What’s New?

Big Win for Kids: $38 Million for Child Care

Posted on October 16, 2018

For years, ACNJ has focused on improving the availability and quality of child care for New Jersey’s youngest and most vulnerable children. Child care is the first education experience most children have, but for too long, it has been underfunded and underinvested, especially for babies. ACNJ’s advocacy efforts have paid off!  The Department of Human Services announced today an expansion of funding for child care by $38 million, with infant care as a priority. This is a great step forward in building a strong, high-quality child care system in our state. Read press release.

ACNJ would like to thank Department of Human Services Commissioner Carole Johnson for her leadership. Commissioner Johnson has listened to the concerns of child care stakeholders throughout the state and made it a top priority for the Department.

The new proposal will help move the state forward on three key issue areas that ACNJ has highlighted:

  • Low overall subsidy rates for child care providers, especially for infants
    The plan will increase reimbursement rates across the board, with higher increases for infant ($904/month) and toddler care ($761/month.)
  • Few available child care seats for infants and toddlers
    The plan will add $1.2 million for incentives to centers that create new infant care seats.
  • Limited supports for providing high-quality care
    The plan will add $6.8 million for grants to help providers improve quality and participate in the Grow NJ Kids quality rating system.

From the #NJVotes4Kids campaign to Strolling Thunder to our Right From the Start NJ campaign, ACNJ and our partners have advocated to make the lives of babies a priority for our lawmakers. Thanks to the efforts of our Think Babies coalition partners, the NJ Department of Human Services, and parents and families throughout the state, New Jersey is on the path to a sustainable child care system that fully supports babies and their families.

There is much work ahead for us, and this plan is only a partial solution. But we should take time to celebrate this huge win for New Jersey’s youngest children and their families.

Participants in ACNJ’s Advocacy Training Make the Case for Child Care

Posted on October 5, 2018

This summer, ACNJ began a series of advocacy trainings to teach parents and providers the skills they need to become effective advocates for affordable high-quality child care. We held three trainings across the state in Newark, Trenton and Camden. The trainings were so popular, we have begun to expand our reach this fall, offering another training in Paterson last week and one in Toms River next week. We have had such an overwhelming response to the trainings, participants are excited to become involved in our campaign advocacy efforts! Read stories from two of our amazing advocates sharing their experiences.

From left to Right Patricia Canning (ACNJ Right From the Start NJ coordinator), Congressman Donald Payne, Ashanti Jones (Parent/Advocate), Cecilia Zalkind (ACNJ president/CEO)

Meet Ashanti Jones, mother of a 1-year old boy. As a first-time mother, Ashanti wanted to find a high-quality child care center to send her son where she felt he would be in a safe environment to learn and grow. When she started visiting child care centers, she realized the high cost of quality — one center cost $337 a week! Ashanti visited more affordable child care centers, but they were just not up to par. In the end, she and her husband made the difficult decision for her husband to leave his job and stay home with their baby.

Ashanti knew she had to do something to address the lack of affordable high-quality child care in New Jersey. This past May, she attended Strolling Thunder NJ, along with parents and babies from the South Ward Children’s Alliance in Newark where she works, to bring attention to this issue. Afterwards, she attended ACNJ’s advocacy training in July and accompanied ACNJ staff to a meeting with Congressman Donald Payne in August to share her story and advocate for more affordable high-quality child care.

Ashanti said that ACNJ’s advocacy training helped prepare her for the meeting with Congressman Payne. She said, “The material was easy to understand and it allowed us to finally identify what our issues were. It allowed parents to identify their voice and how to make sure what they have to say does not fall on deaf ears. I loved how applicable the material was for anyone in any facet of childcare, whether they were parents, advocates or providers, the material was streamlined to address each view. I left the training empowered and equipped to become a change agent for our babies and kids.”

