As I listened to the speech, I thought about the work that we do at The Women’s Foundation and the intersection between the federal policies discussed and the reality that women and girls in our region face, and I was once again struck by the huge disconnect that we continue to see.

The theme of the speech—economic fairness—sounds quite simple and logical.  The President spoke about how his grandparents contributed to a post-World War II “story of success that every American had a chance to share – the basic American promise that if you worked hard, you could do well enough to raise a family, own a home, send your kids to college, and put a little away for retirement.”  He called this “the defining issue of our time,” saying, “No challenge is more urgent.  No debate is more important.  We can either settle for a country where a shrinking number of people do really well, while a growing number of Americans barely get by.  Or we can restore an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules.”  Who can argue with that?  Hard to disagree with the logic, so why can’t we get there?

Ask anyone who is out in the community, working in the trenches, and they will tell you that it’s not easy. The issues facing our nation and our local community are incredibly complex and they didn’t just pop up overnight, which means that the solutions are not simple, one-dimensional responses, and the problems won’t be solved with a blink of the eye.

Take the President’s commitment to train people with skills that will lead directly to jobs and his call to cut through “the maze of confusing training programs.”  Sounds like a no-brainer — of course we should train people with skills that lead to jobs; but just this past week we were once again reminded why something that may seem intuitive isn’t.  WAMU aired a report investigating D.C.’s job training programs and detailed the disconnect between some of the programs that are receiving funding, the skill sets required for the jobs people were being trained for, and ultimately, the availability of these jobs.  The example cited was the 4,000 people trained to earn a Commercial Drivers License and the 90 people who were ultimately hired by metro, the region’s largest CDL employer. How can there be such a disconnect?

Additionally, DC Fiscal Policy Institute, a Grantee Partner of The Women’s Foundation, released a resource map offering a snapshot of the city’s investment in workforce development over the course of one fiscal year.  The map details more than 30 programs and services across a dozen city agencies. It’s hard to imagine how someone could possibly navigate the system in the best of times, say nothing about the worst of times.

As we think about the worst of times and the state of our economy, the President rightly devoted a great deal of his speech to jobs.  And while he called for equal pay for women, the majority of the jobs-related portions of the speech focused on nontraditional jobs where women continue to be underrepresented and face numerous barriers to obtaining and retaining these jobs.  Isn’t it time that we give equal weight and value to ensuring women are paid equal wages for equal work?  Doesn’t that fundamentally fall into the economic fairness category?  Are we ok with telling our girls to work hard and get a good education only to be paid 77 cents on the dollar?

Calling on every state to require that all students stay in high school until they graduate or turn 18 is a commendable goal set forth by the President.  There is no doubt about the importance of graduating high school and pursuing post-secondary education and training.  Our research demonstrates the drastic earnings differential based on educational attainment. Women in this region who do not have a high school diploma earn just over $18,000 per year compared to women with a graduate or professional degree who earn over $70,000.

But it’s not quite as cut and dry as simply saying that we’ll require everyone to graduate. Are we prepared to tackle the myriad of issues that cause youth, particularly girls, to drop out of school?  Generational poverty, family unemployment, violence, and teen pregnancy are just a few of the laundry list of issues that are at the crux of drop-out rates.

So how do we get there? Last night, the President reminded us that “no one built this country on their own. This nation is great because we worked as a team. This nation is great because we get each other’s backs.”  Well, there is no better time than now for our community to pull together to ensure that the Washington region is a model community where economically vulnerable women and girls have the resources to thrive.  Now is the time to work together toward innovative, multi-dimensional solutions that put women and girls on a path to prosperity.  Let’s break the disconnect.  Where would you start?

Jennifer Lockwood-Shabat is vice president of Washington Area Women’s Foundation.

