This article originally appeared in the July-August 2001 issue of the Children's Advocate, published by Action Alliance for Children.

Children's Advocates Roundtable

California child care administration report

Shortly after taking office, Gov. Gray Davis asked his administration to review the state's subsidized child care system and come up with ideas for serving more kids with the same amount of money. The report was finally released May 22. Rather than proposing one plan, the report provides seven "scenarios" describing a variety of possibilities including:

• increasing fees for low-income families
• lowering the income level at which families can get subsidies
• decreasing per-child payments to providers
• creating time limits on subsidized care
• lowering the maximum age for subsidized care from 13 to 12

California Budget project

"The impact [of the measures in the administration report] on many families could be very harsh," writes the California Budget Project (CBP) in its four-page analysis of the administration report. CBP has recently conducted its own review, Lasting Returns: Strengthening California's Child Care and Development System. The report includes information on the unmet need for child care and current child care resources. It makes recommendations including full funding for the subsidy program so every eligible family could receive support, increasing the reimbursement rate to child care providers, raising pay for child care workers, and creating a state master plan for early care and education.

California Budget Project, 916-444-0500, www.cbp.org

Legislative agenda

Meanwhile the United Child Care Campaign (UCCC), a coalition of child care and development organizations, has identified priority bills:

• SB 993 (Figueroa) would raise state payments to child care providers, whose reimbursement rates have not kept up with the cost of living.
  
  
• SB 308 (Escutia) would state the legislature's intention of eliminating the waiting list and providing child care subsidies for every eligible family over the next five years
  
  
• SB 390 (Escutia) would develop a master plan for early care and education. 

UCCC c/o Child Development Policy Institute, 916-446-7464

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Federal bill on child care pay

U.S. Rep. George Miller (D, Concord) has introduced a bill that would give pay bonuses to child care providers with training in the field. HR 1650, the Focus on Committed and Underpaid Staff for Children's Sake, or FOCUS bill, would give states funds for a program of grants to child care providers.

Unlike California's C.A.R.E.S. programs, the bill would not give grants as a reward for taking more classes. It would simply provide grants for all workers with training: a minimum of $1,000 for workers with a Child Development Associate credential, $1,500 for an AA in child development or BA in a different field, and $3,000 for a BA in child development. A minimum of one year in the field would also be required. The idea is that the grants would motivate child care workers to get more training.

In addition, the bill creates a scholarship fund to pay child care workers' educational expenses.

Miller's staff is now working on finding additional co-sponsors for the bill and generally rallying support. 

For more information, contact the offices of George Miller, 925-602-1880 or 202-225-2095.

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Leave No Child Behind® bill

Since President George Bush campaigned using the Children's Defense Fund (CDF) slogan, "Leave no child behind," the CDF decided to give the federal government the chance to adopt a comprehensive program of services that would truly "leave no child behind." (It also registered the "leave no child behind" slogan!)

In May, with Rep. George Miller (D, Concord) and Sen. Chris Dodd (D, CT), the CDF held a press conference on Capitol Hill to introduce the Act to Leave No Child Behind. This "omnibus" bill includes measures in a number of smaller bills and allows advocates for children to campaign for a unified program of supports for children. CDF is deploying organizers around the country to help build grassroots support for the measure.

The bill includes 12 sections, called "titles," and outlines specific goals for each. For example

Health

• Ensuring that every child has health care coverage
• Simplifying and coordinating children's health insurance programs (in California, Medi-Cal and Healthy Families)
• Ensuring access to care and acting on specific health issues like asthma and immunization

Environmental health

• Requiring government to set environmental health standards according to children's greater vulnerability
• Requiring schools to reduce the use of toxic chemicals and pesticides
• Strengthening parents' right to know about possible environmental risks

Poverty

• Ensuring that families will receive the supports they are eligible for
• Improving the chances that children wil receive support from both parents
• Encouraging effective education and training programs for parents
• Increasing the minimum wage
• Making unemployment insurance more accessible to low-wage workers
• Providing supports to help parents overcome barriers to employment
• Making reduction of poverty a goal of federal welfare programs

Child care and Head Start

• Ensuring that families can get help paying for child care and that more children can participate in Head Start and pre-kindergarten programs
• Providing more support for families of infants and toddlers
• Improving the quality and supply of child care and increasing the accountability of states for protecting the health and safety of children in child care.

Education

• Increasing accountability to ensure that all children receive a quality education
• Reducing class size in kindergarten through third grade
• Improving the recruitment and training of teachers and administrators
• Providing resources to repair and build school buildings and promote community/school involvement

Gun safety

• Limiting the availability of firearms and restricting children's access to guns
• Holding adults accountable when a gun ends up in the wrong hands
• Increasing support for enforcement of gun and gun-related crimes.

Other sections of the bill cover tax relief, nutrition, child welfare, housing, youth development, and juvenile
justice. 

For more information on the bill and on building the grassroots Leave No Child Behind campaign, call CDF at 202-628-8787 or 213-749-8787, www.childrensdefense.org

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Housing California's priority bills

While housing prices have shot up in the last couple of years, low-income families will soon face the loss of up to 150,000 units of federally subsidized affordable housing. To increase the supply of affordable housing, Housing California has identified three bills as its top priorities.