Digna Townsend (Congressman Donald Norcross aide), Keisha Wright-Daniel (Director of Child Care Center in Pennsauken), Cynthia Rice (ACNJ Policy Analyst)

Meet Keisha Wright-Daniel, director of child care center in Pennsauken. She attended ACNJ’s advocacy training in Camden in August along with a few of her staff members. Keisha loves her job and is passionate about providing affordable high-quality child care for babies. About 98% of her families receive subsidies to help pay for their child care costs, however the subsidies do not cover the cost of high-quality care. To ensure she is still providing the best care for the children, as well as retaining her staff, Keisha took less money for herself. Eventually, she had to take on a second job since she has kids of her own that she has to take care of. Keisha accompanied ACNJ staff to a meeting at Congressman Donald Norcross’s office in September to share her story. She shared that through these experiences, she is “hopeful that early childhood education will become a priority. Children are entitled to quality environments where parents and teachers are less stressed. Only then will they thrive.”

ACNJ wants to thank all of our wonderful advocates for participating in our advocacy trainings. While we have data, we need your stories to help enhance our advocacy efforts!

Would you like to become involved in the Right from the Start New Jersey campaign?
• Share your story
• Sign up for email alerts and to receive a monthly newsletter
• Follow ACNJ on social media     

A Millennial’s View on Child Care Options

Posted on October 5, 2018

The other night, over dinner, my roommate and I started discussing our plans to have children. However, this was not the usual talk of how many kids we wanted or if we wanted a boy or a girl. Instead, we were trying to figure out at what age we would need to have kids so that our parents could still care for them.

We are not the only ones having this conversation. Many of our other millennial friends who plan on having children are wondering how they will be able to afford child care.

After spending the past year analyzing data about child care in New Jersey and speaking with parents about the challenges of finding and affording high-quality child care, I now understand why.

Recently, the New York Times published an article about Americans having less children. They surveyed young adults and found the top three reason people were not having any children was the high cost of child care. Of those surveyed who have a child but said they would have fewer children than they wanted, the cost of child care was the number one reason.

New Jersey has one of the worst rates for infant care in the nation. In Union County, where I live, the median weekly cost of child care for an infant is $246.

In ACNJ’s focus groups and conversations with parents, many expressed frustration and desperation at the costs of child care. One mother equated what she paid in child care to the cost of attending college. Another mother said it cost more than her rent. Many parents told us that most, if not all, of their salary went to child care. Even higher-income parents confided that they were struggling to pay.

With such limited affordable high-quality options, many of the mothers we spoke with chose to quit their jobs and stay home with their baby rather than pay for child care. But in the long run, is this really the most economical option for families?

The Center for American Progress created a tool to help families calculate how much earnings they would lose if they exited the workforce to care for their children. The calculator combines total earning loss, including your current salary, salary growth and retirement savings. If I have a baby in the next year and take three years off of work, I will lose about $423,000 over my lifetime compared to about $33,000 I would have paid in child care over three years.

This puts parents in a tricky situation. Do you pay for child care and struggle to make ends meet, or do you quit your job to stay home and lose out on years on savings?

An increasing number of parents are fortunate to rely on grandparents for care as the solution. In fact, last year, the national nonprofit ZERO TO THREE reported that grandparent care is now one of the most common methods of child care. Grandparent care may be the most cost-effective solution, especially for millennials who are facing high costs of living, low wages and often large student debt.

But what about families that do not have parents, family or friends to rely on? What is the solution for them?

In New Jersey, there is only enough space in child care centers for 27 percent of infants and toddlers with working parents. In one of the focus groups, a mother said she called her local child care center to reserve a spot as soon as she found out she was pregnant!

However, finding a high-quality center is even more difficult. Of the more than 1,700 centers that are licensed to serve infants and toddlers, only 41 have been quality rated. In our focus groups, parents recounted horror stories of babies being left in classrooms alone and illnesses and injuries that went unnoticed.

A year ago, I would not have factored child care into my decision to have children. But like many millennials, I’ve come to the realization that I need to think about child care when planning on having children. As the data and stories show, I cannot count on finding an affordable high-quality center to send my baby to.

Millennials are often faulted for being too dependent on their parents, but looking at the state of child care, do we have any other options?

