Facts In Action

With all of the talk regarding welfare reform in the past few years, many of us have begun to wonder about how the families affected by welfare reform are doing. Three recent national studies have taken a look at this issue and have made some pretty significant findings. Remember the Children: Mothers Balance Work and Child Care Under Welfare Reform, Child Care After Leaving Welfare: Early Evidence from State Studies, and The Human Cost of Waiting for Child Care all report on some of the difficulties that families leaving welfare are encountering, particularly in accessing quality child care. By and large, mothers are having to leave their children in poor-quality child care settings while they go to work or participate in training programs. Such findings raise fears that these children will suffer, rather than benefit, from welfare reform unless changes are made in the conditions of their child care arrangements.

In Remember the Children: Mothers Balance Work and Child Care Under Welfare Reform, the authors, Bruce Fuller and Sharon Lynn Kagan, report on their findings from interviews with 948 single mothers of young children from California, Connecticut, and Florida. In addition to interviewing these mothers who had recently left welfare, the research team visited their child care providers (including center-based, family child care, and kith and kin – or informal – providers) and conducted assessments of the children’s early language and social development. They found that the mothers often had to find care quickly, leaving them less time to look into all of their options. In addition, the quality of the care settings was very low. For example, the researchers found that there were few educational materials available, caregivers engaged in little reading or storytelling with the children, there was a greater use of television and videos, and many of the settings were not clean or sanitary.

The researchers also found that access to child care subsidies varied dramatically depending on where the family lived. For example, only 13% of the participants from Connecticut were using subsidies, while 50% of the participants in Florida were using subsidies (participants in all three states are eligible for subsidies for at least 2 years after beginning a job).

Another report, Child Care After Leaving Welfare: Early Evidence from State Studies, by Rachel Schumacher and Mark Greenberg, also found that access to quality child care is very limited for families leaving welfare. The report, which summarizes data collected by individual states, reveals that the most common type of child care arrangements these families are using are with family, friends, and other informal caregivers. Since such arrangements are not regulated or held to any type of standard, informal providers do not need to have a certain level of education or training. No one is visiting their homes to ensure the environment is clean, safe, and meeting the developmental needs of children.

Evidence from the report suggests that many former welfare recipients don’t use subsidies because they don’t know they are available. Data from Massachusetts indicates that about 38% of former recipients were unaware that the Department of Transitional Assistance would pay for child care for one year after leaving welfare to work, and 49% of the former recipients were unaware of the income-eligible child care program.

The third study, The Human Cost of Waiting for Child Care, conducted by the Children’s Aid Society of New York, also reports on some of the difficulties facing families who have recently left welfare. The report, which includes information on surveys of families waiting for child care subsidies in New York City, found that many families participating in welfare to work activities did not know about their eligibility for child care subsidies or that they had the option of putting their children’s names on more than one waiting list for subsidies. Many of the parents surveyed reported that they would prefer to use regulated care that better ensures quality. Specifically, 71% of the families said that they would prefer regulated center-based care, 19% would prefer registered family child care, and 30% would prefer to use a Head Start program for their child care arrangement. (The percentages add up to more than 100%, because some parents were responding for two or more children, and had different preferences for each.)

These families also reported having to make difficult choices about basic necessities for their children. 41% of the families reported that they had made trade-offs around basic needs by cutting back on household expenses such as food and clothing in order to pay for their child care.

The findings in each of these studies are disturbing, particularly since recent research shows that high-quality child care programs can enhance the development and future achievements of children, especially at-risk children. Parents leaving welfare are in effect customers of state welfare offices. Those offices have a responsibility to serve their customers by connecting them with subsidies and high-quality care that meets their needs.

Source:
Remembering the Children: Mothers Balance Work and Child Care Under Welfare Reform, Bruce Fuller and Sharon Lynn Kagan, University of California – Berkeley and Yale University, February 2000.

For more information:
contact the Berkeley office at (510) 642-7223, or on-line at www-gse.berkeley.edu/research/pace/pace.html.Editor's note: This url has changed: http://www-gse.berkeley.edu/research/PACE/index.html

Source:
Child Care After Leaving Welfare: Early Evidence from State Studies, Rachel Schumacher and Mark Greenberg, Center for Law and Social Policy, Washington, D.C., 1999.

For more information:
contact CLASP at (202) 328-5140 or on-line at www.clasp.org.

Source:
The Human Cost of Waiting for Child Care: A Study, The Children’s Aid Society, New York, December 1999.

For more information:
contact The Children’s Aid Society at (212) 949-4936 or on-line at www.childrensaidsociety.org.

Facts in Action, May 2000