Health

Reponse to D.C.'s HIV epidemic must focus on realities of women.

Posted on by Lisa Kays

HIV has reached epidemic levels here in Washington, D.C., reports Susan Levine in today’s Washington Post.

Levine writes, "The first statistics ever amassed on HIV in the District, released today in a sweeping report, reveal "a modern epidemic" remarkable for its size, complexity and reach into all parts of the city.  The numbers most starkly illustrate HIV’s impact on the African American community. More than 80 percent of the 3,269 HIV cases identified between 2001 and 2006 were among black men, women and adolescents. Among women who tested positive, a rising percentage of local cases, nine of 10 were African American."

Combine this with what our Portrait Project found in 2003, and it’s clear that D.C.’s HIV epidemic has a lot to gain by looking specifically at strategies that impact women.  The Portrait Project found that the District of Columbia has a higher incidence (new cases) of AIDS among women than anywhere else in the country. The rate of new AIDS cases among adolescent and adult women in the District of Columbia is 10 times the national rate." 

In response to the new report, Levine reports, "The administration said it wants to use the report to begin asking and answering, "What next?" Given the scope of HIV and AIDS in the District, health leaders say they can’t focus on just one aspect of the disease or one at-risk group."

I hope that this means that they will be focusing on multiple at-risk groups, and designing targeted strategies for each–and that among the top priorities will be strategies to address the growth of the epidemic among women, and particularly African American women. 

Because, as is evident from previous work focusing on women and girls and teen pregnancy, investing in strategies that address the specific needs of women and girls works–particularly when it comes to matters of health.

According to the National Institutes of Health, HIV isn’t just a problem for women in terms of the statistics and their risk to infection.  It also poses different, and specific health threats to them once contracted.  Just some of the factors that mean that HIV impacts women differently than men in terms of exposure to the virus and health risks afterwards:

  • Women are particularly vulnerable to heterosexual transmission of HIV due to substantial mucosal exposure to seminal fluids. This biological fact amplifies the risk of HIV transmission when coupled with the high prevalence of non-consensual sex, sex without condom use, and the unknown and/or high-risk behaviors of their partners.
  • Women suffer from the same complications of AIDS that afflict men, but also suffer gender-specific manifestations of HIV disease, such as recurrent vaginal yeast infections, severe pelvic inflammatory disease (PID), and an increased risk of precancerous changes in the cervix including probable increased rates of cervical cancer. Women also exhibit different characteristics from men for many of the same complications of antiretroviral therapy, such as metabolic abnormalities.
  • Frequently, women with HIV infection have great difficulty accessing health care and carry a heavy burden of caring for children and other family members who may also be HIV-infected. They often lack social support and face other challenges that may interfere with their ability to obtain or adhere to treatment.

Further, Advocates for Youth, a D.C.-based nonprofit organization, cites specific behavioral risks to African-American women that put them at greater risk for acquiring HIV.

The additional risks and realities relevant particularly to women in curbing this epidemic are therefore biological, social and economic–and must be addressed that way. 

We have the information to do so.  Now we just need the will to dedicate the resources to using that information to develop strategies that truly address the needs and challenges facing women–and putting them at risk of contracting HIV. 

We have to see this not only as a health issue, but as a social and economic problem.  As a reflection not only of behavioral factors, but of often unseen and little understood power dynamics and pressures.   Pressures that can often only be seen through the eyes of the women facing them. 

There are a number of organizations throughout our region who are looking at HIV in this way, and addressing the specific needs of women who are at-risk of, or have been exposed to, HIV.  Organizations like the D.C. Women’s Collective (a Grantee Partner). 

We can only hope that this latest study will lead to an increased motivation on the part of our local government and other actors to do the same, and to approach the HIV epidemic in this area from a true gender lens.

This is, perhaps, the most efficient, and surest way to turn back the epidemic.  For if women are at the most risk from it, they are most likely the best people to put at the front lines in fighting it.  It’s our job to see that they’re properly armed.

Cultural relevancy half the battle in fighting teen pregnancy.

Posted on by Lisa Kays

Earlier this week, there was hopeful news about the declining national and local teen pregnancy and birth rates.

Among the areas that still merited attention and focus, however, were culturally appropriate strategies for educating young men and women about healthy reproductive health choices.

For instance, while rates are declining among many populations, including African Americans, teen pregnancy rates among Latinas continue to rise.

The reason why? 

Applying the same approaches and strategies to Latinas that are applied to black and white communities isn’t working.

Translating a message into Spanish doesn’t necessary mean that it’s going to get across if other cultural factors aren’t taken into account–a reality discussed in an article in Newsweek this week, "Learning to ‘Think Twice’: A new salvo in the fight to prevent Latino teen pregnancy."

Alvaro Simmons, COO of Washington, D.C.’s Mary’s Center for Maternal and Child Care (a Grantee Partner of The Women’s Foundation), explains in the article that Latinos who are closer to their parents tend to delay sex, and engage in safer sex practices, due to an ingrained respect for elders that is part of Hispanic culture, as an example.