New Report Examines Opportunities, Challenges Faced By Young Parents

Posted on September 25, 2018

Read the report here.

Young parents have specific needs and systems are not designed with these families in mind. In the state of New Jersey, where affordable quality child care is hard to find, for young parents without education or training, the danger of capturing two generations in a poverty cycle is often a sad reality.

On Tuesday, September 25th, ACNJ partner, The Annie E. Casey Foundation, released a special report, Opening Doors for Young Parents, with the goal of examining national and state-level trends, highlighting areas of opportunity and concerns and sharing potential solutions to help these families thrive.

“Access to affordable, quality, childcare remains a challenge, and programs and services intended to help at-risk families, like home visitation, are not reaching enough new parents in New Jersey,” said Cecilia Zalkind, ACNJ’s president and CEO.

Read the NJSpotlight story here, and find a complete copy of the report here.

ACNJ is committed to advocating for the supports all New Jersey families need to give children an opportunity for a healthy start. Join our campaign to help put the needs of babies and their families on the public agenda.

BLOG: How ACNJ Came To Be – The Decision to Create an Independent Voice for All NJ Children

Posted on September 17, 2018

As president of Child Services Association (CSA), one of ACNJ’s parent organizations, Corrine Driver shares her memories on the formation of ACNJ.

In June 1978, the Citizens Committee for Children and Child Service Association merged to form ACNJ.

My reflections are about the creation of an organization now called Advocates for Children of New Jersey.

ACNJ was formed through the merger of two organizations, Child Service Association (CSA) and Citizens Committee for Children of New Jersey (CCCNJ). CSA was located in a very large, multi-story brick building on Broadway in Newark. Previously, that building had been an orphanage. The orphanage had evolved into a social service agency with a major emphasis on enabling the adoptions of children. Over many years of effectively finding homes for children and effectively publicizing this success, gifts from generous donors resulted in the creation of a large endowment. The fundraising effort was assisted by the fact that the CSA executive director, Dr. Leontyne Young, was a nationally known and admired social worker and author.

CCCNJ was a grass roots, ever-growing group of volunteers dedicated to improving the way New Jersey’s social service system protected New Jersey children dependent on that system. CCCNJ had very little money but it had a tremendous amount of volunteer power with an ever growing membership.

At the time, Dr. Young retired as executive director from CSA. The protection of families and children was shifting and becoming more and more the responsibility of the state. Laws and policies governing adoption and foster care were changing. The board of CSA was faced with the decision as to whether to continue as a direct service agency within a growing bureaucracy or become a voice for children in a different and independent way. After months of examining and debating options, the board determined that CSA’s endowment could perform its greatest service to children by using its freedom from depending on public dollars. It decided to leverage its endowment by focusing on public policies that impacted all children.

I was president of CSA and Jim Boskey was president of CCCNJ. We worked together and with our boards over a period of many additional months to bring all board members to a point where they could vote for a merger of our organizations.

The decision-making was very difficult. Two boards of directors, both with the goal of helping children but with two totally different approaches in doing that, had to be brought to an agreement before a merger could take place. The idea of moving from being a direct service agency was anathema to many long-time CSA board members. Also, a large endowment dedicated to serving children had to be guarded and preserved.

For CCCNJ, the value of utilizing volunteer power and flexing citizens’ political muscle on behalf of children was vital. The bottom line — both boards had to figure out how to utilize and enhance the leverage of a lot of private dollars toward children while also utilizing and emphasizing the strength of the volunteer sector.

Independence was a common denominator. Independent money and volunteers independent from public systems could create the freedom to ask questions about what was happening to children that no one else was asking.

With this high hope, the boards of CSA and CCCNJ voted to merge their organizations into ACNJ, The Association for Children of New Jersey, and create an “army” of informed volunteers involved in carrying out activities on behalf of children.

ACNJ, now called Advocates for Children of New Jersey, values its independence and its supporters and will continue to study and then speak out about issues impacting New Jersey’s children.

Corinne Driver
8/20/2018