Recommendations for Schools and Communities

Child care, and, increasingly, elder care, is THE CENTRAL ISSUE for working families. Low-wage workers cannot afford quality care unless it is subsidized. The savings to society have been calculated by numerous groups, including the Children's Defense Fund. The lack of available child care, especially sick child care, is the top reason why women fail to stay off welfare--they cannot get the children to day care before work starts, and if a child gets sick, they lose their jobs. Child and elder care services need to be available at hours when working parents need them. This is not rocket science, but we are losing money and failing families at rocket speed because we fail to coordinate the needs of work and family.

Advocate for Universal Quality Early Childhood Programs Near Public Transportation

Early childhood education and preschool (for ages 0 to 5 years) have substantial, persistent long-term benefits for children, including large positive increases in academic performance, better social relationships, better emotional and psychological well-being, and happier parents and families. Current research shows that quality early childhood programs can be beneficial for children, especially for children from low-income families because these programs can close the huge gap in children's readiness to start school, in their vocabulary and literacy and in putting them on more equal footing with their more affluent peers.

Support After-School Programs

With so many adults at work, many youngsters are alone and unsupervised when the school bell rings at the end of the day. A large number of juvenile offenses occur during these afternoon hours, and recent studies show that working parents with unsupervised children worry about this situation. The obvious solution is a quality after-school program that combines academic enrichment with physical activity and physical safety until parents retrieve their children after work.

Align School and Work Calendars

The long summer break in the school year was designed for agrarian societies, where children were needed to pick the crops. This calendar is no longer functional, and the long summer break has been shown to be particularly disadvantageous to students in poverty because they have less exposure to academically stimulating experiences during the summer months.

Arrange Multiple Services at Sites and at Times When People Need Them

Working families need routine well-child health services at or near school sites at times that do not conflict with work schedules. Routine government services can be made available at times that do not require time away from work or family. Low-wage workers lose needed income because government services--even services for aid to needy families--are still based on a model of a family with a single wage earner with two adults by only offering services during standard work hours. Medical and other services need to be near public transportation, at or near schools, and offered to coincide with the close of the school day, in the evenings, and on weekends.

Back to Work-Family Recommendations and the Best-Evidence Database