Summit Proposes Solutions for California's Working Families
With the State's Current Budget Climate, Policy Makers Address Urgent Needs of California's Working Families
Distribution Source : PRNewswire

Date : Friday - January 07, 2005

SACRAMENTO, Jan. 7 /PRNewswire/ -- More than 600 policy leaders gathered today at the Sacramento Convention Center to discuss and debate recommendations on priority issues facing working families at the California Working Families Policy Summit 2005, hosted by the California Center for Research on Women and Families (CCRWF). Various state leaders in child care and after-school care, health, welfare, nutrition, and physical activity made recommendations for change and improvement in areas that most strongly influence the lives of California's working families.

State leaders in this discussion included Senator Liz Figueroa (D-Alameda), other elected officials, and heads of various organizations in California associated with working families. The mission of the Summit was to ensure policy makers understand the needs of California's working families -- and that advocates set clear and strategic policy goals for meeting those needs. New legislation is expected, responding to key proposals such as increasing access to food stamps, increasing revenues through better tax collection, creating healthier environments for children, and creating successful public programs that provide health coverage.

"With the state's current budget climate, the fast changing political scene, and the alarming trends in nutrition and health especially amongst California's low-income families, it is important to us that the needs of these families are understood by policy makers," said Kate Karpilow, Ph.D., executive director California Center for Research on Women and Families. "We were honored to be joined by some the state's most respected advocates who have worked with colleagues to develop far-reaching, yet practical policy proposals."

The Summit served as a forum for legislative and administration staff, advocates, nonprofit leaders and others to identify and discuss public policy for the upcoming legislative session. Major issues discussed at this year's Summit included health, nutrition, physical activity, welfare, after-school, and child care. Key initiatives proposed by the participating advocates include:

* After-School care: Take Proposition 49 that was launched by Governor Schwarzenegger and prepare local communities to receive the infusion of dollars and make some changes that will make the program more practical, including a larger role for community-based organizations. (California School-Age Consortium)

* Child Care: Work with the Legislature to ensure that no more cuts are made to an already fragile child care system. Work with Congress and the President to avoid making any additional cuts to Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG). Develop an alternate rate-setting method for early care and education providers who care solely for subsidized children, rather than simply cutting their rates to save funds. (Child Care Law Center)

* Medi-Cal: Urge the Legislature and the Governor to adopt necessary components of true reform that streamline eligibility requirements without causing a loss of coverage and that improve program quality and efficiency, and reject policies that would result in a lapse or loss of coverage, restrict access, or make access more cumbersome or difficult for those eligible for Medi-Cal or other public health programs. (Western Center on Law and Poverty)

* Health Care: Eliminate reductions in access to public health care programs, and increase successful public programs that provide health coverage. Provide consumer protections for uninsured, underinsured, and insured families to protect them against overcharging and unfair pricing by hospitals, prescription drugs companies, and insurers. (Health Access California)

* Child health care: Promote a statewide effort that would provide all of California's children with health insurance; more can and should be done to provide coverage for children. The success of some public programs in enrolling more children were highlighted. This effort has the backing of business, faith and many other state leaders. (Children Now)

* Welfare: Urge the reduction of red tape by streamlining eligibility processes and requirements. Preserve existing welfare grants and services. Increase revenues through better tax collection, fewer tax loopholes, restoring the top tax bracket, expanding sales tax to services, and changing the way that commercial property is treated under Proposition 13. (Western Center on Law and Poverty)

* Nutrition: Call for a "zone of health" around every young child, with young children "off limits" to marketing and modeling of unhealthy foods that have led to our rates of childhood obesity. Also call on the Governor and the Legislature to protect our child nutrition programs from federal cuts, including WIC, Food Stamps, Head Start and other meal programs. Strengthen nutrition programs at schools and maximize federal funds, with some valuable and specific proposals. Increase children's access to healthy foods and beverages and decrease their access to unhealthy foods and beverages. (California WIC Association)

* Physical Activity: Develop legislation and regulations to increase physical activity for kids by providing more physical education programs in schools. (American Heart Association)

"The Legislative Women's Caucus is pleased to be a founding co-sponsor of the Working Families Policy Summit again this year. Many of the policy ideas on issues such as child care, health care, domestic violence shelter funding, and nutrition have been generated at this forum and will continue to be top priorities of the Women's Legislative Caucus," said Senator Liz Figueroa, Chair of the Legislative Women's Caucus.

The deadline for introducing new bills for the current state legislative session is February 18, 2005. Many of the participating policy advocates are either identifying authors for the new legislation or have been working with legislators to develop the language.

The California Working Families Policy Summit 2005 was hosted by the California Center for Research on Women and Families. It was co-sponsored by the California Legislative Women's Caucus, the Asian Pacific Islander Legislative Caucus, the California Legislative Black Caucus, the Latino Legislative Caucus, the California Legislative LGBT Caucus, the California Commission on the Status of Women, and more than 50 nonprofit organizations. The Summit was funded by The California Endowment and the Stuart Foundation, with support from the California Nutrition Network for Healthy, Active Families. For more information, visit http://www.ccrwf.org/.

For further information, please contact Theresa Ko, +1-949-223-2326, or +1-949-278-0109, theresa.ko@hillandknowlton.com, for California Center for Research on Women and Families.