Government Shutdown Harming Women Most In Need

As is often the case, the people most negatively impacted by governmental failures are the ones who can least afford the setback. The current government shutdown is no exception.

The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) is considered “non-essential,” allowing it to be shut down, effective yesterday. Nearly 9 million low-income women and their children rely on this program for food, nutritional information and health care referrals. (Since when is food “non-essential” to survival?) That includes breastfeeding support and infant formula, including specialized formula for children with illnesses or allergies, which isn’t readily available elsewhere.

Fifty-three percent of U.S. infants rely on WIC to meet their full nutritional needs. With mothers most often assuming primary parenting responsibilities, this leaves millions of women without options. Utah’s WIC program was the first to shut down yesterday, sacrificing 65,000 residents in need of nutrition assistance. While states will be permitted to tap into additional funding that could sustain them through October, future funding remains uncertain.

Additionally, more than 20 Head Start programs have already been shut down, with more expected if the shutdown drags on. Again, this primarily devastates women, not only with the loss of educational and other services for their children, but also with the last-minute need for child care in the absence of a caregiver.

It’s not just low-income women who will feel the pinch.  Federally funded domestic violence shelters may be at risk of losing reimbursement for their services, along with youth-serving organizations and state coalitions that receive federal sexual assault prevention funds.

While Republicans and Democrats play a dangerous game of chicken, it’s the most vulnerable women who suffer.

Ban the Scan: Fighting Child Care Barriers in Mississippi

The Ms. Foundation for Women is standing in solidarity with low-income families in Mississippi and the child care providers who serve them as they fight injustice.

Ms. grantee Mississippi Low-Income Child Care Initiative recently helped win a preliminary injunction against a fingerprint scanning system that would stigmatize low-income women, who rely on federal subsidies, and erect operational barriers for child care providers. This system has the potential to harm both low-income families and child care business owners.

Low-income parents who receive federal child care vouchers would be forced to scan their fingerprints when dropping their children off at child care each day. This system treats low-income parents like criminals, singling them out from the higher-earning families at their child care centers.

It’s standard practice for child care providers to charge weekly or monthly rates, for families both paying in full and using subsidies. But under the fingerprint scanning system, child care providers would be paid only for the specific times that children receiving vouchers are present. Child care providers would experience a decrease in reimbursement when children who rely on subsidies are absent.

Families might decline the voucher system for privacy reasons, and child care providers may stop accepting children who rely on vouchers because of the decrease in reimbursement. The end result could be a severe curtailment in child care access for low-income families and a loss of jobs for child care providers whose businesses fold.

Mississippi has allocated $12 million to Xerox over five years to operate this system – money that would be better spent enrolling more children in the voucher program, according to Cassandra Welchin at the Mississippi Low-Income Child Care Initiative.

We couldn’t agree more! The Ms. Foundation is following developments closely and spreading the word about the impact on women and families who need our support the most.


Return to the Ms. Foundation for Women website

A Parting Note from the Ms. Foundation’s Inaugural Fellow

By E. Tammy Kim, Ms. Foundation 2012-2013 Fellow

Like every journalist with the nerve to fancy herself a “writer,” I take more than a few cues from the New Yorker’s Janet Malcolm. In one of her distinctly psychological ruminations, she describes journalists as “connoisseurs of the small, unregarded motions of life,” and journalism as having a “mandate to notice small things.”

These details, the texture of life, are what distinguish thorough, reported stories from the quick write-ups and editorializing that dominate this media moment. But deep storytelling takes a lot of time and money—they are a luxury that few outlets and individuals can afford.

For the past year, I enjoyed the rare, substantial gift of journalistic support from the Ms. Foundation for Women. With its integrated vision of media, grantmaking and policy in the service of women, the foundation enabled me to write in-depth, investigative stories on child care and low-wage work. My research and conversations with affected women across the country have, I hope, informed the organization’s work more generally.

Here are some of the pieces I wrote in the course of my fellowship:

• “The Invisible Workforce: Why Do the People Raising Our Children Earn Poverty Wages?” in The Nation (Aug. 2013), on in-home family child care providers in New Jersey, with an accompanying short video.

• "What Separates Welfare from Work" on Open City (July 2013), on welfare-to-work and child care subsidies in New York, featuring former Ms. Foundation grantee Community Voices Heard.

• "The Fourth Circuit’s NLRB Smackdown" in The American Prospect (June 2013), on recent court decisions further hampering the National Labor Relations Board.

• "What Kind of Work Is Care?" in New Labor Forum (Spring 2013), a book review of Making Care Count and Raising Brooklyn, featuring former Ms. Foundation grantee Domestic Workers United.

• "A Brooklyn Corner: Day laborers who clean for ultra-Orthodox Jewish households are learning about their rights" in The Nation (Apr. 2013), on women day laborers and the informal domestic economy in Brooklyn.

• "Home Is Where the Union Is" in The American Prospect (Dec. 2012), on working conditions for nannies and housecleaners, featuring former Ms. Foundation grantee National Domestic Workers Alliance and its affiliates, including grantee Adhikaar.

