Statement of Yasmina S. Vinci, Executive Director,
National Association of Child Care Resources and  Referral Agencies

Testimony Before the Subcommittee on Human Resources
of the House Committee on Ways and Means

Hearing on Welfare Reform Reauthorization Proposals

April 11, 2002

Mr. Chairman and Members of the House Ways and Means Human Resources Subcommittee, 

Thank you for inviting me to testify about the Welfare Reform Reauthorization Proposals.  This is an important occasion,  allowing us to look at the results and accomplishments of Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act and at the lessons learned in its implementation, and an invitation to us all to do even better in the years to come.

As Executive Director of NACCRRA, the National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies, I represent a national network of nearly 750 local resource and referral (R&R) programs across the United States, such as Early Childhood Services in Shasta County and the Baltimore City Resource Center in Maryland.  Collectively, in one year community-based R&R programs help 1,650,000 families to find child care needed in order to work or get training.  Of those families, one million are low income families and half a million are families who are receiving TANF.  R&R programs have had a very up front and close experience with the families who are starting to work and stay working, and child care has been an important piece of that effort.  R&R programs throughout the country also maintain detailed data on the supply and demand of child care and early education programs.  And so, my knowledge, deriving from the local R&R expertise, is in this arena, and that will be the focus of my testimony.

I recall vividly the moment in the early welfare reform debates when Congressman Shaw stated that we simply could not have welfare reform without child care.   He was right, and we all knew that he was right, but at that time we only had an inkling of the unintended impacts on child care in the communities.   Here is what we have learned: 

1. We anticipated that with many more mothers required to work we would have significant pressure on the existing supply of child care. What we did not know is that even with R&Rs feverishly building the supply (last year, 500,000 new slots were created by R&Rs) the supply would keep vanishing as a result of the turnover of underpaid, undervalued providers.

2. We knew that, by and large, the available jobs for the new entrants in the workforce would not be the 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. jobs.  However, we underestimated the high percentage of those jobs that would be during non-traditional hours.  In Shasta County, for example, almost one-quarter of all requests are for care during non-traditional hours – evenings, nights, and weekends.  We knew little then about rotating staffing schedules for many employees, and yet the calls for providers who can accommodate rotating schedules have been the fastest growing type of requests for R&Rs in many areas.  The issues of how to build and maintain the supply of seasonal child care, whether for people working in Colorado resorts or packing eggs in Iowa, were not fully clear to us.

3. Another thing that was unclear then was the balancing between:  a.) the need of states to stretch the money available for child care subsidies to as many families as possible;  b.)  the necessity to make those subsidies sufficient for parents to be able to afford the care; and. c.) the assurance that the available care would be safe and good for the children.  States have been addressing this dilemma in several ways.  First, the eligibility for subsidy may be set too low.  Few states allow families to qualify for subsidy at the level allowed under federal law (85% of state median income).  Next, they may set the rates well below the market rates, and thus preclude parents from accessing the market of licensed care.  Alternatively, the co-payment fees may be too high.  Thirty-five states required families earning $7,075 a year for a family of three to pay a fee even though this is income at half of the poverty level.   Finally, to make up for low fees and gain access to care, parents often have to reach into already meager resources to supplement their co-pay rates and the state subsidy rate with yet another fee.

As a result of such multiple policy trade-offs, all too often we find that parents do not have the choice or the options that the original legislation envisioned as priorities.  The R&R counselors hear daily of instances where families are either struggling to remain employed with the unreliable informal care that they are able to afford, or are unable to take even a slight salary raise because it would mean getting over the income eligibility threshold and losing the child care subsidy altogether.

4. Finding affordable child care is even harder for working parents who are not on TANF and do not receive subsidies.  For a Shasta County working poor parent, earning a minimum wage, paying for full-time licensed care in a center for an infant, would take up 50% of the annual income.  For a single mom, this would be a true Sophie’s choice since her rent would be 53% of her annual income.  As a mother of three said, “For the price that some centers would charge to care for my two school-age children plus the baby, I would need to bring toothbrushes and move in because I could not afford child care and rent, too.”