"Literature shows that this concept is unique to the Latino community," Simmons says.  "It is one [teen-pregnancy] intervention that works when tested against other communities. "

The article, and the work being done by Mary’s Center and other innovative organizations that are applying a researched, gender and cultural lens to the issue of teen pregnancy, are a great reminder of the importance of investing in social change strategies that take into account realities specific to culture, gender, geography, etc. to achieve marked impact.

Otherwise, even the best-laid efforts and intentions can be lost in translation.

Drop in teen pregnancy rates shows power of investing in women and girls.

Posted on by Lisa Kays

According to today’s Washington Post, there’s good news to celebrate for our region’s women and girls–a declining teen pregnancy rate over the past decade.

In Washington, D.C., Arlington and Prince George’s County, teen pregnancy and birth rates have markedly declined–along with those around the nation–and have inspired hope that programs aimed at young people–and especially young women–are working.

A few take-aways from the article:

  • Investing in issues that impact women and girls works.  For everyone.
  • To be effective, efforts require a unified effort across communities.
  • Investing in messages and work that protects the health and well-being of women and girls does inspire marked behavior change.
  • Efforts to truly impact diverse communities, such as Latinas, where rates are, unfortunately, still rising, requires approaches that view challenges, problems and program design through a culturally appropriate lens.
  • Providing information and access to health care to young women leads to wise decision-making.

In all, a very hopeful picture about the power of investing in women and girls.

But there still remains much work to be done, particularly in our region.  In Montgomery County, teen birth rates crept up this summer.  Alexandria’s teen birthrate increased over the past decade, and experienced only a minimal decline in its teen pregnancy rate.  Rates among Latinas are rising.

Overall, however, a hopeful picture of how investing in programs, messages and people that improve the health and well-being of women and girls does lead to positive change that impacts not only those women and girls, but their families and entire community.

A great message to carry with me as I prepare for Thursday’s Leadership Awards meeting, where a group of volunteers who have been working for the past few months to evaluate and learn more about innovative, effective nonprofits that are impacting the health and safety of our region’s women and girls, will award eight of them with a Leadership Award of up to $10,000.

The news from this article is a great note on which to finish up our efforts this year–and to remember that the decisions we make about how we invest our money, and the organizations and issues that we support, do have a defining impact on the health of our community.

It’s nice to have a voice in work that’s really making a difference.

The Leadership Awards committee is just one of many ways that you can be involved in the work of changing women’s lives through The Women’s Foundation.  Learn more.

Dr. Helene Gayle: I'm thrilled to join you at the Leadership Luncheon!

Posted on by Dr. Helene Gayle

Dear Friends of Washington Area Women’s Foundation, 

Thank you for inviting me to join you as a speaker, along with Ambassador Swanee Hunt, at your upcoming Leadership Luncheon. I was honored to be asked to step in for Sheila Johnson because it is always a pleasure for me to share the company of like-minded women and men who understand the benefit and value of investing in women and girls as a means to make our communities healthier, stronger, more vibrant places to live and work.

As president and CEO of CARE, an international humanitarian organization fighting global poverty, and a public health advocate and researcher, I know firsthand that making communities healthier, wealthier and wiser begins with women. That when a woman gains power, she, her husband, her children and her extended family benefit for a lifetime. Women are one of the greatest untapped natural resource in fighting global poverty.

I am very much looking forward to joining your ongoing conversation around how investing in women and girls is an investment in better communities—and to sharing my experience in applying this approach on a global scale.

Sincerely,

Helene D. Gayle MD, MPH
President and Chief Executive Officer
CARE

Don’t miss Dr. Helene Gayle’s conversation with Ambassador Swanee Hunt on October 10, 2007.  Purchase your tickets or sponsorship today!

How paid sick days can mean safe days for women.

Posted on by Mari Villaluna

“Get out of my room!” he screamed at me.

I said nothing, except for knocking down his video tapes.  It was at this point he charged me, and knocked me to the ground.  I used my will and all my strength to fight back while trying to escape his apartment.

I finally escaped and walked down what felt like the hallway of shame. It was one of the longest walks I ever took. Once at home, I closed the dark brown wooden door behind me, and walked towards my mirror.

I stared into the mirror but a different image was looking back.  It wasn’t me. 

I saw a young woman with hair out of her head and blood and bruises on her face. When I finally realized that image was me, I started to cry.  I cried about all the pain that was inside my past, and started to connect what had just happened to me with former abuse that was in my household.

Violence occurs in cycles, especially when it comes down to domestic violence.  Domestic violence will continue until we, as a society, stop expecting that the victims should be the only people stopping this violence. 

Children and youth who grow up in households facing domestic violence are more likely to emulate this violence.

Dating violence is more prevalent in Washington, D.C. than New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and San Diego. According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, D.C. has the highest rate of teen dating violence in the country. Children who grow up in abusive households are more likely to repeat this pattern of abuse in their first dating relationships.