• “Onus of Child Support Shouldn’t Be On Moms” in the Albuquerque Journal (Sept. 2012), an op-ed about enforcement requirements and child care subsidies, written in conjunction with former Ms. Foundation grantee OLÉ in New Mexico, also featuring former grantee Mississippi Low-Income Child Care Initiative. 

• And keep an eye out for my story examining cuts to child care and kinship care subsidies in Kentucky, forthcoming on Al Jazeera America later this month.

I hope these stories ring true and further our collective work toward economic justice for all. With deep gratitude to the Ms. Foundation and my colleagues, and as I move on to a staff writer position with Al Jazeera America, I look forward to continued partnership and better, deeper storytelling.

The Ms. Foundation’s incoming fellow, Lindsay Rosenthal, will begin next month in her role identifying the best strategies for increasing access to health care services for girls currently in or transitioning from the juvenile justice and foster care systems. 

Return to the Ms. Foundation for Women website

Celebrating Child Care Providers

Ms. Foundation for Women Economic Justice Grantee All Our Kin shares departing reflections from policy fellow Ana Rader, who championed family child care providers, families and children online and in person. Read Ana’s full blog post here.

The family child care providers I’ve met while at All Our Kin are remarkable. Teresa Younger’s words in her keynote at our conference have stayed with me, and I’ve mulled over them often. Quoting a colleague, she said: “The best thing I can do for myself is to drop my daughter off at day care…. I have found an amazing provider who loves her, teaches her, keeps her safe and happy…. I love being at work.” Then, “Today, we celebrate who you are, what you do, and what you make possible for the rest of us to do.”

And it’s true. The work of family child care providers is the reason many other parents —many other women — can leave their homes, enter the public sphere to work and thrive. And I’m not talking about Sheryl Sandberg, here.  Family child care providers enable the women even the feminists forget — not the women “leaning in” as they rise to corporate and political power, but those entering the workforce with low-wage jobs, who might need care overnight as they work unpredictable schedules, who are grateful for an ounce of stability upon arriving in this chaotic country. And that’s important. That’s wonderful.

But these family child care providers, these women I’ve known, are far more than their value as a stepstool for other women. In a time when we often measure women’s equality by the number of women in seats in which men once sat, these family child care providers are instead redefining what it means to be a powerful, autonomous woman. They are reclaiming caregiving as a profession requiring strategy, skill, practice and patience; reclaiming the home as a space that can be lucrative, important, dynamic and rewarding. They are teaching their husbands and sons, bringing them into the home to join them as business partners and educators of young children. Siloed though they may be in their day-to-day work, at meetings and through telephone calls these family child care providers support and celebrate each other, strengthening and growing this community of women who are neither leaning in nor opting out. This, too — perhaps this, especially — is how change really happens.

Paid Sick Days: A Necessary Support

*Update Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter vetoed Philadelphia's City Council-approved Earned Sick Leave legislation on April 4, 2013.

This week we talked to Janet Filante, Executive Director of Childspace CDI – a long-time Ms. Foundation for Women child care grantee – about their work organizing child care providers to advocate for paid sick days as part of a Philadelphia campaign that’s heating up this spring.
Learn more about the campaign and sign the petition.

The Philadelphia City Council just passed a paid sick leave bill that would require all businesses with over 6 employees to provide their full-time staff with at least a few days of paid sick leave. The bill is now before Mayor Michael Nutter. Can you tell me why Childspace CDI became involved in the coalition supporting this legislation?

There were really three reasons we got involved: economic concerns, health concerns, and its impact on women.

First, we support child care teachers having decent working conditions, and unfortunately there are child care teachers who do not have paid sick days. So that means that they have to choose between taking a day off when they're sick or getting paid. Parents also have face these issues. Providers have guidelines saying that you shouldn't bring in a sick kid – for example if they have had a temperature within the last twenty four hours – but if the parents of these children work where they don't have paid sick days, they may have no choice. Taking a day off could mean that they might lose their job or they could lose pay, which for some people is the difference of whether they'll make rent that month.

Secondly, child care centers are environments filled with lots of germs and when providers or children don’t have the opportunity to stay home they often just keep circulating those germs. It’s important to have a healthy early care environment and ensuring paid sick leave would help make this possible. In these cases ensuring paid sick leave is both a personal and public health benefit.
Finally, this legislation is doubly important for women in their role as caregivers, because they not only need to be able to stay home and get well when they are sick, but need to take care of their children when the children get sick. Women are the majority of the workforce in these highly susceptible caregiving industries, which also typically have fewer workplace protections. Paid sick leave is an essential support for women working in these roles and for mothers caring for their children; without it, public health suffers and women are often left struggling to support their families.

So it's a very important issue both for the teachers that don't have that basic benefit and for the parents who use their programs.

What role did you play in the campaign?
The main role we played was to rally the participation of owners and directors of independent child care programs who were speaking out as business owners. This was really important because the business association was the main opponent to this bill, so the coalition really wanted to have businesses that could speak positively about why paid sick leave would be beneficial for businesses. We got business owners to testify in front of the Council, speak at press conferences and sign letters of support.