5. Another unanticipated barrier to families transitioning to work has been the dire shortage of  care for infants and toddlers.  With 6.8 million children under the age of 3 living with employed parents, the demand for this, most expensive type of care, remains unmet in ways that are inimical to the well-being of children and families.  We know the demand on parents for infant and toddler care – last year, 70% of all calls to R&Rs were requests for children under 3 years of age.

6. One thing that we overlooked in 1996 while concentrating on child care as a support to working families was the enormous importance of the early experiences for the growth, development and readiness to learn of the children whose parents were going off to work.  Since then, new insights into brain development have confirmed the imperative for good quality early experiences, regardless of the setting in which the child is spending time.   We know now that 90% of an individual’s brain develops by the age of 5.  We commend the attention that the Bush Administration has focused on education and on the key role that early learning plays in education reform.  In fact, the express overarching goal of the new Administration for TANF reauthorization, ‘to promote the well-being of children,’ represents a very important commitment for the nation.  President Bush has made a further commitment, “we must make sure that every child enter school ready to learn – every child – not just one, not just a few, but every single child.”

There are two essential components that must be in place in order to ensure that children enter school ready to learn:  one is the acknowledgement that we must invest in a well qualified, well-trained, and well-compensated early care and education workforce.  It is difficult, however, to attract individuals into the responsible, demanding profession of caring and educating children (let alone to retain them) when the average salary is $16,350 with few benefits.  

The second component addresses the reality of the daily experiences that children have while their parents work.  Across the country, children are being cared for in a variety of settings, including centers, family child care homes, state and private pre-school and after-school programs, Head Start programs, and in the homes of relatives, friends, and neighbors.  If we wish to make sure that children are nurtured and educated wherever they are spending their time, there must be an intentional investment in a system of community-based, locally-driven supports for caregivers and teachers in the various settings as well as for the families.  Luckily, that system, thoroughly tested for nimbleness and an ability to deliver help needed for states to implement welfare reform, already exists.  It is called child care resource and referral (R&R).  The 750+ resource and referral programs (located in family service agencies, public school systems, local government offices, faith-based agencies, community colleges, community action programs, or as free-standing non-profits), have self-organized from the need of employers, communities and states to make child care work for both the families and communities.  As is evident from the attached fact sheet, they have been a critical support for successful welfare reform in most states. 

In states where resource and referral is adequately funded and well-coordinated, the access of families to good information and consultation is demonstrably better, the providers are supported with information and expertise, and the communities are equipped with the capacity to bring together various interested parties to work on planning to meet the needs of local families, and to promote  decision-making based on solid, real-time, locally-collected R&R data. 

In conclusion, at this time we know appreciably more than in 1996 about what works and what needs to happen for everyone to work.  Implementation has confirmed the concept that quality child care is essential if people are to leave TANF and stay employed.    It has also given us valuable insights into what makes child care work for families, employers, and communities.  We know for sure from the experience of the last five years that child care as a support to working families and as a place where children will develop to be happy, healthy, and ready to learn can be done, and can be costly.  The front line wisdom and evidence from the communities tell us that in order to take welfare reform to the next stage and maximize its benefits to the children, it is important for Congress and the Administration to:

• Make sufficient investments in child care subsidies so that families transitioning into work as well as low-income working families can find and afford care that is reliable and helps the children to become learners.  Even before recent tough budget cuts in states, and even using transfers from TANF and considerable state investments, states have not had sufficient resources to provide child care subsidy for all families who need it in order to work.  The proposal to increase the work and participation requirements, whether it means more training, community service or drug rehabilitation, is likely to result in an increased demand for child care during those additional hours.  Recognizing that fact and making sure that the funding is there for parents to be able to cope with this additional requirement, seems to be a first step in ensuring that the plan has a chance of working.  Keeping in mind that care for infants and toddlers and children with special needs is the hardest to find, afford, and trust, is the next level of anticipating and addressing unforeseen barriers.