For me as well, the abuses in my household were interconnected to my domestic violence situation. 

I cried for what seemed like hours, maybe even days. When I finally I came to, I remembered I had a meeting for work. I was so embarrassed to call my work to tell them what had happened, and was planning on saying that I was sick. 

When I called a co-worker, an outpour of tears flooded my thoughts, and I couldn’t speak.  She listened to me, and I finally stated, “My boyfriend hit me.” The next thing I knew, she was knocking on my apartment door to make sure I was fine.

I cried with her, and told her what I could verbalize. She supported me in doing whatever I needed. In fact, she told me about one of her friends who ran a Protective Restraining Order Clinic.  She provided me resources and emotional support.  When I was asked to do a spoken word piece based on my experience with abuse and Intimate partner violence at V-day San Francisco 2002, she was there in the audience supporting me.

On that day, I learned that the V stood for Validation. That validation led me to call the cops and start filing my case. In 2006, the number of domestic-related crime calls in the United States was 29,000. In 2005, the Metropolitan Police Department received over 27,000 domestic-related crime calls – one every 19 minutes–an increase of 22 percent over the past three years.

Validation is very important to all domestic violence survivors and their experiences. Many times we are told by our police, workplaces, and families that our matters are ‘lovers quarrels’, and ‘that it’s our fault’.

When we choose to speak out and decide to escape our situations, the most important thing is to be validated by the people and institutions we tell our stories to. That validation is strong enough to lead to an abuse-free world.

Validation first starts with supporting our survivors’ ability to take paid time off from work to take care of their security. Often, survivors need to take time off to get a restraining order, go to court, attend counseling, and for their very safety.

Many survivors, frequently women, are not validated by their workplaces and have been fired by their jobs. In fact, 98 percent of employed victims of domestic violence encounter problems at work (including losing their jobs) as a result of the violence.  Most companies have no idea how to validate domestic violence survivors through their human resource polices. Less than 30 percent of businesses in the United States have a formal program or policy that addresses workplace violence, even though seventy-eight percent of human resource directors identified domestic violence as a substantial employee problem.

It is ironic that as a society we tell our survivors to leave their situations, but we don’t provide them with the tools in which to do so, and we condemn them as they take leave to care for their safety.

After experiencing domestic violence, I would have flashbacks of the violence, and would many times be scared to leave my apartment. I was not alone.  Thirty-one to 84 percent of domestic violence victims exhibit Post Traumatic Stress Disorder symptoms across varied samples of clinical studies, shelter, hospitals, and community agencies. It was important for me to take the time off to mentally and physically recover as well as to look for a therapist.

In current proposed legislation, the Paid Sick and Safe Days Act of 2007, any employee in the District of Columbia would be able to take a paid sick and safe day.  A ‘safe’ day would apply to a victim that has experienced stalking, sexual assault, or intimate partner violence. A victim of domestic violence would be able to seek out shelter, file a restraining order, or receive counseling without losing employment.

The U.S. General Accounting Office found that 24 to 53 percent of domestic violence victims lose their jobs due to domestic violence. This bill would enable all survivors to seek services and resources to keep them safe while sustaining their employment. Maintaining steady employment for many survivors is what prevents many from going back to their abusers.

If it was not for the understanding of my two part-time jobs of allowing me to take time off when needed, I might have gone back to my abuser. I might have never fought for my domestic violence case to get picked up by the District Attorney. I might have struggled to find food to eat.

Paid sick and safe days are crucial to not only a victim’s health and our children’s health, but to our society’s health.

Mari Villaluna is the legal and policy associate for D.C. Employment Justice Center, a Grantee Partner of The Women’s Foundation

Friends of Guest House: Writing a second chance into women's lives.

Posted on by Lisa Kays

Sometimes a handshake is returned with a hug. Not always, but sometimes.

This was my experience walking into Friends of Guest House–one of our Grantee Partners–for the first time this past weekend. When the director introduced me to a young woman–a fifth grader who was there visiting her mom–my outstretched hand was summarily discarded in favor of a hug.

This greeting of unconditional acceptance was symbolic of the work of Friends of Guest House, a transitional house that empowers former female prisoners in Alexandria and Arlington to kick addictions and secure employment.

Women apply to the program from prison, where they write an autobiography about themselves and request admittance into the program upon their release. In some cases, women are admitted to the guest house in lieu of jail time.

The first phase of the program is a stay at the house to help the women get on their feet–to get the counseling they need to avoid returning to previous behaviors, secure jobs and save the money necessary to start a new life. The women then leave the house and move into the after-care program, where they remain under the care of the guest house, receiving follow-up visits, group counseling sessions and other supports to ensure that they stay on the pathway to achieving their goals and ambitions.

This weekend, regardless of where they were on this pathway, it was clear that the 11 graduates of the after-care program were leaving completely transformed.

