SOCIAL CARE: Building Healthy Communities to Support Families with Children Prepared for: HRSDC Fami

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SOCIAL CARE Building Healthy Communities to
Support Families with ChildrenPrepared for
HRSDC Families MTP ClusterMay 18, 2007, 930 am
1130 amOttawa, OntarioDr. Paul
KershawDirector, Social Care and Social
Citizenship NetworkCollege for Interdisciplinary
Studies, UBCHuman Early Learning
Partnershippaul.kershaw_at_ubc.ca
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Questions posed to PK

• What mix of supports and services do families
  with children need?" and
• "What federal policy levers can contribute and
  how?"
• subject of Presentation at noon today.
• In response to these questions, I would ask that
  you discuss
• the roles families play in supporting child
  development,
• the types of supports families need to fulfill
  this role,
• an overview of the mix of supports/benefits for
  families with children that currently exists
  (including federal, provincial/territorial and
  community),
• and then some recommendations for what would
  constitute potential policy options.

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What roles do families play in supporting child
development?

• Child development occurs in respect of at least
  three domains
• physical health and well-being
• social and emotional maturity/competence
• language and cognitive development
• Parents and families influence all three because
  they offer the most immediate environment for
  development.
• Parental ability to optimize development
  related to
• Education levels
• Income
• Occupational prestige
• Time.
• Parenting styles, knowledge of ECD.

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Social Care, Take 1Private Time for Social
Inclusion
Thanks to Social Development Partnerships Program
for 700,000, three-year contribution to CII!
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Initial findings confirm private time for social
inclusion hypothesis

• Participants suggest that the concept of
  inclusion is typically theorized too narrowly
  because it under-acknowledges
• the extent to which full social inclusion
  actually requires sufficient access to, and time
  in, a fluid family network of their choosing.
• the role that private family, or domestic, time
  plays in mediating their participation in state,
  market and community sectors and

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Private care time is useful to

• transfer values and discipline, show respect for
  elders and
• sustain family connections, which are identified
  as primary contexts for social belonging
  irrespective of national borders.
• Majority cultural/social groups are bound to
  agree.
• Private Time also implicated in individual and
  collective power.
• The failure of schools, the media and other
  public institutions to validate the identities of
  minority ethnic groups requires parents to
  compensate by cultivating a meaningful racial
  identity in children within a society that still
  denigrates some people of colour.

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Care for children promoting resilience

• Meet Bibi, originally from Congo
• For me, building my childrens identities is as
  important as providing them food and water
  because it will help them develop survival
  strategies I know from life experience that a
  strong ethnic identity can help anyone to develop
  self-esteem, the ability to cope with
  discrimination and racism, and succeed in life
• When they my children talk to me about being
  different, sometimes with strong emotions, I try
  to tell them that the only way for them to feel
  good about themselves is to accept themselves as
  they are and be proud of it. My objectives is to
  help them to control their emotions and behavior
  when they are confronted with discrimination
  because of their race and also when they have a
  strong ethnic identity, the connection will be
  easier with other ethnic groups
• My responsibility as a parent is to help them be
  stronger inside so they can be able to deal with
  any kind of exclusion or when they face
  exclusion, the shock will be less or they may not
  even be in shock because they are prepared and
  learned from me that they are Congolese because
  we (parents) are and its important to stay in
  connection with us (parents) than being with
  connection to the Land (Canadian because they are
  born in Canada).

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Care for children promoting resilience

• Bibi continues
• I want my children to identify themselves as
  Congolese before thinking they are Canadian
  because the mainstream society identifies them
  from somewhere else even though they are born in
  Canada My daughter already experienced those
  kind of reactions. During a show and tell
  activity her classmates didnt believe that she
  was born in a Canadian capital city. She proved
  that with her birth certificate. For me the
  exclusion is present in our daily life. That is
  one reason why I dont want my children to think
  that they are Canadian without putting BUT FROM
  CONGO because the mainstream society will never
  call them or consider them as Canadian when its
  come time to identify them.

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Personal caregiving ? identity.Identity ? pride.

• Jenny, an aboriginal mother
• As a mother, one of the most important tasks
  that I have undertaken is the role of creating
  identity in my children. When the girls were very
  young, I began exposing them to every possible
  element of their culture the longhouse
  practices, funeral celebrations, dance groups in
  the community, and the maintenance of strong ties
  with family

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Personal caregiving ? identity.Identity ? pride.

