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FPSI: Revised 6/24/2000
AWHY
SHOULD I CARE?@
Reasons to Invest in the
Well-being of Children and Families
Partner Perspectives
People support investments in the well-being of
children and families for many different reasons. The following Afirst
person@ profiles explore some of the
most important reasons from the perspective of different county, city and
community partners.
Click on the one that best matches
your place in the world and see if it makes sense.
1. County Supervisor or Commissioner:
A Elected office is no picnic today, if it ever was.
And it is pretty common for the motives of elected officials to be impugned.
But I can tell you that one of the most important reasons I went into public
life was because I was concerned about the quality of life in my community
for my own children and my neighbors' children. This may get lost in the
"issue of the day" environment in which we work, but it is always
there. What has frustrated me most is the way all the competing interests
struggle with each other for money and lose sight of what needs to be
accomplished. We need to rise above the fray and look at how children and
families are doing in our community and how different partners need to work
together to make things better. Then we can put the daily battles in
perspective and maybe make better choices with the scarce money we have. I
would help identify the money, if we could find ways to invest now in
children and families and avoid the problems and cost later on ...even if Alater
on@ is not during my term. If we
could do it in the next two years, investments in children and families
might even help me get reelected.@
2. Parent:
A I don't understand all this jargon people use. I
think they sometimes deliberately try to make me look stupid with the way
they talk. But I stick with it because I know that these things matter to my
kids. And I'm one of the few people in these meetings who knows what it's
really like to have a kid in trouble and try and get through the system. I'm
not sure what all this talk about investment is. But I do know that we
better start dealing with children's problems early. Because when we don't
they get out of hand real fast. It doesn't take a genius to know that you
pay now or you pay later. It would be nice to find some way to talk about
this stuff that ordinary people can understand. But I'll be here either way.@
3. Chief Administrative Officer or County Executive:
A My interest is beyond projects and special
pleadings. I have some responsibility for the well being of the whole county
and its population. I'm not interested in funding programs just because they
happen to be popular. I want to fund things that work. What's most on my
mind frankly is the steady escalation in the cost of treating troubled
families and children, whether it's in juvenile hall or foster care. The
growth in these kinds of costs represents a decline in the quality of life
of the county and robs us of resources we could use for positive things. As
long as we think about this problem one year at a time we will always be
paying more. To get ahead of this we need to think in investment terms. And
if we're smart about it, when we're successful we'll capture the proceeds of
that success and reinvest it. Now we need to figure out two things: what
will work to reduce the long term costs and cost growth, and how can we
track this so we capture and reinvest the savings.@
4. Chief Financial Officer:
A My job is money. The bottom line is the bottom line.
What I'm looking for is some way to lessen the pressure on the budget.
Usually we do this by trying to expand revenues or reduce spending. If I
thought that a modest investment in prevention could produce less cost
later, and if these savings were not too far out, I would consider it.
Frankly though, the track record on social investments is pretty poor.