“The women look totally different. I didn’t recognize them. Look at you, after the work is done. All those smiles. Look at you,” said one of their counselors who had known them as prisoners, and then as women doing the hard work of recovery and rebuilding.

Every speaker echoes this sentiment. No one seems to be able to believe their eyes. Are these the same women they had known before?

But the transformation isn’t only in their faces.

As an alumni of the program explained, Friends of Guest House provided a turning point in her life. “It’s an honor to be invited here today,” she said, “because before the only message I received was ‘get out, stay out.”

This was at the height of her addiction to cocaine, when she was homeless and hopeless, and had had her children taken from her.

Until she wrote a 20 page autobiography and was accepted by Friends of Guest House, she says.

Today, she has her children back, has had a job for three years, is in school studying to be a dental assistant and, in October, she and her children will be moving into their own place.

“My name will be on something else other than a warrant!” she said proudly.

A board member explained that she hears the transformation in the women through their speech. First, no one talks, she said, while they’re getting the lay of the land. Then, she hears a lot of “I” statements. Then “we” statements. Then it’s, “I’m gonna try, I’m going to do…”

This, she says, is when she knows the transformation is complete, and it’s a process she believes in. She serves on the board even though she lives in Maryland. “I come across the Wilson Bridge to help at Friends of Guest House,” she said, “because I believe in the power of women. I believe in the spirit of women.”

Involvement like hers is crucial, explains Friends of Guest House’s director, Kari Galloway. “It truly takes a whole community to do this work,” she said, and it is done with the collective hope that the women would continue to fulfill their goals, by moving from renters to homeowners, going from employees to employers (one graduate already has!) and giving to others.

This seems to be the final stage of transformation expected, of going from receiver to giver. From their counselor came the words, “What was freely given to you—give back. Help those behind you. We need your help. Some people come in and don’t believe us. We need them to see you. We need you to talk to them. We need them to see your experience, strength and hope.”

The graduates were rich with all three.

As they shared pieces of their stories–including months of hard-won sobriety, the establishment of a successful family business and even the relocation of the graduation ceremony to city hall–it was clear that their lives had been transformed through the second chance they received at Friends of Guest House.

And that by writing down their stories to ask for a new beginning in their lives, they wrote their ways to an exciting, hopeful new ending as well.

It does take a community to do this work, which is why The Women’s Foundation supports Friends of Guest House and other nonprofits throughout the Washington metropolitan region investing in women and girls. Join us in supporting work that transforms women’s lives. Get connected at our 2007 Leadership Luncheon. We’d love to see you there.

Walking the city in women’s shoes.

Posted on by Lisa Kays

Wanna lose weight or get healthy in the cheapest, most easily accessible way possible?

Many sources will tell you to walk.  Roads are free, after all.  (Minus a small taxpayer contribution.)

But what if can’t walk in your neighborhood because the streets aren’t safe from harassment, or worse forms of violence?  What if they’re deteriorated or don’t have maintained sidewalks?

Then your best, low-cost avenue to a more active lifestyle just disappeared faster than you can say “speedwalk.”

I hadn’t thought much about this concrete correlation between neighborhood safety and women’s (or indeed, anyone’s) health until a recent conference call for Leadership Awards volunteers on women’s health in our region, where the speakers explained that a woman’s health (her ability to keep in shape and her weight down) can be greatly impacted by the safety of her streets.

The good news is that some of the greatest health risks for women in our area–diabetes, obesity and heart disease–are all diminished by a more active lifestyle.

The bad news?  That many of the women most at risk for these conditions are low-income women without access to safe streets on which to walk–the most economical form of exercise out there.  They’re also the least likely to be able to afford access to gyms or other types of sports or exercise that will enable them to maintain healthy hearts, weight and other benefits of being active.

This is what came to mind when I read an interesting post on Half Changed World, on Google’s latest attempt to tell us about our lives by measuring how walkable a neighborhood is.

According to WalkScore, the site “shows you a map of what’s nearby and calculates a Walk Score for any property. Buying a house in a walkable neighborhood is good for your health and good for the environment.”

This all seems to be measured by how close your home is to grocery stores, shopping, parks, etc.

I can’t help but do a little experiment.

I calculate the WalkScore for the office of The Women’s Foundation, downtown in northwest D.C.  We get a 98 out of 100.

This is good news, since I walk to work everyday.  Except today, when it’s a million degrees outside, but that’s besides the point.  I don’t think Google accounts for weather.  (Yet.)

Next, I try an address of one of our Grantee Partners, Ascensions, serving families southeast Washington, D.C., in Ward 7 and 8, a target area for Stepping Stones.

Their walk score?  46.  A pretty vast difference, even when you consider that Google isn’t measuring for safe streets, the condition of sidewalks or traffic flow, and that they’re just considering access to stuff.

I consider that not only are families in this area most likely not able to incorporate walking into their daily errands and lifestyle (the easiest way), but also how much harder it could be to access the services provided by Ascensions than it would be for me to find a similar service for myself in my neighborhood in northwest D.C.