As I mentioned above, not having paid sick leave is a real health issue for child care businesses and can become a dangerous business practice. And on the other hand, we’ve found that providing paid sick days is actually a benefit to their business. It shows respect to their employees and engenders loyalty. People don't abuse it. The employees feel honored and respected and it contributes to less turnover and a better work environment.

What is the status of the legislation right now?
The bill is in front of Mayor Nutter and he has to decide this week. People do think that he's likely to veto it, as he did last year. But we are working hard to get one more vote in the Council in support of the bill so that – like New York City – we will have enough votes to override the mayor’s veto.

There’s a lot of momentum in this movement nationwide and it does seem to me that it will be one of the things that we look back at and be astonished that it wasn't a benefit that everyone had. Just like there's overtime and child labor laws, I do think we're going to get to the point where it's generally accepted that everyone should be able to have some earned sick time. It’s just common sense.
_______________________

Childspace CDI
Childspace CDI is a nonprofit organization with a mission to improve the quality of jobs and quality of care in early education – defined as care for children aged zero-five, before kindergarten.

They do this by organizing teachers and directors to speak up for what they need to provide quality care and to involve their parents and peers in advocacy efforts. They also do training, technical assistance and peer support to help people adopt best practices, both in terms of how to run their businesses efficiently and best practices in the classroom.

On International Women’s Day, Reflecting on the Status of Women at Home, by Julie Kay

The Ms. Foundation for Women is celebrating Women’s History Month with a blog carnival featuring the voices and profiles of women across the country. This Month of Action is generously supported by our friends in Seattle.

Julie Kay, Senior Strategist, Advocacy and Policy, Ms. Foundation for Women

In comparison to the adversity faced by women worldwide, women in the U.S. might think, “What do we have to complain about?”

The truth is that, after decades of progress in advancing women’s rights, we still have miles to go in our own country. This International Women’s Day offers an opportunity to reflect on the status of women at home and commit to making the U.S. a leader in advancing all women’s rights.

As the Ms. Foundation for Women’s new report, “More to Do: The Road to Equality for Women in the United States,” concludes, we are at a critical time for women in the U.S. today:

• Our economy marginalizes women and consistently relegates women of color to the lowest-paying jobs.
• Quality, flexible and affordable child care is inaccessible to working families, particularly those headed by women.
• Control over women’s bodies is legislated by people who, as we saw throughout the debate over “Obamacare,” prioritize political posturing over women’s health.
• Gender-based violence remains a prevalent and complex problem in the U.S., despite important inroads such as the recent renewal of the Violence Against Women Act. 

On International Women’s Day, let’s set high goals for the U.S. and challenge ourselves to make this a place in which a woman may obtain justice and equality regardless of her race, socioeconomic status, age or immigration status. The U.S. should be a beacon of rights, rather than a place that offers privilege to some while turning a blind eye to others’ inequality.

Today is a chance for us all to celebrate our victories on behalf of women in the U.S. but also to commit to deepening these rights and expanding them to all women. We need to repeal barriers to living-wage jobs and enable quality child care, abolish disparities in women’s health care by increasing enrollment and coverage through the Affordable Care Act, and working to end violence against women and sexual abuse of children.

International Women’s Day reminds us of the importance of striving toward a world in which all women are able to obtain their full human rights.

In honor of the Ms. Foundation’s week of action on child care, 2012 Fellow E. Tammy Kim interviewed Lourdes Alarcon, 40, a working mother of two and member of Parent Voices, a Ms. Foundation grantee fighting for affordable and accessible child care in California. Alarcon spoke of her struggles to balance school, work and child care in the wake of her husband’s departure to Mexico under threat of immigration enforcement.

Ms. Foundation: Tell us about your background and your children.

Lourdes Alarcon: I’m from La Paz, Bolivia. I emigrated in 1992 and am a naturalized U.S. citizen. I have two children: Xavier, who is 7; and Itzel, who is 5.

Ms.: What is your work history?

LA: I lost my job in 2008 as a school secretary. A lot of deportations and hate against Latino immigrants happened then, just around the time my husband decided to voluntarily leave the country.

Nobody wanted to hire me because I didn’t have reliable child care; I needed child care desperately. Meanwhile, my unemployment expired, so I had to go back on welfare, CalWORKs.

They give you some cash aid and they try to train you and provide you with job entry. But even if I get a job, I cannot support my children at $9 or $10 [an hour], for minimum wage without health care and benefits.

I decided to pursue a career in education, to get my Associate’s degree and eventually start working again. I graduated from City College of San Francisco, and the job market was still slow, so I decided to continue. I transferred to San Francisco State University.

Ms.: What kinds of child care have you used?

LA: Being a student, I qualified for child care at San Francisco State University—only my youngest child joined. There is one teacher for every four children; the quality is amazing. They have a beautiful playground, a place to grow plants, chickens, science projects, a storyteller coming every week. It makes a difference in my child’s life. But I had to do a lot in terms of paperwork—I had to be on the waiting list for six months—and it was pretty hard on me.

My dad picks up Xavier after school. He gets $1.99 per hour—the state gives me a subsidy for someone in my family to take care of my child.