Bond measure for housing: SB 1227 (Burton) would state the legislature's intention to place a $980 million bond measure on the ballot to provide funds for housing programs. Legislative leaders will huddle later in the year to decide which bond measures they'll place on the ballot, says Housing California staffer Julie Snyder. What they hear from their constituents will be important.

Affordable housing in city plans: SB 910 (Dunn) would put some teeth in the state requirement that cities include low- and moderate-income housing in their city housing plans. Now there's no penalty, and more than a quarter of the cities are delinquent -- this bill would withhold some state funds until they comply and also allow people to sue cities that don't plan for affordable housing.

Affordable housing tax credit: SB 73 (Dunn) would increase tax credits available to developers for building affordable housing.

Housing California, 916-447-0503

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Generations United: intergenerational agenda

Generations United (G.U.) is a national coalition that supports and promotes intergenerational programs, supports grandparents raising grandchildren, and brings seniors' and children's advocates together for joint political action (see Elders for kids for complete list of related articles).

Here's G.U.'s public policy agenda for the 107th Congress:

• Housing support and assistance for relatives raising children
  
  
• Increased funding for volunteer programs such as Experience Corps and Foster Grandparents
  
  
• Restore funding for the Social Services Block Grant (Title XX)
  
  
• Expansion of the 21st Century Community Learning Centers after-school programs, and including intergenerational programs as fundable activities
  
  
• Making the child tax credit refundable and increasing the amount of the credit (see Child Tax Credit). 

Generations United, 202-638-1263, www.gu.org

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National Call to Action on Child Abuse

The Center for Child Protection at Children's Hospital in San Diego is spearheading a campaign by major national child-abuse-prevention organizations to "bring about bold changes in how we as a nation address the child abuse epidemic."

At a January 1999 conference in San Diego, the organizations, including the Child Welfare League of America, American Humane Association, American Medical Association, Parents Anonymous, and others, launched a National Call to Action (NCTA) "to work toward the elimination of child abuse and neglect." The NCTA will try to build a political movement by mobilizing people who have been affected by child abuse in their own lives, along with faith-based and community organizations, corporate America, and other concerned people.

The National Call to Action plan notes that

• An estimated 1 million children in the United States are abused and neglected each year; more than half of those are neglected, 23 percent physically abused, 12 percent sexually abused, and the remaining suffering emotional abuse.
  
  
• Research shows that children who are abused or neglected are "more likely to fail in school, become pregnant as a teen, exhibit aggressive behavior, develop long-term, chronic health conditions, smoke, abuse drugs, spend time in jail, and form unhealthy, harmful relationships."
  
  
• Today's Child Protective Services systems are "overworked, undervalued, and too often reviled by the public." Most systems "focus on investigation and adjudication," while experts "recommend re-creating the CPS system as a community-based, family-focused, and child-friendly system."
  
  
• Protecting children requires "culturally competent strategies ... carried out at the neighborhood and community levels" and attention to "the largely unspoken tensions and different perspectives in the field."

Goal: The NCTA calls for major improvements in prevention, protection, and treatment, so that "by the year 2020, there will be obvious and substantial reductions in the amount of child abuse and neglect in the United States."

Short-term strategies: By the year 2005, the NCTA aims to

• "Create a massive, nonpartisan political base for this effort"
  
  
• "Introduce and implement bold new ... initiatives ... that result in major infusions of new resources and/or major changes in policies and programs"
  
  
• "Facilitate ... better resource utilization and better integration of efforts of the whole field."

NCTA aims to "recruit 2 million voices reflective of those affected by the problem to serve as the political base for the Call's advocacy efforts."

To find out more about the NCTA and how you can get involved, call Dominique Hensler, at the Center for Child Protection, at San Diego Children's Hospital, 858-966-4475. 

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Federal tax cut: more for working families

Despite criticisms of the recent federal tax cut for giving more to higher-income taxpayers and taking funds from needed programs, one part of the tax cut is a victory for working families, says the Children's Defense Fund (CDF).

Not only will lower-income families get a bigger tax credit for each child, as proposed in the president's original budget, but the credit will also be "refundable": if families don't make enough money to owe taxes, the federal government will send them a check. Making the child tax credit refundable means that 17 million more children will benefit, says CDF. When the credit is fully implemented, it will lift 500,000 children out of poverty.

CDF writes, "This victory was only possible because so many people around the country joined with a diverse coalition of organizations to fight for the needs of low-income children. The Children's Defense Fund worked with the U.S. Catholic Bishops, the Food Research and Action Center, NOW Legal Defense Fund, the National Council of La Raza, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, and many other organizations, local and national, to win this important step for low-income children and their families."  

Children's Defense Fund, 202-628-8787, www.childrensdefense.org

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Immigrant Children's Health Improvement Act

In California, all eligible legal immigrant children can get Medi-Cal or Healthy Families health insurance. But federal funds won't pay for insurance for immigrants who arrived after August 1996. Now California pays for their insurance from state funds.

A bill now in Congress would provide federal funds for health insurance for all eligible legal immigrant children. If it passes, immigrant children in other states could get health insurance and California could use its state funds to meet other needs. The Children's Defense Fund and other sponsors are asking organizations to sign on as official supporters and individuals to tell their representatives their views on this legislation (H.R. 1143 and S. 582).

Children's Defense Fund, 202-628-9797, www.childrensdefense.org

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