Family Strengthening News is a monthly e-newsletter produced by the Family Strengthening Policy Center, an initiative of the National Human Services Assembly funded by the Annie E. Casey Foundation.

Family Strengthening: A deliberate and sustained effort to ensure that parents have the necessary opportunities, relationships, networks and supports to raise their children successfully, which includes involving parents as decision-makers in how their communities meet family needs.  - Annie E. Casey Foundation

Family Economic Success

Report Finds 44 Million Jobs Pay Low Wages
A new report from The Mobility Agenda finds that over 40 million jobs in the United States — about 1 in 3 — pay low wages ($11.11 per hour or less) and often do not offer employment benefits like health insurance, retirement savings accounts, paid sick days, or family leave.  Understanding Low-Wage Work in the United States provides a picture of the low-wage labor market through analysis of labor market data, including: downward wage trends over time, poor work conditions, largest occupations, and declining mobility.  For more information, click here.

Reducing Poverty and Improving Child Well-Being and Development
Federal work-support and child-focused policies must be altered to enable the delivery of family-centered supports.  In its recent testimony before the House Committee on Ways and Means, the National Center for Children in Poverty draws on current science to urge lawmakers to recognize that barriers to employment are also barriers impeding the development of children into productive adults.  To read Testimony on the Economic and Societal Costs of Poverty, click here.

Tips for Finding Good Jobs for Low-Wage Workers
A recent audio conference from the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) provided ways to identify good jobs in the local labor market.  The speakers suggested that workers’ access to fringe benefits and pensions may be a better indicator of overall job quality than wages.  They also advised listeners to look at differences in human resource practices among employers within the same sector; find industries where demand for workers is high and government has leverage on employers as purchaser or funder of goods and services; and avoid jobs that are highly vulnerable to replacement by technology or outsourcing.  To listen to the audio conference and view background materials, click here.

Web Conference on Meeting the Employment and Parenting Needs of Low-Income Families
Low-income families often struggle to balance the demands of work and parenting.  Chapin Hall Center for Children is hosting a web conference on March 27, 2007, at 1:00 PM (Eastern time) to explore efforts to integrate welfare-to-work programs, child welfare programs, and other family supports. Panelists will discuss how TANF and child welfare programs can collaborate on strategies to prevent the need for intervention by the child welfare system and better support low-income families.  For more information, click here.

Family Support Systems

Uninsured Children and Adults Receive Less Care and Experience Worse Outcomes
A new study commissioned by the Kaiser Family Foundation documents that people who are uninsured receive less care and have worse outcomes following an accident or the onset of a new chronic condition than those with insurance.  For more information, click here.  A new Families USA report focuses on the disparate consequences that uninsured children experience compared to insured children when each are hospitalized for common health problems.  For more information, click here.

Health Coverage for Low-Income Parents
More than two-thirds of uninsured parents are in low-income families, according to the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured.  The commission’s new fact sheet provides a concise summary of how parents’ insurance coverage affects their families and children and examines the effect of declining employer-based coverage.  Health Coverage for Low-Income Parents is available by clicking here.  Declining access to private coverage is just one of many reasons to educate the public and policy makers by participating in Cover the Uninsured Week, April 23-29.  Click here for more information about planning events.

Opportunities to Improve Home-Based Child Care
Many low-income families rely on family, friends, and neighbors to care for young children.  The National Women's Law Center’s new report, Close to Home: State Strategies to Strengthen and Support Family, Friend, and Neighbor Care, offers an array of policy options to strengthen early learning experiences in these child care settings. To view the report, click here.

Resource Packet Helps Service Providers Promote Healthy Families
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Child Welfare Information Gateway created a resource packet to promote community awareness of key protective factors that prevent child abuse and neglect.  The packet is targeted specifically for service providers who work with parents, other caregivers, and their children with the common goal of promoting healthy families.  For more information, click here.

Paper Highlights Cost-Effective Investments in Children
A Brookings Institution paper reviews benefit-cost evidence and identifies four areas of investment that merit expanded federal funding even in a time of fiscal austerity: early childhood education programs for three- and four-year-old children; nurse home-visiting programs to promote sound prenatal care and the healthy development of infants and toddlers; school reform with an emphasis on programs in high-poverty elementary schools that improve the acquisition of basic skills for all students; programs that reduce the incidence of teenage pregnancy.  For more information, click here.

Thriving and Nurturing Communities

Building Sustainable Community Safety Initiatives
Starting small and building a common sense of ownership and control are two critical practices for sustaining community-safety initiatives, according to the Local Initiatives Support Corporation.  Its new report, Safe Streets, Sound Communities, examines the promise and challenges of revitalizing and improving safety in low-income neighborhoods.  To learn more about developing effective partnerships among community developers, law enforcement, and residents, click here.

Federal Tax Credit Increases Investment in Low-Income Communities
A new report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) indicates that businesses may be shifting investment funds from other types of assets to invest in low-income communities as a result of the New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC).  GAO's analysis also finds that individual investors may be using at least some new funds to invest in the NMTC.  The Community Renewal Tax Relief Act of 2000 authorized up to $15 billion under the NMTC to stimulate investment in low-income communities.  For more information, click here.

How Housing Affects Child Well-Being
A paper from the Funders' Network for Smart Growth and Livable Communities examines how the characteristics of children’s homes affect their health, social, and emotional well-being and offers strategies for funders concerned with improving outcomes for children.  Housing characteristics can include the cost of housing, residential mobility, and the surrounding neighborhood.  For more information, click here.