Meaning that walkability could be impacting not only physical health, but mental health as well.  Or financial health.  Or any number of other aspects of one’s life that are improved through the involvement of practitioners and specialists to advise, examine and assist.

I can’t help but think that this situation would probably be repeated over and over if I tried WalkScores on our various Grantee Partners serving low-income areas, women and their families.

And how much lower they would be if Google incorporated factors like safety and sidewalks into their calculations.  (Well, it wouldn’t be the first time I was disappointed by Google Map’s accounting for economics.)

It definitely gives me perspective about my daily walks to work in the morning–which I will now stop taking for granted, even when crazy D.C. drivers almost kill me–and a new way of viewing our region and its development in terms of the perspective of the women who are–or aren’t–able to safely take a stroll on its streets.

And the potential for changes made in an effort to improve the walkability and safety of our region and its streets–in all neighborhoods–to improve the lives and health, not only of women and their children, but all of us.

After all, we should all be able to take Bono’s advice and, “Walk on.”

Ascensions: Talking families towards hope.

Posted on by Lisa Kays

Imagine that you are are a single mother raising a little girl. Joy is what everyone wantshands you to feel, but you are depressed at best, angry most of the time. You know this situation has grown beyond your control and that you have to do something, but even if you had insurance for a doctor, everyone around you would call you weak or even crazy if you admitted to what you were feeling and fearing.

So you spin into increasing despair and hopelessness, until you learn of a parenting class that just might be of help.

In that parenting class you meet a psychologist who encourages you, and other women like you, to share your mutual experiences. With them, you find common ground and the strength to explore your own situation and how the adversity in your life—childhood sexual abuse, rape, teenage pregnancy or emotional abuse—can be used as the very turning point towards growth, rather than as a dead end.

Continuing in these sessions, and working individually with a therapist, you start to feel less depressed, gain control over your emotions and outlook and develop the motivation and resources to plan for—and eventually attain—higher paying, steady employment that enables you to care for your child in a more stable manner.

Your life no longer feels like a dead end. It feels like a beginning.

This is the work of Ascensions Community Services, Inc. in Washington, D.C.—a new Grantee Partner of The Women’s Foundation receiving the largest grant—$50,000—in the history of the African American Women’s Giving Circle.

Sandra Jibrell, a member of The Women’s Foundation’s board of directors and the African American Women’s Giving Circle, explains why the circle chose to invest so much in Ascensions. “It was the opportunity to make a grant that would really make a difference. Ascensions was started and run by a young African American woman with a deep commitment to delivering mental health services east of the Anacostia River, to women whose emotional and mental health needs have been overlooked as they struggle to keep their families safe and financially stable.”

Dr. Satira S. Streeter, licensed clinical psychologist and founder and Executive/Clinical Director of Ascensions, explains, “We’re dealing with families in Ward 7 and 8, and family is typically comprised of a mother and her children. About 85 percent of those we serve are women.”

The need for such services is well documented—particularly for women—who tend to experience mental health challenges such as depression and anxiety with far greater frequency than men, according to The Women’s Foundation’s Portrait Project. The report found that in Washington, D.C., 43 percent of women reported poor mental health days. Nationally, one-third of young women report feeling sad or hopeless. Further, depression tends to impact African American women at a rate almost 50 percent higher than it impacts white women.

Ascensions meets these needs by providing psychological and community interventions that assist clients to improve their self-concept, interpersonal relationships and make positive contributions to their communities. Services infuse psychological theories and research with culture, history, and spirituality to offer each client an individualized plan for growth.

Ascensions emerged from Streeter’s work in a school providing psychological services to students. “We would scratch our heads as to why the kids weren’t getting better,” she says. “It was because we were sending them back into a dysfunctional household that unraveled our work. The kids would come to Virginia from Southeast and Northeast D.C., and I wanted to do this in a way that would include the whole family and do so in the community.”

Ascensions’ clients—which number approximately 75 families—come for services voluntarily through walk-ins, referrals from community schools and outreach efforts such as parenting classes and groups for young women.

Streeter currently counsels eight families per day during the week, and 10 more on weekends, a full-time job that she has been doing without a salary for three years to get Ascensions off the ground.

The grant from The Women’s Foundation’s African American Women’s Giving Circle will play a significant role in that journey. The grant will enable Ascensions to increase the number of clients they serve by paying for greater staffing. Ascensions will expand their three part-time therapists’ hours so they can do more counseling, enabling Streeter to focus on group work and outreach. She also hopes to offer more training for her clinicians and for other budding clinicians to build the base of African American psychologists in Washington, D.C.

“It’s one thing to have the heart to do this work,” Streeter says. “But it’s another to be able to develop the fiscal systems, the program evaluations and the development work that will allow us to continue to work with these women and families on a daily basis.”