You have to pay $1200 a month for quality child care that’s licensed. [Unlicensed providers] are low paid, so you can find someone who gives care in their own home, but they have many children to meet their quota, to make some money. Sometimes it’s not quality [care].

Ms.: What have you observed about child care providers?

LA: Child care providers are, in a way, exploited. People may think that child care providers “watch” your children or change a diaper, but I think it’s one of the most important jobs because it’s taking care of the future. These are the future individuals who are going to be working and doing things, so I think that’s the most important job. Teaching and child care are usually diminished. They’re not well paid, and they’re not well recognized.

Ms.: What is your vision for child care and early childhood education?

LA: I think education goes from 0 to 18. Extra funds or extra revenue should go into education, and we should not divide the child care system from the education system.

Ms.: How have you advocated for this vision?

LA: Organizing. The budget cuts in California were horrible. They affected me in every aspect of my life. So I had to advocate for Prop 30* in order to take care of my community, my children and myself. My goal as an organizer is to light up the government officials so they make better decisions, not only for child care services but also for the whole education system.

*Proposition 30, approved by California voters in November, generates money for the state budget by temporarily raising the sales tax and income taxes for the wealthy. Parent Voices was active in this fight.

What the Fellowship Means to Me

By E. Tammy Kim, Ms. Foundation 2012 Fellow

I am grateful to the Ms. Foundation for Women for awarding me its inaugural fellowship to support reporting on gender and economic justice. Deep, investigative pieces about marginalized communities demand significant time and resources; unfortunately, increasingly few media outlets pay their writers—particularly for social justice stories. In this moment of media saturation and dwindling resources, the Ms. Foundation has allowed me to focus on stories about gender inequality.

My current task is two-fold: first, and primarily, to research and write in-depth journalism on low-wage domestic and child care workers, and low-income women struggling to obtain child care; and second, to contribute economic research and analysis to the Ms. Foundation's new Advocacy and Policy department.

In my first five months as a fellow, I have interviewed young undocumented mothers, nannies from Nepal and the Philippines, care workers in Atlanta, New Yorkers receiving welfare, Latina day laborers seeking cleaning and factory work, and African-American child care providers and parents in New Jersey. The resulting stories—translations of these women's experiences as workers and caregivers—are already published or forthcoming in major media outlets, including The American Prospect and The Nation.

I believe that careful, unaffiliated reporting is a necessary component of social change. To convey truth is to ask enough questions, be present and avoid clichés—of woe and success alike. Storytelling is not all, or even most, of what we must do to improve the lives of low-income women. But I have observed the impact of investigative reporting in my work as a writer, attorney, teacher and activist. I hope that my present journalistic efforts will contribute to the struggles of low-wage women and their communities.

Thanks to the Ms. Foundation for its critical support.

Facing Hurricane Sandy, Reminders of Women Less Fortunate

By Christie Petrone

Senior Manager, Public Relations

With 8 million people, New York City can sometimes seem vast and impersonal. But the city is comprised of so many small communities, places that more often resemble small towns than a big city. It’s those women, men and children from diverse backgrounds – with wealthy and poor often living side-by-side – that form the city’s backbone. This week, each of these communities was, in some way, touched by – and, in many cases, devastated by – Hurricane Sandy.

Thousands of New Yorkers remain without power, including the Ms. Foundation’s fearless leader, President and CEO Anika Rahman. More than 100 families lost their homes in a raging fire in Queens during the hurricane. And parts of Staten Island are still under water. But the dozens of lives lost are the most heartbreaking of all.

Throughout this difficult week, my heart – and the hearts of all Ms. Foundation employees – were with women in the most vulnerable communities, those already impacted by economic injustice and struggling to cope with another blow.

When I stocked up on supplies ahead of the storm, I thought of the women who can’t afford to buy a week’s worth of water and groceries in advance.

When I shelled out $30 for baby formula for my toddler, just in case the electricity faltered and the regular milk spoiled, I thought of the women who could not risk spending money on something they might never use.

When I debated whether to evacuate my apartment – considering paying for a hotel or staying with friends – I thought of the women with limited access to resources and support systems, who had nowhere else to go.

When the Ms. Foundation closed its offices due to power outages, I didn’t worry about being paid. But I did think about the hourly wage women for whom every day away from work meant lost income – and more difficulty paying bills.

When the subways shut down, paralyzing transportation, I thought of all of the domestic employees, restaurant workers and others who don’t have the option of working from home and who risk losing their jobs because of flooded subway tunnels.

When my daughter’s daycare shut down on Tuesday, I thought of the Polish immigrants who love my daughter like their own, and I wondered if they’d still be paid.

And when her daycare reopened on Wednesday, I thought of the daycares that might still be shut, and of the low-income mothers forced to choose between going to work or caring for their children.

During every step from hurricane preparation to disaster recovery, I was reminded that the everyday struggles of those less fortunate are exponentially more challenging in emergency situations.

It reaffirmed to me why the work of the Ms. Foundation for Women is so important. And why we must never give up in our fight to achieve economic justice – equality for and among all women – certainly, in the good times, but most especially, in the bad.

