Greetings, friends. We miss you. We miss seeing you in our office and yours, at meetings, in the Capitol, on the street. We hope you and your loved ones are well. And we look forward to being together again.
The work of shaping public policy is critical, now more than ever, and there are many ways you can help.
Join us in advancing legislation to cut child poverty and improve equity. Child poverty reduction legislation has been introduced in the NYS Senate and Assembly. The bill seeks to cut child poverty in half by 2030, with a focus on racial equity, and would require the State’s budget director to consider the child poverty ramifications of policies. Senator Jessica Ramos from Queens introduced S. 9012 and Assemblymember Harry Bronson from Rochester introduced A. 11063. We are working with both to urge additional legislators to sign on as co-sponsors of the bills and to sign on to a pledge to consider all policies through a child poverty and equity lens. We are leading this work from the outside, together with a strong and motivated group of partners including The Children’s Agenda, American Academy of Pediatrics-NYS, Children’s Defense Fund-NY, Westchester Children’s Association, Citizens’ Committee for Children, Prevent Child Abuse NY, the Education Trust-NY, and Robin Hood. In some ways, this initiative is the umbrella over much of our other work. The legislation and pledge ask New York State policymakers to comprehend and assess the child poverty and racial equity implications of decisions they make. Our colleagues at The Children’s Agenda coordinated a press event (in person, socially distanced, outdoors) in Rochester about the legislation in late October and we’re working with bill sponsor, Senator Ramos, to plan a mid-November event in Queens.
Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, children in New York were more likely to live in poverty than children in 31 other states, with 19% experiencing poverty in 2019. The United Hospital fund estimates over 300,000 New York children are being driven into, or to the brink of, poverty due to rising unemployment related to COVID-19. Structural and systemic racism have contributed to rates of child poverty among New York children of color that exceed 30%. Many children who experience poverty face significant challenges—poor health, academic obstacles, and lower earnings—for the rest of their lives.
We were encouraged by the Governor’s remarks over the summer, calling on the federal government to end child poverty and we know New York can lead the way by setting this policy goal of a 50% reduction by 2030. Reducing child poverty will protect the health and well-being of all New Yorkers, grow our economy, and lead to long term savings for New York’s budget. This promise from our policymakers cannot come soon enough.
Let our policymakers know child care matters. Millions of working parents across New York are confronting balancing job responsibilities with caring for and supporting the education of their school-age children who are receiving care and instruction remotely or in a hybrid manner. At the same time, parents are struggling to secure or maintain access to safe, quality child care for their infants, toddlers, and pre-school-aged children. We’re continuing to work with allies across New York to call attention to our crumbling child care infrastructure and the things policymakers can to do shore it up. You can get more information in our Back to School Checklist for Fall 2020. And then call your Member of Congress and let them know what we need. We are also awaiting recommendations from Governor’s Child Care Availability Task Force, hopeful that they will be bold and comprehensive, and that Governor Cuomo will act on them this year, without delay.
These are just a few of the things we’re working on. Rest assured, we are still bringing our voice to child welfare, maternal mental health, oral health, Medicaid, and tax policy. And we need you—every single person—to join us.
One of Schuyler Center’s top end of year priorities is to secure passage of S.8421/A.10513, a bill that would establish annual reporting requirements on utilization of child welfare preventive services. These services include home visiting, housing assistance, child care, day care, homemaker services, parent training or parent aide, clinical services, transportation, job training, education, and emergency services (i.e. cash grants). They are designed to help families deal with any issues which might prevent them from taking care of their children on their own, and provide an environment where children can thrive. Without these services, more families will be separated, with children placed in foster care.
One of Schuyler Center’s core principles is to promote policies that prevent harm to children and families, that strengthen families, and keep families together. Another core focus is holding public systems to account. Tracking data is the first step in improving outcomes. We cannot set a goal to achieve without first seeing our starting point. Getting a clear picture of the status of preventive services in New York State helps to identify the gaps as well. The data that would be collected under this bill will help the Office of Children and Family Services (OCFS) gain an understanding of how counties implement child welfare prevention. By collecting data on the services available to New Yorkers, OCFS will be able to see how many families are using these services, and for how long, and with what outcome. Do the families stay together, or are children placed with relatives or in foster care?
Providing families with proven supportive services is more important than ever right now. The pandemic and its impacts have placed many New York families—disproportionately families of color—under extraordinary stress. One of the circumstances that often bring families into contact with protective services is poverty. Since the beginning of the pandemic, more than 1 million children have had a parent lose their job, and 4,200 children have lost a parent or guardian to COVID-19. An estimated 325,000 children are now in or near poverty. Preventive services can safeguard families, and get them the support they need to continue taking care of their children the way they would have before March 1, 2020.
This bill was passed by both houses in July, but Governor Cuomo hasn’t signed it yet. We urge the Governor to support families by signing this bill before the end of this year. Since bills have a life cycle that ends at the end of the calendar year, it will have to be reintroduced in 2021 if he doesn’t sign before December 31, 2020.
