The New Practice Lab's Work with Economically-Excluded Families with Young Children
The New Practice Lab has created a co-design workshop that explores a vision of what it would look like for economically vulnerable families with young children to thrive and what support they would need to achieve that. This family-centered learning will both inspire the Lab鈥檚 delivery improvement projects in the current policy landscape and also inform our actionable recommendations for necessary and long-overdue systems and cultural transformations.
American families with young children are struggling with day-to-day challenges of survival, yet government support falls short of meeting their needs. Social policies can help families and children to thrive when they recognize and embrace the intersection of issues and needs that impact real lives. The New Practice Lab's Thriving Families project aims to make family thriving central to social policy design and delivery. The families we鈥檝e spoken with shared experiences that illuminate the influence of social and community support networks as they navigate raising young children, and how having that support鈥攐r not鈥攁ffects their ability to thrive. This brief explores ways that the next generation of social policies can embrace these realities to take meaningful steps toward supporting families to thrive.
The familiar routines of raising children provide opportunities for parents to connect, collaborate, and sometimes commiserate. We face many of the same challenges meeting the daily needs of young children and creating an environment that will help them thrive. But not all families are equally resourced when it comes to navigating those challenges. How can we create a future where all families feel well-equipped to deal with the ups and downs of parenting? By listening to them.