Photo credit: WhiteHouse.gov

Tags: obama, sotu, state of the union, economy, equal pay, women, girls, resources, poverty, education, work, jobs

Read on to find out what some of our grantees will be doing for our region in 2012 and tell us in the comments below what you envision for women and girls this year.  Washington Area Women’s Foundation will be sharing our own list of resolutions later this month in a special e-mail message from Foundation President Nicky Goren.  Make sure you learn what we’re planning for 2012 by signing up to get monthly e-mails today!

IWPR’s 2012 Resolutions

• During this election year, get people talking about the issues that affect women, such as jobs and the economy, the gender wage gap and workplace discrimination, STEM education, Social Security and retirement, work/family balance, and maternal and child health.
• Celebrate our 25^th anniversary by marking the progress that women have made while highlighting areas where policy changes could make a huge difference in advancing women, families, and communities.
• Illustrate the current status of women displaced by Hurricane Katrina through an upcoming report that also identifies their specific needs.
• Improve success rates for student parents by sharing best practices and forging strong partnerships with administrators, practitioners, advocates, and policymakers within the worlds of higher education, youth development, and early care and education.
• Give young women opportunities to gain career experience while expanding their knowledge of research and policy issues through our internship and fellowship programs.

Goodwill of Greater Washington’s 2012 Resolutions

• In 2012, Goodwill of Greater Washington resolves to train, equip and place nearly 200 people into local jobs that support the local economy. We anticipate that these 200 jobs will come through the continued expansion of Goodwill’s retail stores, as well as the placement efforts from our intensive job training programs;
• Goodwill of Greater Washington also resolves to continue providing 600+ jobs to local residents through our retail stores, janitorial contracts, and administrative and support divisions, many of which are filled by people who face significant disabilities or other barriers to employment.

NOVACO’s 2012 Resolutions

At a client Life Skills meeting at NOVACO in January, several clients set goals and made resolutions.  They included:

• believing in themselves so that they could achieve their goals;
• being better parents; and
• setting small goals and telling themselves that they could accomplish those goals.

One mother, Kay, reflected on how much she’s achieved so far.  She earned her high school diploma through night classes, learned to drive and got her driver’s license, and worked with lawyers to get a work permit.  She also improved her parenting skills while she worked full-time at a restaurant and was offered a management position after just one year.  She volunteered her free time as a pen pal and greeter for the USO.

DCVLP’s 2012 Resolution

The DC Volunteer Lawyers Project resolution is that every victim of domestic violence in DC seeking a civil protection order who wants representation by an attorney will have one this year.

SMYAL’s Women’s Leadership Institute’s 2012 Resolutions

• Provide a much-needed free space for young women to gather and form community.
• Using that space, build our community of women and strengthen our bonds through discussion and shared service.
• Promote further discussion about maintaining healthy relationships, recognizing unhealthy relationships, and combating domestic violence.
• Develop connections to extend our diverse community deeper into the DC metro area and beyond.
• Seek out community partners and collaborate on at least four service projects.
• Connect more young women to mentorship opportunities with local volunteers.
• Long-term resolution: Create a community of confident, empowered women through opportunities for leadership development and civic engagement.

FAIR Girls’ 2012 Resolutions

We, FAIR Girls, resolve to work as hard as we can to make sure that by the end of 2012…

• 200 teen girl survivors of exploitation have received compassionate care, including counseling, emergency housing, assistance in finding legal and medical support, resume building and job placement, educational attainment support, and a sense of family and community at FAIR Girls.
• 1000 teen girls and boys in high schools and youth shelters have participated in our Tell Your Friends workshop and have learned how to keep themselves safe from sexual exploitation and trafficking.
• 1000 law enforcement officers, teachers, and social workers are better able to identify and assist victims of trafficking having attending a FAIR Girls training.
• A law, inspired by Daisy, will have passed in Washington, D.C. ensuring that all missing teenage girls are considered “critical missing” and have access to FAIR Girls and our partners’ services when they are found.
• 2000 hours of art therapy and economic empowerment workshops will have helped inspire and restore more than 125 girls.

Thank you to the Grantee Partners who shared their resolutions with us!  You can share your thoughts in the comments below and don’t forget to register for our e-newsletter to learn more about The Women’s Foundation’s plans for 2012.