This is precisely what the members of the African American Women’s Giving Circle had in mind when they elected to support Ascensions. “It is our hope that our support and interactions with Ascensions will enable its young director to build and sustain the service organization that she envisions—addressing the unmet needs for therapeutic mental health services for the women, strengthening collective self help and support group activities and increasing their organizational capacity and partnerships,” Jibrell says.

The community outreach Streeter will focus on is crucial to Ascensions’ ability to provide services. It provides an entryway into psychological services that may not otherwise be available due to the stigma that often surrounds it. People are far more likely to attend a parenting class, Streeter says, than to make an appointment for counseling.

family

Her approach is working. As the community begins to understand the value of the services Ascensions offers, the related stigma is decreasing and people feel more comfortable seeking the help they need.

Streeter says clients are less guarded when they come in and that she frequently hears things like, “A couple of years ago, I would never have come to see a psychologist, but now that I know what you do, and I know that it’s not that I’m crazy…”

Just as so much of Ascensions’ work depends on strong community ties and outreach, so too does the African American Women’s Giving Circle define its success by the connections it makes to the organizations—and communities—it supports.

“This Grantee Partner provided the opportunity for the giving circle sisters to realize critical goals of their grant making,” Jibrell says, including, “helping stabilize a very promising, but under-resourced African American woman-led organization through significant grantmaking, but also through its connections to the resources, talents and networks of the giving circle members.”

Streeter is emboldened and optimistic about the power of this new partnership. “We haven’t had the challenge of getting people in and wanting services,” Streeter says. “It’s really been a challenge of getting the staff to support the need. You don’t know how huge this is, and how it takes Ascensions to a whole different level of what we’re trying to do. So many good things are going to come because of this.”

Ready to make more good things come as a result of working, together, to making our community stronger by investing in women and girls?  Get involved in the power of giving together.  Join us for our annual Leadership Luncheon on October 10!

Stepping Stones Research Update: August 2007

Posted on by Lisa Kays

As part of our ongoing commitment–in partnership with The Urban Institute–to providing information and resources related to the goals of Stepping Stones, please find below summary of recent research on issues of economic security and financial independence for women and their families.

This research is summarized and compiled for The Women’s Foundation by Kerstin Gentsch of The Urban Institute, NeighborhoodInfo DC.

Financial Education and Wealth Creation News

District of Columbia Housing Monitor: Spring 2007
By Peter A. Tatian
Urban Institute
June 28, 2007

Looks at the Washington, D.C., housing market, tracking home prices, real estate listings, new construction, and affordable housing; examines mortgage lending trends through 2005; and highlights the declining share of low income home buyers in neighborhoods throughout the city.

Key findings:

  • Housing demand continues to slow; median third quarter sales prices for single-family homes and condominiums are down from one year earlier.
  • Real estate listings of single-family homes and condominiums decreased between the third and fourth quarters of 2006, but the time houses spend on the market continued to increase.
  • Prices show definite signs of declining or flattening in all wards except Wards 7 and 8.
  • Home building slowed in the fourth quarter of 2006, and housing permits for the entire year were down for the first time since 2003.
  • Denial rates for home purchase loan applications rose again in 2005; almost one quarter of all loan applications in Wards 7 and 8 were denied.
  • Home buyers in Wards 5, 7, and 8 were more than 12 times more likely to take out a high interest rate loan than were buyers in Ward 3.
  • The share of home purchase loans for second home and investment properties continues to increase.
  • As housing prices have increased, the share of home purchasers who are very low income has dropped dramatically.

Abstract, introduction and key findings. 
Full issue.
 
How Have Asset Policies for Cash Welfare and Food Stamps Changed since the 1990s?
By Signe-Mary McKernan and William Margrabe
Urban Institute
July 2007

Examines allowance changes for restricted and unrestricted accounts at the federal and state level and tracks the different allowances for IDAs, food stamps, and welfare programs from 1992 to 2003.

Cash welfare and food stamps are means tested: assets and income must fall below set limits for families to qualify. While this ensures that benefits go to the neediest families, asset limits may also discourage asset building. States can exempt all assets (unrestricted assets), or they can exempt assets held for a specific purpose, such as education, a home, or a business (restricted assets); a car; or an individual development account (IDA).

Since 1992, states have increasingly supported IDAs and have allowed specific classes of assets. States allowing IDAs went from none in 1992 to 26 in 2003. Similarly, states exempting restricted assets in their welfare programs went from none in 1992 to 30 in 2003.

Prior to 2002, the Food Stamp Program provided no exemptions for restricted accounts. But the 2002 Farm Bill provides states the option of exempting restricted assets, if doing so aligns their food stamp policy with their welfare or Medicaid policies.

In 1992, federal policy for cash welfare allowed families to exempt $1,500 in vehicle value from the asset limit. By 2003, 29 states allowed exemption for at least one vehicle. Only 3 states exempted the entire value of a vehicle from Food Stamp eligibility during the late 1990s, but by 2003, 34 did.

