I am so incredibly proud to share the official launch of our team’s Case for Childcare site! 🎉 Access to childcare should be a universal right, yet for many working families, it remains a luxury that they cannot afford. And, it becomes prohibitively expensive for low-income families across the U.S. who spend an average of 28% of their income on care. Over the past 1.5 years, my team and I have been working tirelessly to uncover the challenges, barriers, and opportunities for working parents in the United States, particularly working mothers and BIPOC families, who are often excluded from conversations around paid leave and childcare benefits in the workplace. We ultimately believe that every employer has a role to play in helping to alleviate and solve the childcare crisis – by creating stand-out private policies, advocating for public policy (like the Tri-Share model) at the local, state and national levels, and creating a supportive work environment for mothers, working parents, and caregivers (e.g. investing in paid leave infrastructure, flexible schedules, time-off for childcare duties, childcare stipends, education on the Child & Dependent Care Tax Credit (CDCTC), access to a Dependent Care Flexible Spending Account (DCFSA), hosting a ‘Working Parents & Caregivers' affinity group, and so much more). Every step counts, and nothing is too small when it comes to contributing to this growing crisis. This work is incredibly personal for me. As a working mother of a 1 and a 2 year-old, most days I find myself juggling the enormous pressure and costs of childcare – weighing the financial cost of quality care and finding backup care on days when my children are sick, or the emotional cost of working a full-time job with sick children in my home office. The fact that I can even have these options is a luxury. We need to, and can do better. I invite you to join us in this work – we are just getting started and will be focusing our next year of research on frontline, hourly, and shift workers – who are often the most marginalized in these conversations. We must build a bigger village. ➡ Visit: https://lnkd.in/dNS6z_au A HUGE thank you to the team who has been working on this alongside me: Austen McEnaney, Syd Goin, Andrea Tan, Brooke Josebachvili, Amy Lee, Greg Behrman, Marisa Ruiz Asari, Neil Oliver, Charlotte Eckstein, Celina Wong, Sey' Adem Cileli + our incredible partners from American Family Insurance Institute for Corporate and Social Impact (Shayna Hetzel, Sharon Neylon, Manami S., & Jilly Gokalgandhi), the Annie E. Casey Foundation (Quanic Fullard & Patrice McConnell Cromwell), NationSwell, National Domestic Workers Alliance (Kelly Gannon, Ai-jen Poo, Nicole Jorwic, Palak Shah & Heather Cronk), Pivotal Ventures, and Working for Women (Beth Bengtson) and those that have been close to this work: Moms First (Molly Day & Reshma Saujani), The Holding Co., New America & Katherine Goldstein, The Mom Project, MH WorkLife & many more.
Remembering the days when struggles with child care was front and center in my daily working life. Now that the children are grown, struggling with elder care for parents/in-laws creates almost the same exact needs. The impact to working life is very similar and significant, and also needs to be addressed in policies and programs. Many of us will eventually experience both. Be prepared!
Só important this work thank you Allie Mahler
Allie Mahler such a pleasure collaborating with you and the NationSwell team on this project! We are so thrilled to be able to bring such an important body of work to life through this site design & development. Thanks for trusting us with this vision and for being such wonderful collaborators every step of the way! I also want to shout out Sey' Adem Cileli from the Data Culture team for his excellent development work and again Charlotte Eckstein for the stunning illustrations.
Beth Bengtson
5mo
Very exciting day indeed to see the culmination of our work together launch. There is still much to do AND this is an exciting milestone on that journey. You should be very proud of this important first step so that all can have access to quality childcare and not just those that can afford to pay for it. I am grateful our paths have crossed through this work and look forward to all that is still to come.
Love this! “Domestic work is the work that makes all other work possible. America is deep in a care crisis that reaches every community across the country.” — Ai-Jen Poo
Shayna Hetzel
5mo
Thank you for your partnership and leadership in our collaborative's work. It has been a real pleasure dreaming together - stretching our collective imaginations to engage collaborators and challenge systems for equity and opportunity. Onward!!
Chris J
5mo
This is amazing work!! As an active duty military father overseas when both of my daughters were born, I saw first hand the impact on my wife. In my experience the government (at least the military) is even further behind the private sector in providing adequate policies and programs to support families.
Congratulations on an amazing body of work!
Senior Director @ NationSwell | Strategy, People & Culture
5moA few more amazing individuals & organizations involved in our research phase: 9to5, DoSomething.org & DeNora Getachew, Instant Teams, Crane Center for Early Childhood Research & Policy, Early Childhood Funders Collaborative,Wisconsin Early Childhood Association (WECA) - thank you!