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Funders and policymakers promote supports that help parents balance workforce participation with good parenting. In particular, they work to ensure that employers and the rules governing Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) take into account the importance of allowing adequate time for parenting, especially during a child's first year.
Policymakers work to expand provisions of the Family and Medical Leave Act to all workers with very young children by:
- Extending coverage to workers in mid-sized and, eventually, small businesses
- Extending parental leave from three months to six months
- Providing income to workers who take family leave, especially for infants, through a funding pool that combines public funds with contributions from employers and employees
- Allowing the use of unemployment insurance to fund parental leave
Funders provide resources for services and supports that strengthen families through:
- Home visitors, Doulas, Promotoras, and other well-trained, supervised adults who offer support during pregnancy, childbirth, and a child's early life
- Efforts to reach out to, serve, and support the highest-risk families through culturally sensitive
home visits, peer support, and family support
- Coaching, mentoring, and exposure to good parenting models, provided by a range of family services
- Family support services and centers
- Connections between formal services and agencies and neighborhood networks
Funders provide resources for community coalitions to:
- Build community capacity for monitoring and advocacy, to promote responsive caretaking and supportive homes
- Shape community-wide norms that promote responsive caretaking and supportive homes
Policymakers respond to advocates who want to remove or reduce barriers to effective action at the funding, policy, or regulatory level.
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| Family Support America advocates for national and state policies to improve and expand family support programs in communities and to help children and families served by family support programs obtain the basic supports they need. www.familysupportamerica.org | |
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