The growth in allowances for restricted assets contrasts with the erosion in limits on assets not set aside for a particular purpose. Average TANF unrestricted asset limits rose in real terms from $1,138 in 1993 to $2,779 in 1998 but have since been eroded by inflation, falling to $2,592 in 2003. The Food Stamp asset limit has eroded in real terms from $2,398 in 1991 to $1,895 in 2003.

It remains unclear how much disregarding certain assets from eligibility determinations will affect decisions to save.

Text-only version.
Full paper.

Jobs and Business Ownership News

Economic Mobility: Is the American Dream Alive and Well?
By John Morton and Isabel Sawhill
The Brookings Institution
May 2007

Intends to provoke rigorous discussion about the role and strength of economic mobility in American society.

For more than two centuries, economic opportunity and the prospect of upward mobility have formed the bedrock upon which the American story has been anchored — inspiring people in distant lands to seek our shores and sustaining the unwavering optimism of Americans at home. From the hopes of the earliest settlers to the aspirations of today’s diverse population, the American Dream unites us in a common quest for individual and national success. But new data suggest that this once solid ground may well be shifting. This raises provocative questions about the continuing ability of all Americans to move up the economic ladder and calls into question whether the American economic meritocracy is still alive and well.

Summary.
Full report. 

Child Care and Early Education News

Early Care and Education for Children in Low-Income Families: Patterns of Use, Quality, and Potential Policy Implications
By Gina Adams, Kathryn Tout, and Martha Zaslow
Urban Institute
May 2007

Assesses the patterns of early care and education (ECE) utilization by low-income families, the implications for children’s development of the extent and quality of ECE participation, the evidence on the quality of ECE that low-income children receive, and the policy context that shapes ECE.

Key findings include:

  • Patterns of early care and education differ for families with higher and lower incomes. Participation in early care and education settings is common for children from low income families.
  • The use of particular early care and education arrangements reflects access to different arrangements as well as family preferences and constraints. 
  • There is consistent evidence of a link between the quality of early care and education and children’s development. Recent studies find that the type of care and extent of care also are important for children’s development even after controlling for quality. 
  • While we lack nationally representative data on child care quality, large-scale studies in differing geographical regions suggest that overall (setting aside the issue of family income), much of the care in the United States falls below a rating of “good” on widely used observational measures.
  • We also lack a national picture of the quality of the market-based child care that children from low-income families receive.
  • Studies indicate that the quality of program-based early care and education settings such as Head Start and state pre kindergarten differs by program type.
  • Children from low-income families may be more likely to experience changes in early care and education arrangements.
  • Public policies that affect the quality of early care and education tend to focus primarily on one of three goals—supporting parental work, supporting children’s development through access to early care and education programs with specific quality standards, or supporting the quality or supply of market-based settings.

Abstract, summary, and key findings.
For full report. 

Health and Safety News

Food Insecurity and Overweight among Infants and Toddlers: New Insights into a Troubling Linkage
By Jacinta Bronte-Tinkew, Martha Zaslow, Randolph Capps, and Allison Horowitz
Child Trends
July 2007

Examines data on food insecurity, defined as limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods, and links food insecurity with maternal depression, poor parenting, and—paradoxically—overweight toddlers.

  • One in eight U.S. households with infants (12.5 percent) reports being “food insecure”.
  • Among households with low-birthweight infants—infants born weighing less than 5.5 pounds—about one in seven (14.4 percent) is food insecure.
  • Among poor households with infants, nearly three in 10 (28.9 percent) report food insecurity.
  • Young children living in households with very low food security are 61 percent more likely to be overweight than are young children living in food-secure households.
  • Mothers living in food-insecure households are significantly more likely to report symptoms of depression than are mothers living in food-secure households.
  • Parents in food-insecure households have less positive interactions with their infant children, such as less responsiveness to infant distress and less behavior directed at fostering their babies’ social and emotional growth.

Press release.
Full brief. 

Survey Spotlight on Uninsured Parents: How a Lack of Coverage Affects Parents and Their Families
By Karyn Schwartz
Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation
June 2007

Spotlights how being uninsured affects not just a parent’s health, but also the well-being of the entire family.

Health insurance for low-income parents influences both their own health and access to care, as well as the well-being of their families. Without health insurance for parents, families are more likely to incur debt and cut back on other basic needs to pay for care. Uninsured parents face real health consequences when they delay care, and the entire family is affected when those delays cause a parent to remain ill or be unable to participate in daily activities.

Medicaid coverage for parents is limited, and many low-income parents are not eligible. Uninsured low-income parents who are working have very limited access to employer coverage, with about half working for firms with less than 25 employees and over 40% working in industries with the lowest rates of employer coverage. About 60% of uninsured low-income parents say that they are very concerned that they do not have enough savings to cover financial obligations. Without savings, they are unlikely to be able to pay for medical treatments out-of-pocket.