Photo Credit: May S. Young

What can the Chicago strike teach us about child care ?

By: E. Tammy Kim

The need for public child care has emerged as a central, if unintended, lesson of the Chicago teachers’ strike. As the work stoppage enters a second week, the families of some 350,000 mostly low-income, Black and Latino students are struggling to find safe, quality child care—but the call for a reliable, publicly-funded system should be universal.

While the Chicago school district has offered no-cost, “contingency plan” child care at 147 schools and 200 community- and faith-based locations, most staff are not trained providers and afterschool care is not available. Still, the city’s offering points in the right direction. Imagine if all families could access publicly-funded daycare centers or in-home child care, just as they can public schools. Individual children would grow in a safe, productive environment, staffed by professional providers, and working parents, especially those with irregular schedules and lower-income jobs, would have one less worry. These economic and social benefits would redound, moreover, to society at large.

Urban Vineyard in Humboldt Park, one of Chicago’s publicly-funded centers, offers a portrait of quality child care. During the strike, the program has served an average of 40 children per day, mostly from first-generation Ecuadorian, Mexican, and Puerto Rican families. According to the director, Pastor Myrna Nodal, "Most people equate child care with babysitting, but we have trained staff that provides fitness, arts and crafts, music, and socialization."

Nodal’s comment underscores the overlap between child care and childhood education. Both concern safety and trust as much as cognitive, emotional, and physical development. And both should be accessible to families across the class divide.

It’s a matter of seeing child care as a social investment rather than an expense to be borne by families alone. Among advanced, industrialized nations, where universal child care and early education (pre-K) are the norm, the U.S. invests the least public money in this sector—only .5 percent of our GDP. Research shows, unequivocally, that this policy is short-sighted and unsustainable. Access to public child care would mean more flexibility and earnings for working families, safer and more productive children, and a good-jobs sector for providers and early educators.

In the midst of the public-education debate spurred by the Chicago strike, we should re-evaluate our commitment to families and prioritize access to publicly-funded, quality child care. How we care for our children, rich and poor, during and after school, will determine the future we share.

Guest Blog: Affordable Child Care Yields Social and Economic Benefits

Ms. Foundation for Women grantee All Our Kin authored this guest blog post about the substantial economic and community benefits of access to reliable, high-quality child care. Please join All Our Kin Jan. 19 at 9 a.m. at the Yale Club of New York City for a presentation and discussion of the University of Connecticut’s study on the economic impact of child care. Click here for more information and an event flyer.

By Shannon Hill, All Our Kin

Recently, in an interview with Melinda Henneberger, Nancy Pelosi remarked that next on her agenda is “the mother of all women’s issues: child care.” She lamented that she had never been able to find a babysitter, and that everywhere she goes women are talking about how hard it is find the kind of reliable care that would enable them to be more productive workers. When it comes to “unleashing women” in a way that would boost the economy, Pelosi said, “[child care] is the missing link.”

According to a new study conducted by the University of Connecticut Center for Economic Analysis, Pelosi is absolutely correct - investing in early childhood care and education is the missing link. It not only supports women who need access to child care in order to work, but creates jobs for women, who constitute the majority of child care providers in the United States.

The University of Connecticut study looked at an innovative child care licensing initiative implemented by Connecticut-based nonprofit All Our Kin. All Our Kin’s Tool Kit Licensing Program helps family child care providers become licensed and empowers them with the resources and skills they need to run a successful small business and provide high-quality child care.

By increasing the availability of flexible, affordable, high-quality child care, the program enables more low-income parents to work; the study estimates that for every child care provider licensed through the program, four to five parents entered the workforce.

It also increases the earning potential and quality of life for family child care providers. Sixty percent of family child care providers who became licensed through the program earned $5,000 more the first year after getting licensed, and forty-five percent of providers earned at least $10,000 more the second year. Fifty-five percent of providers used their increased income to pay down debt, forty-two percent opened a savings account, thirty-one percent moved to a larger apartment or house, and twenty-four percent bought or leased a car. Moreover, fifty percent of the child care providers went on to achieve either an Associate’s Degree in Early Childhood Education or a Child Development Associate credential.

Through its impacts on both providers and parents, the Tool Kit Licensing program generated $18.4 million in additional tax revenue and $15.2 million in gross regional product (GRP) between 2006 and 2009.

In total, the University of Connecticut study found that for every $1 spent on the Tool Kit Licensing Program, $15-20 are returned to the economy in terms of gross regional product (GRP).

That is a significant economic impact, and the findings reify something many feminists have long known: that child care is a job issue, a matter of economic justice.

Lack of access to reliable, high-quality child care makes it more difficult for parents – especially mothers - to hold or find jobs, particularly when the jobs they have or need are during nonstandard hours (forty percent of Americans work some form of nonstandard hours). And the high cost of child care, coupled with the fact that many parents have lost their child care subsidies due to state funding cuts, means that many parents cannot afford child care while they look for work or work low-wage jobs.

But parents shouldn’t have to choose between the economic survival of their family, and the safe, healthy development of their children.