Tags: 2012, resolutions, women, girls, unemployment, jobs, economy, trafficking, domestic, violence, education

– Ahead of the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday, Women’s Foundation President Nicky Goren visits the MLK Memorial and reflects on what Dr. King would think about more than 200,000 women and girls living in poverty in the DC region.

– The Women’s Foundation is inviting supporters to join us and volunteer at A Wider Circle on MLK Day.  Click here for details.

– The Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR) — a Women’s Foundation Grantee Partner — has posted a list of their top five findings of 2011. Topics on the list include how women have fared during the economic recovery, the unmet child care needs of student parents and how much paid sick days would save taxpayers.

– East of the River Magazine explores the innovative work of AppleTree Early Learning Public Charter School.  The article also takes a look at the impact a quality Pre-K education can have on the achievement gap.  AppleTree is a Women’s Foundation Grantee Partner.

– “In the fight against poverty, it’s time for a revolution,” David Bornstein writes in a commentary on The New York Times website. Bornstein calls for re-defining poverty, restructuring how social services are handled, and focusing on collaborative, long-term solutions.

– Here’s your feel great story of the week: a 17-year-old Long Island high school student whose family had to move into a homeless shelter a year ago is a semifinalist in the Intel Science Talent Search competition.  Samantha Garvey says she doesn’t have the best home life, but she hopes that she made her parents proud by being one of just 300 students nationwide to participate in the semifinals of the competition.  You can watch her story here:

Tags: women, girls, dc, poverty, homeless, education, intel, science, career, early care, children

Tags: washington, dc, virginia, maryland, women, girls, economy, income, poverty, low-income, acs, american community survey, census

The following infographic highlights some of the statistics found in The Women’s Foundation report 2010 Portrait of Women & Girls in the Washington Metropolitan Area.

What the Girls Say

Girls in our community face many challenges, but at a recent community listening session, we learned that they are fierce, upbeat and have big plans for the future.  We sat down with a group of young women in Montgomery County who shared the following with us:

• If they could be animals, the girls would choose to be: a lion, a dog, a dolphin and a cat.  Why?  Because those animals are mysterious, fierce, free, protective, loving, shy and sleep all day.
• Most of the girls were aware of money frustrations their parents have.  They talked about the importance of saving, not getting into debt and paying their bills.
• There are more important things than money, they said, like: family & friends, love, health, yourself, pets and education.
• They defined success as: achieving goals, finishing school, being independent, not worrying about money, accomplishing things you dream of, and winning the lottery.
• Issues that teen girls face right now include: jobs, sexual health and money.

Click here for more details about the Day of the Girl initiative. Plus, let us know what you think about this information.  Are these the barriers to success that you see for girls in your own neighborhood?  What are girls in our community most hopeful about?  What do they like most about school?  What do they want to do in the future?  Tell us in the comments below!

Tags: girls,, day, of, the, girl,, economy,, education,, teen, pregnancy,, health,, hiv,, aids,, washington,, maryland,, virginia

The report found that our region is one of the most highly educated in the country – yet there’s a stark divide between those with high and low levels of education and that divide becomes even wider when race is taken into consideration.

Portrait Project 2010 looked into fourth graders’ proficiency in reading and math.  The report found that the District is far behind the rest of the region and the U.S. overall in both reading and math.  Girls are performing slightly better in reading and about the same as boys in math.  But taking race into account once again showed a greater divide, with fourth graders of color lagging far behind their white counterparts.

Portrait Project 2010 also found that 10 percent of the girls in our region don’t complete high school.  “Among girls of color, high school completion rates are especially low: African American and Asian girls are twice as likely (12 and 14 percent, respectively) as white girls (6 percent) to lack a high school diploma.  And almost four in ten (37 percent) Latinas in our region do not graduate from high school (US Department of Commerce 2008).”

The lack of a high school diploma or other degree greatly impacts future earnings.  Women with graduate or professional degrees have median annual earnings ($70,787) that are more than three times the earnings of those who do not graduate from high school ($18,283).