• It is equally important to make sufficient investments in the strategies that support the availability and quality of care.  A variety of these activities, including supply building, professional development and compensation, licensing, and information to parents have been funded by the 4% set aside for quality authorized in the Child Care Development Block Grant.   If quality sufficient to get all children ready for school is to be achieved in all settings, we must have serious and systematic work done and serious investments are necessary, including an increase of the set aside for quality to 12%. 

• Finally, information technology and local presence of resource and referral have created the promise for regular, sustained collection and reporting of local, reality-based data on the supply, demand, and price of early care and education options, so that state- and federal-level decisions on child care can be informed by up-to-date, solid data that represents the same marketplace that the families are experiencing.  An investment in activating and sustaining this network would supply increasing accountability for the nation’s largest single funder of child care – the federal government.

 Thank you for the time and opportunity to share the wisdom and experience of the nation’s network of resource and referral agencies.

A GREATER GOOD

FACTS AND FIGURES ON THE IMPACT OF R&R

In one year, 733 local resource and referral (R&R) programs in the USA …

Work with families

R&Rs help parents take the guesswork out of choosing care, equipping them with referrals and information about elements of quality care and state licensing requirements, as well as availability of child care subsidy.

√  Help 1,650,000 families to find child care; 750,000 are referrals for low income families; 500,000 for TANF-receiving families

√  Support another 4,440,000 parents in raising happy, healthy children, with parent education (62%), support for stay-at-home parents (45%), and linkages with health (66%)

Build the supply of child care

In most communities, the demand for child care far outweighs the supply and staff turnover is high, creating a constant need for new providers.  R&Rs create an entry point for providers, helping them get licensed and helping them meet the urgent need for infant and toddler, bilingual, special needs and non-standard hours care.

√     Develop 500,000 new  child care slots

Improve the quality of early care and education

Across the country, R&Rs provide ongoing professional development opportunities, including training and career advising, and supporting accreditation and credentialing programs.

√      Train or connect to training 1,200,000 child care workers

√      Provide 1,240,000 technical assistance consultations

√      Support accreditation and/or credentialing of programs and providers (97%)

√      Provide or facilitate training on caring for infants and toddlers (83%)

√      Employ innovative strategies to improve quality of license-exempt care (89%) and care by relatives (84%)

Bridge child care and education

R&Rs help to create the kinds of child care settings that help children grow and learn, and are dedicated to informing communities about the important links between early learning and later success in school.

√      Conduct public awareness campaigns on early learning (81%)

√      Undertake initiatives that promote early literacy (31%)

√      Provide kindergarten transition activities (35%)

Document child care needs and trends

What makes R&R unique throughout the nation is their ability to gather information through contact with parents and providers and turn this information into reports on the supply, demand and gaps in child care for state and community planning.  Through collection and interpretation of data, R&Rs are able to alert policy makers to the changing needs of constituents. 

√      Develop and disseminate regular supply and demand reports (70%)

Engage new partners

By reaching out to a wide range of stakeholders, from business leaders to law enforcement to public school teachers, R&Rs help articulate why child care is an issue entire communities need to care about.  In addition, they collaborate with a wide range of other family support services to promote a holistic vision of child care that includes health, literacy, mental health, and special needs.

√      Convene local coalitions (75%)

√      Participate in community coalitions (95%)

Tell the child care story:

By documenting community child care needs and creating new ways to meet those needs, R&Rs bring voices to children, families, and child care providers to the public through their publications and through interviews with the media.  In addition, when policy-makers need up to date information about the state of child care, they turn to R&Rs.

√     Regularly field questions from the media (67%)

Source:  Preliminary results - 2002 NACCRRA COUNTS