To keep the momentum going, we urge partners to join us in urging Governor Cuomo to sign S.8421/A.10513 without delay. The preventive services data that would be gathered would help ensure families and communities are being provided the tools they need to weather mental health, social, and economic challenges.
A quarter of a million babies are born in New York each year. Nearly half are born to low-income families and over 100,000 are born to first-time mothers. The Schuyler Center places a priority on ensuring a strong start for all children and families. This includes efforts to improve child and family outcomes through prenatal and postpartum supports and services for families with young children, including maternal, infant and early childhood home visiting.
Evidence-based home visiting programs are designed to support new parents and families with young children. As the name implies, home visitors are trained educators such as nurses, social workers, or other health professionals who visit the homes of voluntarily-enrolled families on a weekly or monthly basis. These programs offer health, psychological, parenting, and other services tailored to each family’s unique needs. Home visiting is free and voluntary. The visitor meets families in their homes, making this an affordable and convenient option for parents. Home visiting programs also play a key role in making referrals to medical providers, mental health services, social services, and other community resources to at-risk households.
Home visiting has proven benefits for both children and families. It has been shown to improve birth outcomes, increase high school graduation rates for children, lower dependence on welfare services, and reduce the incidence of child maltreatment. Furthermore, home visitation services are cost-effective, requiring little immediate spending while yielding savings over the course of a child’s life.
While this sounds excellent, there is one problem: in New York State, there is a huge discrepancy between how many people need these services, and how many don’t get them.
In July 2020, the Schuyler Center for Analysis and Advocacy collaborated with Prevent Child Abuse NY, the NYS Council on Children and Families, and Raising New York to create maternal, infant, and early childhood home visiting data snapshots that are now available for every county in New York State and each of the Regional Economic Development Council (REDC) regions. This was an effort to update the county level snapshots previously released in 2016. Each region’s home visiting capacity is based on the amount of funding they receive, which in turn, alots their capacity for how many families each program is able to serve. We at Schuyler Center realized that there was no way of knowing the needs of the community; no assessment to decide whether or not home visiting should be available to certain populations. We took on the task of comparing the number of children who needed services against the number of children who could be served—children living in poverty, with unemployed parents, or living on government services like SNAP, SSI, etc.—and found a huge discrepancy:
New York has the average capacity to serve six percent of babies in low income families and only three percent of children from age zero to three.
That is only a fragment of the data we found. The frightening fact is that the capacity for home visiting in most counties in New York State does not align with the needs within the community. Our updated data snapshots show how many children need these services; services that benefit both the mother and the child. We will be working alongside our legislative and community partners, including the NYS Council on Children and Families and Raising New York, to advance policies that will enable more New York families to access these important—often life-changing—services.
Public schools are starting instruction this month, leaving millions of working parents across New York confronting the question of how they will balance job responsibilities with caring for and supporting the education of their school-aged children who are receiving instruction remotely on a full or part-time basis. At the same time, parents are struggling to secure or maintain access to safe, quality child care for their infants, toddlers, and pre-school-aged children. Schools cannot successfully reopen without public infrastructure to make sure families have access to affordable and flexible child care and afterschool care. Paid family leave that is responsive to the likelihood of sudden short, or long-term school or child care closures is also needed.
On July 22, 2020, the Empire State Campaign for Child Care (co-facilitated by the Schuyler Center), and NYS Assemblymembers Michaelle C. Solages and Ellen C. Jaffee co-hosted a roundtable on the urgent need to pass the Child Care Is Essential Act, and a federal investment of $50 billion to stabilize child care. The roundtable was attended by more than 250 New Yorkers and featured remarks by U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, NY Lieutenant Kathy Governor Hochul, U.S. Representatives Grace Meng and Adriano Espaillat, as well as numerous NYS legislative leaders, parents and child care providers. Schuyler Center’spress release details the event. Arecording on YouTube is also available to watch below.
The message conveyed by all participants of the roundtable: New York parents cannot return to work without access to affordable, safe, high quality child care. New York child care providers cannot care without the necessary financial and other support to follow stringent safety protocols, including operating at significantly reduced capacity. The Child Care is Essential Act would enable child care providers to:
continue operating, or to reopen, at reduced capacity to allow for social distancing
to cover the additional costs associated with keeping facilities and materials disinfected
to allow providers to make necessary infrastructure improvements, like partitioning rooms to create smaller, more contained classrooms
to provide essential workers quality, safe, free, or low-cost child care
and to ensure that child care is available to other workers as states begin to reopen
These funds could also be used by child care programs that need to scale up in a safe way to accommodate more school age children who may be attending in-person classes on a staggered basis to allow for social distancing in schools. CLASP has released a Fact Sheet detailing why it will cost an estimated $9.6 billion in public funding each month to sustain the fragile child care industry, and ensure that parents can access safe, affordable child care during the recovery. Accordingly, this $50 billion is the minimum needed to get working families back, and children back to school.
In addition, after the Child Care is Essential Act passed the House of Representatives on July 29, 2020, Schuyler Center and our partners pivoted our attention to urging members of NYS Congressional delegation to ensure the next federal COVID relief package includes at least $50 billion for child care.
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