In spite of the obvious struggles that some students in our community face, women in the region have much higher-than-average educational levels; half have a bachelor’s or graduate degree, compared to a little more than a quarter of women in the U.S. overall.

So how do we bridge the gaps and ensure that all girls in our region are on a path to prosperity?  Portrait Project 2010 highlights the importance of starting early, pointing out that quality early care and education can prepare children for later grades and increase their chances of finishing high school.

Portrait Project 2010 also shows that 26 percent of girls who drop out of high school say pregnancy or parenting was behind their decision to leave school without a diploma.  Providing young parents with innovative opportunities to finish school while receiving child care supports may ensure that young mothers have better opportunities to provide for their families.

The report also points to community college and job training as additional ways to  help women earn the skills and credentials they need to improve their career and earnings prospects.

Portrait Project 2010 has some valuable lessons about ways we can use educational attainment to improve the lives of girls, women, their families and our entire community.  Here’s my back-to-school wish list for our region:

Do you have a back-to-school wish list for the girls in our community?  Tell us what’s on your list in the comments below.  And for more details you can read the full Portrait Project 2010 online by clicking here.

Tags: education, girls, washington, dc, maryland, schools, teens, high school, dropout, community college

Ensuring that young children have a strong social, emotional and intellectual foundation to succeed in school has been the focus of Washington Area Women’s Foundation’s Early Care and Education Funders Collaborative. The Collaborative supports quality early care and education programs that are working to successfully close a “preparation gap” that exists among children entering school.

Research has shown that a particularly wide preparation gap exists between lower- and higher-income children, even before they enter kindergarten.  And when they start behind, they stay behind.  A child who can’t recognize letters when they enter kindergarten has lower reading skills in the first grade.  And 88% of poor readers in first grade will still be poor readers in the fourth grade.

According to The Pew Charitable Trusts, “children who attend high-quality programs are less likely to be held back a grade, less likely to need special education, and more likely to graduate from high school.  They also have higher earnings as adults and are less likely to become dependent on welfare or involved with law enforcement.”

The Women’s Foundation’s recent report, 2010 Portrait of Women & Girls in the Washington Metropolitan Area (Portrait Project 2010), took a look at the achievements and needs of all women and girls in our community and shows that cost and availability are major deterrents in our area to providing young children with high-quality early care and education.

The high costs of child care are a major challenge for working mothers, a problem that’s especially acute for single women, according to Portrait Project 2010.  In the District, the average annual cost of full-time, center-based infant care is 52 percent of the median annual income of a single mother.  The cost is more than one-third of the average annual income of a single mother in Maryland and Virginia.

There is federal assistance available, primarily through the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG), but recent reductions have resulted in long waiting lists for subsidized slots.  Portrait Project 2010 found that there are more than 13,000 children on waiting lists for subsidized child care in D.C.  There are 3,800 on the wait list in Fairfax County.

The subsidies are so important because childcare in our region is expensive.  One high-quality center in Fairfax County charges $360 per week.  In spite of the high cost, child care centers still struggle to meet their expenses, and child care workers often do not make a living wage.  The median annual earnings of child care workers in our region ranged from $19,270 in Virginia to $24,900 in D.C.  “The fact that child care providers earn so much less than public school teachers in our region underscores the need to increase the status and earnings of these important professionals who care for our youngest children,” according to Portrait Project 2010.

Washington Area Women’s Foundation works with Grantee Partners across the region to increase the capacity and institutional stability of early care and education programs, enable these entities to develop and manage their resources more effectively, and improve these programs through grantmaking, training and technical assistance.  In order to accomplish these goals, the Foundation recently made grants to CentroNia, DC Appleseed, Empower DC, Fairfax Futures and Voices for Virginia’s Children.

Click here to learn more about the Early Care and Education Funders Collaborative. And click here to read Portrait Project 2010.