It is critical that economic development and recovery plans, which have focused heavily on male-dominated industries such as construction and banking, include women and children. It is critical that these plans include family child care providers, not just because family child care providers care for the majority of our most vulnerable infants and toddlers, but because investing in them gives parents the support they need to work and has the potential to boost our economy.

It also provides our children, the workforce of tomorrow, with the educational foundation they need to succeed in school and in life. Children in high-quality early childhood education programs are less likely to be held back, drop out of school, go on welfare or commit crime. According to studies, every dollar invested in early childhood education today saves the public eight dollars later.

When that figure is combined with the immediate economic impact, it is easy to see that investing in our children, and the women who teach and care for them, really is the best of investments: the social benefits are enormous and the economic return rate is high – both today and for years to come.

Revive the Nation Through Child Care

Recently, child care has been at the front of our minds at the Ms. Foundation. Proposed deficit reduction measures have inordinately affected women and children and federally-financed child care initiatives have been  key targets of right wing budget cutters. This past Tuesday we joined a group of Ms. Foundation grantees working on child care issues in low-income communities at a panel discussion they convened at New York University. And Carol Burnett from grantee Mississippi Low-Income Child Care Initiative published a powerful op-ed in the Jackson Clarion Ledger.

Burnett writes, “last month alone 4,000 Mississippi children lost their child care subsidies -- paid for through the Child Care Development Block Grant program [a Federal subsidy assistance program] -- which helps parents afford child care and stay employed.” Organizations on the ground at the local level see the painful effects of federal policy -- every day thousands of women and children throughout the country have their lives upended by decisions made in Washington conference rooms.

Nationwide groups like MILICCI work tirelessly in their communities, dealing with local issues and budget cuts and mobilizing very specific constituencies (including parents, home care workers and child care center administrators). While these fights may seem diffuse they are based on the common belief that child care should be accessible and equitable, that it must meet the needs of the children, parents and workers involved. That is why the organizations -- Childspace CDI, Philadelphia, PA; Parent Voices, San Francisco, CA; All Our Kin, New Haven, CT; and the National Council for Research on Women, New York, NY -- that we joined on Tuesday at the McSilver Institute for Poverty Policy and Research at New York University wish to build a strong national voice advocating for accessible quality child care.

The Ms. Foundation has long believed that the voices of the people involved -- the women, families and workers that rely on an effective and equitable child care industry everyday -- are the best ones to advocate for just policies. They know the issues, feel the reality, and have the solutions. As Carol Burnett writes, Mississippi does not offer any assistance to the “70 percent of families” in the state that are eligible, so “they are left with few options. Many will be forced to quit their jobs or give up education programs that would help them secure stable employment. With further reductions in child care assistance now proposed in Congress, this situation is likely to grow worse without a persistent public outcry.”

Along with our grantees, the Ms. Foundation vows to raise our collective voices and fight for effective national child care policy. The economy won’t recover if our families can’t feed themselves, our nation won’t thrive if our children are not cared for. We urge the adoption of policies that build a true foundation of strength -- a nation with strong children, families, child care workers and communities.

Join Grantees in Panel on Child Care in Low-Income Communities

We know that access to affordable quality child care can be the deciding factor between self-sufficiency and welfare for many families across the US, including single-parent households and low-income families. Without affordable care for her child a single mother cannot hold down a job, pay the rent, or put food on the table. We also know that child care workers and professionals -- the people we trust to take care of our children -- are often paid a pitiable wage, have little access to workplace protections and other support services.

And now deficit cutting proposals on a national, state and local level are attacking the few services we do have, playing a numbers game with the lives and futures of our children and families.

We do not take this status quo for granted! We believe that child care is an essential service for working families and that the industry and its workers must be respected as such.

That is why the Ms. Foundation supports the work of child care advocacy groups from across the nation. Four of these groups will assemble on Monday June 27 at NYU to discuss these issues. Join the Ms. Foundation, the National Council for Research on Women, All Our Kin, Parent Voices and Childspace CDI for a panel discussion:

Advocating for Quality: Innovations in Supporting Child Care in Low-Income Communities
Child care advocates focus on two key goals: increasing access to quality care for children and families, and advancing the economic position of child care providers. The panel presents case studies of grassroots nonprofits that are simultaneously addressing both concerns in their communities, and discusses their strengths and challenges in achieving these goals.

Monday, June 27
12:00 pm - 2:00 pm

1 Washington Square North
Room 112
Free and Open to the Public
http://www.nyu.edu/socialwork/calendar/

Join the conversation, help keep our children, families and communities strong!

Upcoming Event: Early Childhood in the 112th Congress

Remember how back in December, Congress failed to act on the funding bill that would have spared hundred of thousands of children the tragedy of being cut off from Head Start and other early childcare initiatives for low-income families? Well, if you're interested in learning more about how that happened, and what lies ahead for early child care and education funding in the next legislative session, Ms. Foundation grantee the National Women's Law Center has an opportunity you may want to take advantage of.

Their upcoming conference call, "What's Next for Early Childhood in the 112th Congress," will take place on Thursday, January 13th at 3:00 pm, and will feature commentary on the topic from Helen Blank, Director of Leadership and Public Policy at National Women's Law Center; Danielle Ewen of CLASP; Adele Robinson of the National Association for the Education of Young Children; and Harriet Dichter of the First Five Years Fund.