• Jenny continues
• In supporting the development of my childrens
  identity I have chosen to introduce culture
  first, and allow this to guide all other aspects
  of their individual identity. For far too long,
  my extended and immediate family has had our
  culture taken away, by banning our culture and
  the use of our language. I guess you could say
  that I have turned the tables and made 100
  certain that my children have seen and heard and
  tested every aspect of their cultural identity.
  And then the other elements of their unique
  identities can be shaped by their decisions

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Personal caregiving ? community
development/cultural survival

• Jenny concludes
• Caregiving is the grounding force to identity.
  It is here that we shape and mold the beginnings
  of our children, a beginning that allows them to
  later re-mold, re-shape and alter their own
  personal identity. When the caregiving denies the
  development of identity or when it denies
  identity it is merely survival, food and shelter,
  the bare necessities. This might have been my
  mothers existence, a survival mode for years.
  When we nurture our children in a positive,
  strong sense of culture, aboriginal culture the
  community development is inherent, it is one and
  the same. In my teaching, very rarely do we
  separate ones self from the family, from the
  community, it is all so connected. When we build
  identity in the home (caregiving) we build
  community and when we build community, we
  strengthen the power of the whole.

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The web of relations in which citizens provide
and receive care is

• A site where members of marginalized social
  groups express and learn the power of
  self-definition.
• ? essential spheres of social inclusion where the
  nurturing of ones identity fosters resilience
  among individuals who must resist denigrating
  stereotypes.
• Private care becomes social care
• Nurturing the identities of individuals in turn
  has potential to empower the collective
  identities of the ethnocultural groups in which
  citizens belong.

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Care ? the multi in Canadian commitments to
multiculturalism.

• Parental care is not simply a civic contribution
  because it reproduces labour, taxpayers, pension
  contributers, or health care providers.
• Care is enormously important community
  development work in a country like Canada that
  constitutionally aspires to maintain the cultural
  diversity of its residents.

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Private Time Matters. But there are time
constraints

• Interviewer In the last interview, you
  explained that Its very hard for my children
  to understand Vietnamese language because I have
  three children, and they usually speak English
  more. Mom and Dad work in different shifts so
  theres not much time spending with them.
  Therefore, its very difficult to communicate
  between parent and children Could you let me
  know how time at home with your children matters
  for passing down Vietnamese culture and language
  to you children?
• N2 It is very important because I dont
  have much time for my children so in a family
  activity when I ask them to do a task in
  Vietnamese, but they dont understand. After, I
  indicate the objects, and announce the name of
  it, so they can understand... Parents and
  children cannot understand or express emotion
  with each other in conversation because there is
  no time leftover for the children...
• Currently, my husband and I are taking turns
  working on different shifts so when I go to work
  there isnt much time for my children. For
  example, when I come back home after evening
  shift, my children have already went to sleep. In
  the morning, I have to prepare breakfast, and
  drive them to school. In that time, I dont have
  much time to conversate, and teach them
  Vietnamese.

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N2 continues

• Interviewer How do you feel about not having
  enough time to communicate with your children?
• N2 Very sad. Many times I think that I
  dont know English, and my children dont know
  Vietnamese. I dont know how my children will be
  when they grow up. When I want to speak with
  them, how I will I do it? So I cant express my
  thoughts, and feelings. In the future, if they
  want to confide to me, they wont know how to
  express in Vietnamese language. Therefore, I feel
  very sad when I dont have enough time for my
  children.
• Interviewer What kinds of support or changes
  would make more time available for you and your
  husband to have more time for this communication
  with your children?
• N2 I have three children. I work full time.
  If I want more time for my children, then I have
  to quit my job. If I quit my job, then the
  family budget is short. Is there any support or
  any compensation to help my family if I quit my
  job?

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Federal Govt levers to make time???

• Income splitting or increased spousal credit not
  going to help this family because they need both
  earners.
• Plus, these mechanisms are target inefficient.
• Leave Benefits 55 of maximum 39,000 big
  financial hit for lower-earning families.
• Income Support raise CCTB.
• More generally rethink full-time employment
  norms.

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Social Care, take 2What Else Can Govt Do to
Build Healthy Communities that will Support
Families?

• PK answer Stop allowing investment in medical
  care to cannibalize health promotion!

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Health care a backbone of modern social
citizenship.

• But despite funding and personnel crises, we
  continue to think about health care primarily in
  terms of the medical care needed to treat illness
  rather than preventative health promotion.

2007 15 cut to child care services.
From Medical to Social Care
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Social Care key concept for policy makers

• Social care links medical, child and elder care
  under one conceptual rubric.
• Demographic shifts have produced a sandwich
  generation
• Questions about intergenerational inequity.

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Intergenerational Inequity?
Source Bradshaw, J., Mayhew, E. (2003). Are
welfare states financing their growing elderly
populations at the expense of their children?
Family Matters, 66, 20-25.
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Health care exacerbates inequity further

• Education may begin bridge the
  intergenerational gap modestly, but only for
  school age children!

0-5 group
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Sensitive periods in early brain development
Binocular vision
Central auditory system
Habitual ways of responding
Language
Emotional control
High
Symbol
Peer social skills
Relative quantity
Sensitivity
Low
0
1
2
3
7
6
5
4
Years
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Mismatch between developmental sensitivity and
public investment raises human capital concerns.

• Many social scientists warn that future
  prosperity in nations with aging populations will
  depend in large part on the extent to which
  societies hone the developmental conditions in
  the early years that maximize later skill
  acquisition, and avoid poverty traps that shackle
  young citizens in poverty for extensive periods
  (eg. Courchene Heckman Esping-Andersen).

