National Movement Weekly Update.

One element of ensuring the heathy development of all children and their families is the availability of child care when and where working parents need access to it. This is especially challenging for low-income working parents, an issue recently addressed in The Urban Institute's new report How Employment Constraints Affect Low-Income Working Parent's Child Care Decisions. The report states that "Child care decisions are complex and multifaceted for low-income parents because they often must incorporate multiple employment-related factors into their decisions," including among other things, generally low earnings, workplace inflexibility, and high job instability. The report also discusses solutions, however, including the need to expand "the supply of publicly funded early childhood care and education programs in low-income communities, and make these options consistent with parents' employment contexts," as well as, giving "greater attention to the work-care fit of low-income families with nonstandard and shifting work schedules." We hope that you will not only take a look at the report, but let us know how you think you can utilize it to enhance the lives of children and their families in your home states and neighborhoods. Please come to the National Movement for America's Children site to share your thoughts with us and other members from your state, and if you're not sure how you might use the report, please let us know so we can talk about that as well. Have a great week.