Register today to participate in what's sure to be an important conversation about the future of early child care and education in America.

Child Care Subsidies, Early Education Still at Risk -- Congress Must Act Now

Child care is not an abstract issue. Every day, millions of families in the US rely on -- and pay for -- others to care for their children so that they can hold down jobs, pay the rent and put food on the table. For many low-income families, child care programs that are subsidized by federal and state funding, along with programs like Head Start and Early Head Start, provide the only means by which to access care -- and, consequently, to hold down a job. For them, these are the programs that make work, and any modicum of economic justice, possible. 

But across the country, these programs are in danger. Before the members of 111th Congress depart for their final holiday break, they must decide whether to continue funding subsidized child care services and early childhood education programs, or as Ms. Foundation grantee the National Women's Law Center has put it, leave hundreds of thousands of children "out in the cold."

Read more »

4 Critical Issues; 4 Ways to Make a Difference Today

As early as this week, Congress may vote on key issues that will overwhelmingly affect women, families and communities -- particularly those still struggling to survive the ongoing economic crisis. Readers of this blog know that we've been highlighting a number of ways you can take action to ensure just policies are put in place before positive change becomes more difficult to achieve; below we offer a recap of four of those actions, and hope you'll help urge Washington to protect the interests of women and families across America.

1. Congress must protect access to child care and Head Start for more than 300,000 children and their families. Let our government leaders know how important quality, affordable childcare is to our country's future. Learn more about how to take action.
   
2. Beginning today, emergency unemployment insurance expires, affecting millions of long-term jobless workers.  Meanwhile, legislators are still debating who among the richest of the rich will get to keep their tax cuts. Tell Washington that real economic recovery should benefit women, families and communities, not the wealthy or Wall Street.
   
3. Urge Congress to retroactively renew the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) Emergency Fund, which has helped create more than 250,000 subsidized jobs and increase services for low-income families wounded by the economic crisis.
   
4. Comprehensive immigration reform is still the goal, but the DREAM Act is a step in the right direction. Tell Congress they must pass this important legislation and grant citizenship rights to at least a million undocumented youth who are working tirelessly on behalf of their families, communities and country.

Together, let's capitalize on the window of opportunity presented by the Lame Duck session and secure changes that will make a real difference in women's lives.

Act Now: Call on Congress to Preserve Child Care for Hundreds of Thousands

Back to work after Thanksgiving, Congress is about to make a number of crucial votes that will affect the economic security and well-being of women and families: chief among them the renewal of the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) and Head Start. CCDBG provides federal funding for state-administered child care subsidies and initiatives that improve the quality and accessibility of child care for low-income families, while Head Start provides early education opportunities to pre-schoolers.

Congress has until Friday, December 3 to re-approve these programs. But renewing at current funding levels is simply not enough. Economic stimulus funds that bolstered support for child care and Head Start are about to run out. If Congress doesn’t carry over this additional funding, over 300,000 children would be affected, dealing a devastating blow to families already struggling to survive the ongoing economic crisis.

Read more »

CA Judge Extends Child Care Subsidies; Mothers, Workers and Advocates Deliver Strong Message to Gov. Elect

Great news for Ms. Foundation grantee Parent Voices, a group that is part of a critical campaign to save child care in California: On Friday, California Superior Court Judge Wynne Carvill ordered a temporary extension of child care subsidies to low-income workers in the state -- subsidies that had previously been eliminated by cuts to the budget made by outgoing Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

That's excellent news for the more than 54,000 families experts now say would be affected by these cuts -- at least for the moment. The program in question, CalWORKS Stage 3, provided individuals who had completed the state's welfare-to-work program with much needed help in paying for child care so that they could remain in the workforce; the loss of those subsidies would mean that thousands of parents could no longer afford to work -- the cost of child care becoming prohibitively expensive without help from the government.

When the cuts were announced, the folks at Parent Voices took action. Their Oakland chapter joined as plaintiffs in a lawsuit to reinstate the more than $256 million of lost funds, launched a campaign to fight back against the cuts, and participated in a well-publicized protest outside of last month's Women's Conference in Long Beach (the conference is the brainchild of Maria Shriver, Governor Schwarzenegger's wife).

Then, last week, they took their fight directly to the Capitol, where, as part of the child care advocacy community, they planned to deliver more than 5,000 signatures from mothers and child care workers affected by the cuts into the Governor's hands. Locked out of the Governor's press conference due to lack of credentials, these 20 women and their children decided to wait outside on the Capitol steps on the chance that they might be able to share a few words with exiting media after the press conference was over. According to Mary Ignatius, statewide organizer for Parent Voices, here's what happened instead:

After 5 minutes of waiting, lo and behold, Governor-elect Jerry Brown [walked] past us. The mothers began clapping and cheering and I handed him an envelope of 5,000+ signatures of working mothers and child care providers who were at risk of losing their jobs. Before taking the package he asked “Don’t you want to give this to Schwarzenneger?” and I replied, “No because you are the one who can do something about this!” He took the package and we followed him chanting “Child Care keeps California Working!”