Everyone has learned how to talk the investment game, but much of what they
propose is soft and poorly thought out from a financial standpoint. This
means that I come to this discussion skeptical. We don't have money to throw
at speculation. Go see the venture capital folks (i.e. foundations) if
that's what you have in mind. If you have a compelling case to make, I'd be
willing to listen. A compelling case would include some evidence that the
savings effect has actually worked on a smaller scale in this county or in
some other place (group and systemic evidence). And a well thought out
analysis (simulation evidence) of why a somewhat larger effort would pay off
at the total budget level in my lifetime.A
5. Mayor or City Council Member:
A My city doesn't spend much of its money directly on
children and family problems. But I'm the one they call when things go
wrong, whether it's graffiti or gangs. I'm supposed to fix it. Well finger
pointing aside, there is no way for that to happen unless a lot of other
players are involved. The county, the state, even the federal government
have something to contribute. Mayors and Council members like me are experts
at engaging citizens and members of the business community. I don't have
much money to invest, but I control lots of other kinds of resources and
would be glad to contribute my share if I thought others were acting in good
faith. Community economic development has always been a matter of
investment. The best work on child well-being needs to marry the worlds of
economic and community development with education and human services. I can
play a role in getting these worlds to work together to improve the lives of
the people who live in my city.@
6. Judge:
A The bench is a funny place to view the world
sometimes. We see people in conflict and distress. We often see the worst of
the way the bureaucracy works. And certainly we see the worst of what
becomes of our children and families when things go wrong. We can sometimes
patch things together through the judicial system. But what's really needed
is an all out effort to prevent these things from happening in the first
place. When necessary we can order systems to change. But we cannot order
young people to avoid risky behavior or mothers and fathers to be good
parents. These things require that the people who now come before me at the
remediation stage do something different at the prevention stage. I don't
have monetary resources to commit, but I would give time to this matter of
investment if the effort were serious.@
7. Business leader:
A My principal responsibility is to the shareholders
in my company. And that responsibility is to produce the best possible
return on their investment. The idea of investment is part of the way we do
our work every day. Maybe this is new to the public sector folks but not to
us. The well being of children and families in our county affects my work in
a couple of ways. If social problems get out of hand, this won't be a very
good place to do business. It will be harder to attract and retain good
workers. And such problems represent upward pressure on taxes, which are
already too high. I need a good workforce. And that means children who are
prepared for the workforce. That means families who have enough support
(whether that's child care or grandma) to show up at work every day. I have
no interest in throwing money at problems. But I would be willing to support
a disciplined approach to finding what works and investing in that. And if
those investments pay off, I would support capturing that payoff and putting
some of it back into more investments of the same kind, like we do with some
of the returns on investment in this business.A
8. Faith Community Leader:
A There are many children and families in trouble in
my congregation. And my church has a responsibility to do something about
that. But our efforts are small compared to resources of others. We need to
find ways to use our money to the greatest effect, and that means leverage
and hopefully partners who will work with us to make a difference. I would
be willing to be part of any effort to think about the conditions of
well-being we want for our children and families, and how to create those
conditions in this community. I believe that members of my congregation
would make sacrifices necessary to make a difference in the lives of our
children.@
9. School Superintendent:
A I am worried that people expect the schools to do
everything and of course we cant. (We're so short on money weve even cut
apostrophes from the budget.) But many of my students are in trouble and a
lot of this goes back to problems with the family. Truthfully. if we could
do something to address these problems, it would make my job easier. Kids
would learn more and be more successful in school and later in life. And yes
there might actually be some savings to go with it. I have a thousand things
to spend those savings on not even counting the pressure to lower or contain
school related tax rates. If I thought there was a set of actions in which
we could partner that would produce such savings Id be willing to help, with
staff time and maybe even with money. But Id want to know this had a real
chance. And Id want to see this show up as fewer kids in special education
or better attendance and ADA reimbursement, or less need for special
expenditures for disruptive students.@
10. Probation or Juvenile Justice Director:
A This job feels like the end of the production line.
A never ending stream of youth who could have followed a different path but
didn't. Every third grade teacher can predict with near complete accuracy
which children will end up in my system down the road. And yet little is
done to keep that from happening. We need a "whatever it takes"
approach to preventing the problems which come to my department. We will
never eliminate these problems. But there is no doubt we can significantly
reduce them. The only sensible policy is investment and reinvestment. If I
could get anyone to think about a unified budget - which shows my
expenditures on the same page as the expenditures for those third graders -
and allowed money to move across programs and fiscal years, there is little
doubt we could deliver a less expensive system over the next 5 to 10 years.
What I'd need to see is the investment portfolio and the political deal to
allow that kind of work to take place. I'd put up whatever I could that
wouldn't directly compromise public safety.@
11. Social Services Director:
A We are always in some stage of crisis it seems.
Whether its the latest controversial child abuse case, or growth in foster
care caseloads, or pressure to bring down welfare caseloads faster. We never
seem to have time to think about prevention. But prevention is the answer.