Photo credit: Michael Colella Photography

Tags: washington, dc, virginia, maryland, month of the young child, early, care, and, education, centronia, dc appleseed, empower dc, fairfax futures, voices for virginias children, day, care, child, care, preschool, tuition, subsidies

Wendy-Nia Griffin is the S.I.S.T.E.R.S program director at Family Support Center, a Maryland nonprofit that offers social and mental health services to families and schools in the metro area.  FSC has received grants from The Women’s Foundation for the S.I.S.T.E.R.S. (Self, Image, Strength, Tenacity, Empathy, Responsibility, Success) after-school empowerment program.

From one S.I.S.T.E.R.S. to another sister — this program is making a difference in the lives of tween girls by  imbuing concrete coping and decision-making skills.  The S.I.S.T.E.R.S. groups go straight to the crux of what impacts young girls like bullying and self image, healthy relationships, peer pressure and healthy bodies. The girls set the agenda and thus the group is socially and culturally relevant.

Part of being relevant means taking a look at areas that need improvement, so we recognized that the U.S. lags behind in leadership in the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) fields.  That prompted us to start an initiative within S.I.S.T.E.R.S called S.I.S.T.E.R.S in Science.  Our agenda remains ambitious and has included a trip to the National Science and Engineering Festival and visits from traditional scientists as well as kitchen scientists (who showed us that scientists can really cook!).

Our culminating event will take us to visit the National Institutes of Health, to expose the S.I.S.T.E.R.S. to world renowned scientists.  There, they will get to use NIH’s top notch facilities in hands on experiments.  Next year the S.I.S.T.E.R.S. program will send the winner of the S.I.S.T.E.R. in Science of the Year Award to the University of Maryland’s Women in Engineering Program.  All we ask is that when she wins the Nobel Prize for Science and Engineering, she remembers to give a shout out to the S.I.S.T.E.R.S.!

Photo: A member of the S.I.S.T.E.R.S. program investigates the wonders of the human brain.  Photo courtesy of Wendy-Nia Griffin.

– A D.C. subsidy program for residents who are raising their grandchildren has not been cut as deeply as first proposed, reports The Washington Examiner. Mayor Adrian Fenty originally proposed cutting funding for the program by half, or nearly $2.7 million.  However Ward 6 Councilmember Tommy Wells was able to find $900,000 in the city’s Child and Family Services Agency budget and the cut was reduced.

– “The D.C. Council is moving forward with plans to make homeless families prove they live in the District before they can receive shelter, a stance that one council member called ‘cruel,’” reports The Washington Post. The bill, which was approved 8 to 3 in a preliminary vote, would also change the city’s obligation to homeless adults with children.

– Today on WAMU’s “The Kojo Nnamdi Show,” the conversation will focus on LGBT youth and the challenges they face in the community.  One of the guests will be Andrew Barnett, executive director of the Sexual Minority Youth Assistance League (SMYAL), a Women’s Foundation Grantee Partner.

– The Washington Post follows up yesterday’s story about the Project Empowerment job training program with a story today that focuses on what happens to students after graduation.

Tags: dc, homeless, jobs, women, girls, lgbt, budget, smyal

– “Part-time workers in the Washington region suffered some of the worst pay losses in the nation during the recession,” reports The Washington Post. The median pay for women slipped from the highest in the country to fourth place.

– NPR reports that climbing out of poverty is nearly impossible for former inmates and explores the long-term effects of incarceration.  The U.S. has the highest rate of incarceration in the world, with more than 2 million people in prison.

– D.C. Public Schools are now serving dinner to an estimated 10,000 students, according to The Washington Post. The $5.7 million dinner program is meant to help fight childhood hunger, reduce the rate of obesity among students, and get more children into after school programs.

– A new report on Alzheimer’s finds that women take on most of the caretaking burden.  The Shriver Report on Alzheimer’s finds that the majority of patients and caretakers are women.  More than half of them report serious emotional and physical stress.

Tags: washington, dc, dcps, children, hunger, food, women, inmates, poverty, alzheimer, shriver report