Second Housing Boom Includes Low- and Moderate-Income Households
Low- and moderate-income households, largely excluded from America's first housing burst after World War II, are getting swept into the second housing boom, according to a new Urban institute report.  The report details how homeownership has again expanded, this time fueled by the development of the subprime market.  Rising interest-payment burdens for many subprime borrowers, however, might mean delinquencies and foreclosures.  For more information, click here.

Legislative Updates

New Mexico Enacts State Earned Income Tax Credit
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson signed legislation on March 16, 2007,  that creates a state Earned Income Tax Credit.  The refundable credit will be set at 8 percent of the federal EITC and allows low-income families to claim both the state EITC and the state's existing Low Income Comprehensive Tax Rebate.  Twenty-one states, including the District of Columbia, now have a state Earned Income Tax Credit.   For more information, click here.  (Source: The EITC Policy Update)

New Analysis of Congressional Health Care Proposals
A new Commonwealth Fund analysis of health care reform proposals in Congress shows that many of the bills, if passed, could significantly reduce the number of uninsured Americans and decrease overall health care expenditures. The report considers whether the proposals would improve access to care, increase health system efficiency, make the system more equitable, and improve quality of care.  For more information, click here.

Head Start Reauthorization Bills Approved by House and Senate Committees
The House Education and Labor Committee on March 14 voted 42-1 to reauthorize the Head Start early childhood development and education program. The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions on February 14 unanimously passed the Senate's reauthorization bill.  For more information and analyses of both bills from the National Head Start Association, click here.

Kinship Care and Home Visiting Bills Reintroduced
On February 16, Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY), with cosponsors Olympia Snowe (R-ME) and Thad Cochran (R-MS), reintroduced the Kinship Caregiver Support Act (S.661).  The act would establish a Kinship Navigator Program to help families locate services such as respite care and child care, health care, housing assistance, school enrollment, and many other services and benefits.  Also on February 16, Senators Kit Bond (R-MO) and Hillary Clinton (D-NY) reintroduced the Education Begins at Home Act (S. 667), which authorizes $400 million for states to implement early childhood home visiting programs.  For more information, click here. (Source: Child Welfare League of America)

Recommendations for Next President on Poverty and Inequality
The next President should launch a new generation of effective policies based on a comprehensive work-family-education assault on poverty and inequality, according to a new position paper from the Brookings Institution.  Three effective ways to reduce poverty are to increase work levels, reverse the growth of single-parent families, and improve educational outcomes.  For more information, click here.

Conferences & Events

Lessons from Katrina: The Role of Philanthropy in Strengthening Communities
Grantmakers for Children, Youth and Families
March 28-30, 2007, New Orleans, LA
This two-day experiential learning summit will explore the role of philanthropy along a continuum from proactively strengthening families and communities to responding to crises in the short- and long-term.

Financing Community Development
Federal Reserve System
March 29-30, 2007, Washington, DC
This conference provides a great opportunity to hear and discuss original studies about the opportunities and obstacles to helping low- and moderate-income communities and people build wealth through home loans, small business loans, or other financial services.

Afterschool for All Challenge
Afterschool Alliance
April 23-24, 2007, Washington, DC
The two-day program will include special topic forums, networking sessions, the Breakfast of Champions and visits to Capitol Hill offices.

Cover the Uninsured Week 2007
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
April 23-29, 2007

Parent-Child Home Program Annual Conference
April 30-May 1, 2007, Garden City, NY 
The conference is designed for the professional development of those involved in home visiting, early childhood, and family support programs.  For further information, or to register, contact: Michele Morrison, Parent-Child Home Program, at 516-883-7480 or e-mail mmorrison@parent-child.org.

Strengthening Families Leadership Summit
The Center for the Study of Social Policy (CSSP)
May 10-12, 2007, San Diego, CA
CSSP's Strengthening Families Initiative uses early childhood programs to build evidence-based protective factors for children and their families.

First International Society for Child Indicators Conference
June 26-28, 2007, Chicago, IL
Speakers from around the globe will convene to explore how child indicators can be used to improve the development and well-being of the world’s children.

Generations United's 2007 Conference
July 24-27, 2007, Washington, DC
The conference will feature presentations that emphasize the positive difference intergenerational programs and practice have made in the lives of young and old, how to substantiate these findings through evaluation and research, and how to use the results to promote sound public policy at the local, state, and national levels.

For other conferences and events, click here.

Family Strengthening Policy Center Briefs

Click on the title to view the brief in PDF format:

Related Materials:

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National Human Services Assembly
www.nassembly.org
The National Human Services Assembly (National Assembly) is an association of the nation’s leading national nonprofits in the fields of health, human and community development, and human services.   The National Assembly's mission is to engage leaders of the sector in collective efforts to advance the effectiveness of health & human services in the United States.  

National Collaboration for Youth
www.collab4youth.org
The National Collaboration for Youth (NCY), a 30-year old affinity group, is a coalition of National Assembly member organizations that have a significant interest in youth development.  This Web site includes NCY's public policy agenda and issues and information about NCY's F.I.L.M. (Finding Inspiration in Literature and Movies) and juvenile justice projects.

National Youth Development Information Center
www.nydic.org
A one-stop Web site for youth workers with information on funding, programming, research, policy, job and training opportunities. NYDIC also provides current news to the youth development field and has one of the largest online libraries, providing practice-related information at low-cost or no cost.