As documented earlier, when parents have insurance, children are more likely to be covered and have access to health care. Some states have taken steps to improve access to public coverage for parents recognizing the importance of making coverage available for the whole family.11 Children in homes where everyone has coverage also gain financial stability and other positive benefits when their parents are able to access care. As policy makers look to decrease the number of uninsured children, children’s health coverage may be more broadly and effectively addressed if their parents’ access to coverage and care is also improved.

Full brief.  

Other News and Research

Nonprofit Governance in the United States: Findings on Performance and Accountability from the First National Representative Study
By Francie Ostrower
June 25, 2007
Urban Institute

Presents survey findings from the first ever national representative survey of nonprofit governance.

  • Discusses relationships between public policy and governance, factors that promote or impede boards’ performance of basic stewardship responsibilities, board composition and factors associated with board diversity, and recruitment processes, including the difficulty experienced by many nonprofits in finding members.
  • Includes some data on the representation of women on nonprofit boards.
  • Our representative sample of organizations results in a radically different picture of representation by women.
  • Almost all nonprofit boards include women (94 percent) and as a whole they are almost equally balanced with respect to gender. On average, boards are composed of 46 percent women (the median is a close 44 percent).
  • The percentage of women on boards, however, is inversely related to organizational size. The average percentage of women is 50 percent among nonprofits with expenses under $100,000, but drops to a low of 29 percent among the largest nonprofits (over $40 million in expenses).
  • Conclusions about gender composition based on larger nonprofits will be quite different than those that include smaller ones. These findings are consistent with the contention that women are less likely to serve on boards of large and prestigious nonprofits.

Abstract and introduction. 
Full paper. 

DCWA: An ounce of prevention…worth a lot for women.

Posted on by Jessica Goshow

The following is the sixth post in a series covering aspects and angles on the DC Women’s Agenda’s recent white paper, Voices and Choices for D.C. Women and Girls: Recommendations for City Leaders 2007. The DC Women’s Agenda promotes the advancement, equality and well-being of women in D.C. This series of blogs is an extension of a very important proposal of recommendations to city leaders to truly make tangible changes in the Washington metropolitan area.

It is outrageous that the top killer of women in Washington, D.C.–heart disease–can be prevented, in many cases, by simple education about healthy eating habits and lifestyle choices. 

And yet, preventative education is often overlooked as a core strategy in improving our nation’s health care system.  Even Michael Moore’s recent documentary, Sicko, which documents how our nation’s broken health care system is failing its citizens, doesn’t address the importance of preventative education. 

The film addresses the need for insurance companies to cover more preventative care, but neglects to take into account that through preventative education, the likelihood that there will even be the need for care at all–and the costs associated with it–are lessened.

Which is why the D.C. Women’s Agenda’s recent white paper strongly advocates preventative education as a key strategy for improving the health and well-being of our community–with the potential for great impact particularly among our city’s women and girls.

The top health risks of women in our city, as documented in The Portrait Project, are HIV/AIDS, heart disease, teen pregnancy, obesity and diabetes.

All of which are by and large behavior influenced, and in some cases, completely preventable through behavior change.

Yet, according to the 2006 D.C. Mayor’s Health Care Task Force Report, even though 40 percent of all health outcomes are directly related to behavior, only 2 to 3 percent of our resources are spent influencing behavior through prevention programs.

One case in point is diet.  Many children are not being taught proper eating habits. I commonly see kids walking to school eating a bag of chips at 8:30 in the morning.  As we documented in our white paper, only 42.7 percent of schools require a health education course as part of general curriculum. More alarming still, only 16 percent of D.C. schools offer fresh fruits and/or vegetables for purchase in the school store.

To address this, the D.C. Women’s Agenda has recommended, among other things, to be sure that our city’s girls are educated about how to take care of their bodies. Children need to be taught how to eat right so that they do not have to deal with obesity, diabetes or heart disease later on.

Enabling girls to have education about health will ensure that there are fewer deaths related to avoidable causes, and consequentially, less time and money spent on emergency health care.

Providing girls–and all children–with adequate nutritional information and education will enable them to make good choices about nutrition.  It would mean that many of them will be able to grow up to be healthy adults not worrying about diabetes or heart disease, and able to focus on other things rather than health problems that could have been prevented if they had been taught a little about nutrition at an earlier age.

And healthier children and adults mean a healthier community–as funding, resources and efforts once spent battling preventable illness and disease can be directed to other community needs. 

For previous posts on the white paper, please visit:
DCWA: Calling all city leaders! (Intro post)
DCWA: Economic security is key to the city’s health.
DCWA: Safety for women anything but small talk.
DCWA:  White picket fence eludes many, especially women.
DCWA: Achieving balance difficult if you can’t weigh your options.

Jessica Goshow is DC Employment Justice Center’s (DCEJC) legal and policy associate.  Being that EJC and Wider Opportunities for Women are the co-chairs of the DCWA, she was involved in the coordination, writing, and reviewing of the white paper.

The DC Women’s Agenda, DC Employment Justice Center and Wider Opportunities for Women are all Grantee Partners of The Women’s Foundation.