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The vulnerability rate in BC school districts
ranges from 13 to 40.
Neighbourhood vulnerability rate ranges from 2
to 59
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Population Laboratory59 geographic school
districts44,000 kindergarten children observed
using EDI 469 neighbourhoods
Population Laboratory 59 school districts 490
neighbourhoods
Nearly 90,000 kindergarten children observed
using EDI Measure 5 domains of
development Interdisciplinary team of 200-plus
faculty
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The Cost of Vulnerability Percent of Children
Not Passing on Grade 4 standardized assessments.
of EDI Vulnerabilities Failing to meet
Not passing G. 4 (kindergarten)
expectations
Numeracy 0 7.5 12.3 1 11.8 22.2 2-3
18.7 33.8 4-5 27.5 55.6
Reading 0 13.6 17.8 1 26.7 33.9 2-3
29.5 43.1 4-5 48.4 68.3
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A Positive (Normal)
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B Negative Deflection
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C Positive Deflection
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D- Negative (Normal)
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C to B Ratios, Vancouver
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Canadians are stingy when it comes to income
security.
Why?
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But our employment results our mid-range.
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Maybe Canadians are more efficient with our
public investment in welfare?
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Should we rethink the stingy strategy?
Will the new 83 per month Working Income Tax
Benefit have its intended effect? Resist surplus
time assumption. Enhance NCBS in CCTB and make
IA recipients eligible.
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No System of affordable, quality Child Care
Services to help optimize early development.

• Regulated spaces for just 12 of children under
  age 13.
• What is magical about age 5?

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The existing spaces are unstable!

• Of the facilities operating in 1997
• 1/3 of the 1,844 centres
• 1/2 of the 2,273 family child care (FCC)
  facilities
• closed by 2001.
• Note Family child care refers to providers who
  deliver services from their own residences.

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Research repeatedly shows

• High quality child care contributes to childrens
  cognitive, social and emotional development.
• Stability is one component of quality care
• Stable arrangements
• more sensitive responses from caregiver-teachers,
  
• more secure attachments for children in care,
• higher developmental levels of play,
• stronger language skills, and
• better primary school achievement.

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Fragility the norm, not the exception.
What makes a difference for stability?
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Predictors of Centre Survival

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Predictors of Centre Survival

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OECD Report, Fig. 5.3
Source Starting Strong ll Early Childhood
Education and Care September 2006
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G7 Debt over GDP 1970-2005
Source Department of Finance Economic and Fiscal
Reference Tables, 57
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But what if we looked at the entire Benefit
Package for families with young children?

• Targeted Income Transfers Canada Child Tax
  Benefit (105/month lt36,300) National Child
  Benefit Supplement (162/month lt20,400) BC
  Family Bonus BC Earned Income Benefit.
• Tax expenditures i.e. Child Care Expense
  Deduction Spousal Credit Equivalent to Spouse
  Tax Credit these federal tax provisions also
  result in tax savings at provincial level.
• Child care funding provincial subsidies to
  families provincial operating funding for care
  providers (reflected in average fees).
• Parental/Maternity Leave.
• Subsidized Medical Care Dental Care Pharmacare
  and
• Income assistance.
• These policies assist parents with the costs of
  raising children.

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Plus 62-82 from UCCB for families that dont
pay for child care services Less for families
that pay for services.
Plus 25/month from new Child Tax Credit for
families with taxable income.
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So how do we redress our status as international
laggards when it comes to social care for
citizens in their early life course stages?
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Answer dramatic rethinking of place of medical
care in social care

• One message implied in most recent provincial
  budget consultation was that medical care funding
  is growing rapidly, doubling in cost over the
  last decade and it leaves less for other funding
  areas.
• ? government must cut other programs, like
  child care.

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Tough questions

• We must ask ourselves what medical care we owe
  one another in a just society as our capacity to
  save increases dramatically with costly
  technology and drugs.

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For example

• What does it mean for a society when it can and
  does spend hundreads of thousands, if not
  millions, to save a pre-term fetus one life
  but is remarkably hesitant to invest in health
  promotion for the population through programs
  like early learning and care, housing, food,
  etc.?

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Being Canadian may be making us less healthy?

• Culturally, medical care is so important to our
  sense of selves as Canadians.
• But if we leave unquestioned the place of medical
  care in our commitments to social care, then we
  literally risk our health by failing to invest in
  its determinants.

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Framing the problem beginning of discussion.

• PK and colleagues at HELP keen to work through
  concrete policy solutions as MTP moves ahead with
  its planning.
• Talk this afternoon is a good start.

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Thank you.

• Paul Kershaw, Ph.D.
• The University of British Columbia
• College of Interdisciplinary Studies
• Human Early Learning Partnership (HELP)
• http//www.earlylearning.ubc.ca/PaulKershaw.htm
• e-mail paul.kershaw_at_ubc.ca