Families and Work Institute

When child care provided by family, friends or neighbors breaks down, many working parents miss work to care for their children. When relatives, friends or neighbors provide child care but do not have the resources or knowledge to help prepare young children for school, entire communities are affected.

Culled from interviews with experts, employees and their caregivers-as well as employers-Sparking Connections, by Deborah Stahl, Nina Sazer O'Donnell, Peg Sprague and Marta Lopez of Families and Work Institute (FWI) is a collaboration between FWI and the NRF Retail Work Life Forum, a group of retail employers working to find solutions to issues of concern for their workforce.

"Support for improving the educational resources available to family, friend and neighbor caregivers is crucial to workforce development and assuring that young children enter school ready to succeed," said Nina Sazer O'Donnell, vice president of Families and Work Institute and co-author of the report. "We hope that communities, policy makers and employers, retailers in particular, will realize that they can work together to improve the quality and stability of this kind of care. It's a win-win-win situation."

Sparking Connections is part of an initiative that is identifying and demonstrating community-based strategies for helping family, friend and neighbor caregivers meet the needs of working parents, their children and employers. The next step in the initiative is a two-year demonstration and evaluation phase with communities across the country, followed by a dissemination phase to share effective strategies and lessons learned.

"Providian believes that increasing knowledge and support for family, friend and neighbor care will benefit communities, employers, employees, and children throughout the country," said Providian's Kathy Bogle-Shields, vice president, Community Development. "We are proud to partner with Families and Work Institute on the Sparking Connections initiative and encourage other employers to support these caregivers in their own communities."

In addition to interviews with experts in the child care and public policy fields, as well as parents and caregivers, Sparking Connections includes the perspectives of employers, which have largely been overlooked in discussions of family, friend and neighbor care. Sparking Connections describes model initiatives and offers strategies tailored to communities, retailers, policy makers and others.

For more information or to order copies of Sparking Connections, go to www.familiesandwork.org.

Families and Work Institute is a non-profit center for research that provides data to inform decision-making on the changing workforce, changing family and changing community. Founded in 1989, FWI is known for ahead of the curve, non-partisan research into emerging work-life issues; for solutions-oriented studies addressing topics of vital importance to all sectors of society; and for fostering connections among workplaces, families, and communities. For more information, visit our Web site at www.familiesandwork.org.

About Providian Financial
San Francisco-based Providian (www.providian.com) is a leader in supporting child care-related issues both nationally and locally. Through its Providian Cares community giving program, the company makes donations each year to worthy organizations across the nation, in communities where Providian employees live and work. Providian is a leading provider of credit cards and deposit products to customers throughout the United States. One of America's largest bankcard issuers, Providian has over $19 billion in managed receivables and more than 12 million customer relationships.

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Contact: Erin Brownfield, Families and Work Institute
212-465-8421