Financing Child Care in the United States - Ewing Marion Kauffman ...

EMPLOYERS
AT&T FAMILY CARE DEVELOPMENT
FUND (MULTISTATE)
DESCRIPTION
The AT&T Family Care Development Fund has four
components to help meet the family needs of its
employees, including their child care needs. These four
elements include a grants program for child care and
other family–related programs, the Target Cities Initiative,
a national strategic innovation program and participation
in the American Business Collaboration for Quality
Dependent Care.
WHEN ESTABLISHED
The Development Fund was established in 1990.
ANNUAL AMOUNT
The Development Fund’s budget is $13.5 million for the
four–year period from 1999 to 2002.
SERVICES FUNDED
The Development Fund is designed to meet the family
needs of AT&T’s employees, with a focus on children and
elderly relatives. A five–part program was established in
the start–up phase for the Development Fund, from
1990 to 1992, which continues to provide the framework
for service delivery. In the child care area, priority is given
to services that increase the capacity or improve the
quality of child care. Since the inception of the Fund,
AT&T has helped to increase child care capacity by 3,000
slots annually and has improved quality for about 400
programs annually. Child care is broadly defined and
includes services to very young children through summer
jobs for teenagers.
A competitive grants program seeks to improve child care
quality and capacity. Upon the recommendation of an
AT&T employee that is involved with the program, a child
care program can apply to one of three grant pools:
1) a full–grant pool, which provides grants of $5,000 to
$40,000 to address capacity or quality in programs that
will serve a significant number of AT&T families; 2) a
mini–center grant program, which provides quality grants
for up to $3,000 for child care centers that enroll at
least one AT&T family, and 3) a family child care grant
program, which provides up to $350 for an individual
provider serving an AT&T family.
The Target Cities Initiative operates in selected AT&T
communities. A local community assessment is
conducted to identify AT&T family needs in the
community, a plan is developed and a Request for
Proposals (RFP) is used to identify appropriate service
agencies in the communities. Since the inception of the
Target Cities Initiative, a total of 17 communities have
participated. Participation generally lasts for two to three
years, and there is no set time limit.
One component of the national strategic innovation
program focuses on expanding the opportunities that
caregivers have for professional development. A national
scholarship program is at the heart of this program,
providing AT&T employees with an opportunity to
nominate their child care or elder care programs for
scholarships to attend seminars and conferences that will
enhance their learning and professional practice.
AT&T was a founding member of the American Business
Collaboration for Quality Dependent Care (ABC), whose
work is profiled on page 116.
HOW FUNDS DISTRIBUTED
AT&T has established a Family Care Development Fund
Office, which is staffed by three professionals. This office
is responsible for providing information to AT&T
employees about the various programs of the Family
Care Development Fund so that they may participate
directly (i.e. Family Resource Program) or refer eligible
programs to participate (i.e. the Grants Program). The
fund uses contracts to stress the fact that this work is a
component of the business operation (in contrast to the
philanthropic giving) of AT&T. Oversight for
decision–making for the Grants Program and the Target
Cities Initiative rests with two committees, a
union–management committee and a management
review committee. These two committees review the
proposals and staff analysis and make the funding
decisions.
POPULATION SERVED
Participation in the projects of the Family Care
Development Fund is restricted to programs serving the
employees of AT&T.
STRATEGIC CONSIDERATIONS
• AT&T has had more than a decade of experience with
the fund, and indicates that there are three core
principles that have guided the program and helped it
to achieve a high degree of success and acceptance
by employees and management alike: 1) all of the
programs and strategies of the Family Care
Development Fund must yield a direct benefit for AT&T
employees, 2) the services are accessible to 100
percent of the employees. The Family Resource
Program, for example, can be used by anyone.
Likewise, any AT&T employee may recommend that
the grant program fund the child care program that
they themselves use and 3) the fund has developed a
wide variety of methods of listening and responding to
employee needs across all of its programming and has
been willing to modify existing efforts based on
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