansas City.
"We need to see if the concept is successful, or if it's successful because of me," she said. "That's when we'll decide on the next step."
The next step, she says, is to gain acceptance among corporate managers.
"We'd like to get the companies to pay for the sick child care," she said. Her reasons:
The average 2-year-old is home sick at least 15 days and the average kindergartner is home sick 11 days a year.
Two-thirds of working mothers missed up to five work days a year because they have no alternative to staying home with their sick children. The cost to the company to do without a valued employee or replace her with a temporary employee could run $12 to $20 an hour - over the employee's hourly wage or salary.
"It's something (employers) will have to deal with sooner or later. I get the feeling they all know something needs to be done but they don't know what to do. I'm offering an immediate solution."
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