We will never eliminate child abuse, but we can do many things to support
families, particularly families with young children, when the pressures
build up. Ultimately these problems boil down to whether the family has
enough income and other resources to create a stable environment for
children. The income part is not easy in an economy which often fails to
provide a living wage for parents with children. But there are things we can
do to get people into jobs and onto a path where adequate income is or will
become possible. We can also provide other kinds of supports for families,
both formal supports like respite care and child care as well as informal
supports which come from the neighborhood and the extended family. The
simple truth is that the earlier families get the support they need the less
often they will come to our door as child abuse or child neglect cases or
welfare cases. And over the years a strategy of investing in these things
ought to cost less, not more, money.@
12. Mental Health Director:
A The need for mental health services has always been
greater, a lot greater, than the resources we have. Every year its a
struggle to keep what we have let alone get more. And along with that, my
colleagues in other systems are engaged in a sometimes friendly, sometimes
not-so-friendly game of trying to shift costs to me. This is a game we will
all lose if we keep playing it. We could pump these systems full of money
and not do anything to stem the tide of children who need help. We have to
begin to think about how to do earlier work with children and families so
that the growth in demand can be slowed and stopped. We have a common
interest in identifying things that will work to improve the well being of
children and families before they get to our systems. If we could do that we
could save a lot of misery and also a lot of money. Our work on systems of
care leaves us with a tradition of thinking across service systems. I would
be willing to support a serious effort to go beyond just coordinating our
existing service system to investing and reinvesting in preventing the
demand for those services. And if we can document we have saved or avoided
cost, it would make sense to keep some of that money to do still better.
That's reinvestment right?@
13. Public Health Director:
A The epidemics of violence and teen pregnancy are
easy to see as matters of public health. We in public health have a
tradition of taking on the well-being of the community and its whole
population, of using the discipline of epidemiology to dig for causes and to
bring public resources to bear on solutions. Disease is not cured by wishful
thinking. It takes dollars and discipline and knowledge about what works.
These are the same ingredients for improving any other indicator of child,
family, or community well-being, whether it's 3rd grade reading scores or
homelessness. And the health field has a related tradition of investment and
reinvestment. Public health is under siege these days with the upheaval in
health care. We need partners as much as they need us. And there may be no
better common ground for us to work together than improving outcomes, health
and other outcomes, for children families and communities.@
14. Community Based Organization (or Healthy Start) Director:
A I see this stuff every day. children who are at a
crossroads in their lives, where the kind of help and support we provide
makes a difference. Investment in children is not an abstract concept here.
It's a day to day matter of making a difference or missing an opportunity.
It is so easy for us to see the value in what we do, and so hard to quantify
it and convince those with the money to support and grow our work. It would
be great to have partners who could see what we see in terms of future
benefit to their systems. And help us make the financial case for the use of
serious dollars for the kinds of services we provide.@
15. Media Reporter or News Producer:
A The problems of children and families sell papers
and help TV ratings but no one likes to write those stories. We're not
headed for the "good news press" era anytime soon, but there are
some things that would be a pleasure to write about... increasing graduation
rates. dropping juvenile crime rates... and stories about the
accomplishments of our community and its members. And truthfully,
communities that get to write these stories first are going to profit
literally from the good press. Look at NYC and its work on its crime image.
Look at any community that can boast about its schools... I'm not so sure
how to do it. But I'm damn sure its worth trying. And if nothing else we'll
get good stories out of the failure...@
16. Foundation director:
A I want to get the most leverage for my money.
Foundation money is just a drop in the bucket. Ultimately. leverage means
getting government to spend its money more effectively to promote long term
improvements in the well-being of children families and communities. My
money plays one of two roles. It facilitates government officials doing the
right thing, or it "bribes" them into doing the right thing. The
right thing in this case is the shift to investments in prevention, the
shift to implementing things that work at scale. I'm tired of funding
projects that die when my funding ends and fail to affect the bigger picture
use of resources. It is no longer enough to show that something can be done.
It is no longer enough to demonstrate exemplary service delivery. We must
begin to harness the power of our long term financial and social self
interest in children and families to the political and budget processes.
This may mean using our dollars to retool the decision making systems of
players with the dollars that count. And investment and reinvestment
technology may be part of what it will take to drive the alchemy of turning
foundation money into better public policy for children and families.@
Top of Page
Note: This piece was first drafted for the Foundation Consortium
Reinvestment Project in November 1998. The revised hypertext version here was
created in June 2000. Comments and suggested changes
or additions are welcome, particularly from those in the roles described above,
or those whose roles are not represented.
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