Our leaders were so thrilled. Most took the day off of work to be in the Capitol believing that sacrifice would be worth it. We didn’t know how the day was going to turn out, but because these mothers determined they just couldn’t sit back and watch their livelihoods be ripped from them, they were able to get their message out to the Governor-elect on his first day in the Capitol.

What a terrific, unexpected outcome -- and just one more example of how Parent Voices and their organizing partners are standing strong to ensure that the voices of low-income women will not be ignored.

It still remains to be seen, of course, whether the state will permanently restore the funds that support these essential child care subsidies, but there may be reason to be optimistic: At a local campaign event before the election, the now Governor-elect vowed to restore funding for the measure when pressed on the issue by a Parent Voices leader. Here's hoping that's a campaign promise he's willing to keep.

Learn more about how the Ms. Foundation supports policies and organizations that promote economic justice for diverse communities across our country.

Upcoming Event: Impact of Child Care Subsidies on Women of Color

Concerned about the state of child care assistance available to low-income and working class families in these troubled times? Then you may want to take some time tomorrow (Tuesday, November 2nd) to attend an important event hosted by Ms. Foundation grantee the Women of Color Policy Network, here in New York City.

"Carrying the Load: The Impact of Child Care Subsidy Policies on the Economic Security of Women of Color," will feature a roundtable discussion of the many challenges working and low-income families with young children face in accessing safe, quality, affordable child care. The panel will examine the impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act on child care subsidy funding and availability; highlight the importance of child care subsidies for working, low-income communities; and strategize policy solutions to enhance child care subsidy experiences for women of color and their families.

Panelists include: Gina Adams, Senior Fellow, Urban Institute; J. Lee Kreader, PhD, Director of Research Connections, National Center for Children in Poverty; Benita Miller, Executive Director, Brooklyn Young Mother’s Collective; and Chanelle Pearson, Research Associate, Women of Color Policy Network, NYU Wagner. The discussion will be moderated by Hannah Matthews, Senior Policy Analyst at CLASP.

The event will take place on Tuesday, November 2, 2010, from 6:30 - 8:30 PM in the Rudin Family Room (2nd Floor) of The Puck Building: 295 Lafayette Street, New York, NY.

For more information and to RSVP, please visit: http://wagner.nyu.edu/wocpn/news/calendar.php#child.

Please also note that next Tuesday's roundtable will be followed by a national webinar on child care subsidies in the states, to be held on Wednesday, November 10, 2010 at 3:00 PM (EST).

Read how our grantee, Parent Voices, is fighting for affordable child care in California.

Fighting for Affordable Child Care: Grantees Take Action

If you don't live in California you may not have heard the news, but more than 80,000 children and their families in that state are set to lose access to crucial child care subsidies as of November 1st -- leaving many families with no way to pay for child care, and wondering how they will be able to work to support their families.

The loss of these subsidies -- also known as Stage 3 state-subsidized child care funding, and offered to parents who have found employment after completing California's state-run welfare to work program (CalWORKS) -- comes as a result of a $256 million cut made to the state budget by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Though subsidies will continue to be available to current and recent members of the welfare-to-work program, parents who have been in the workforce for more than two years will have to find new ways to pay for the child care that allows them to remain in the workforce -- or as is often the case, they'll lose their jobs.

Ms. Foundation grantee Parent Voices, a California-based organization working to improve access to child care for all families in their communities, launched a campaign to fight back against these cuts -- which will, they point out, only increase unemployment and poverty levels (particularly among single-parent households, the majority of which are women-led) at a time when exactly the opposite is needed. Let's not forget: already, unemployment among single mothers has doubled since 2007 and is the highest it's been in 25 years!

Today, October 26th, Parent Voices is participating in a demonstration to demand that Stage 3 Child Care be immediately refunded. The protest is taking place outside of The Women's Conference in Long Beach (a project of the Governor's wife, Maria Shriver) and is expected to draw more than one thousand participants.

The hope is that "The Other Women's Conference" (as the protest is known) will highlight just how profoundly these cuts will impact low-income women and children and help push legislators to authorize bridge funding to keep the subsidies at least temporarily in place. Long-term, the goal of Parent Voices and other Ms. Foundation grantees is to create policies that recognize quality, affordable child care as an essential complement to quality jobs and indisputably necessary if women and families are to achieve economic security.

For more information on today's actions and future events to save Stage 3 child care funding (including a town hall meeting in Contra Costa County at the end of the week and a children's protest parade on Saturday, 10/30) visit Parent Voices.

And if you want to learn more about the state of affordable child care across the US, Ms. Foundation grantee the National Women's Law Center will be hosting a conference call on Wednesday, October 27th (tomorrow!) on this very topic. State Child Care Assistance Policies: Current Challenges for Children and Families will address how advocates are working in their states on key challenges affecting low-income families as well as providers’ access to child care assistance.

The call begins at 3 PM Eastern; please visit NWLC's registration page to RSVP for this event (registration required).

Photo: Elizabeth Rappaport, Moore Community House