MSW 513 POWERPOINT module 7
phaynes
MSW513Module7SAMPLEPOWERPOINT.pptxDiaper Need in America
MSW 513-Integrating knowledge of Social policies
Chamberlain university
Dr. Battle
Diaper Need-Evidence, Facts and Statistics
The social issue of diaper need occurs when low-income families cannot afford to buy diapers for their infant children.
1 in 3 families nation-wide suffer from the social issue of diaper need (NDBN, 2021).
The vulnerable target population that suffers the most are low-income families.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, for instance, a family of three making only $20, 578 annually, would be categorized as a family of poverty. Their resources are further depleted when they have to spend approx. $80/month for diapers .
Diaper Need-Evidence, Facts and Statistics
Low-income families are further disadvantaged when considering that most daycare centers will not accept children who cannot provide their own diapers on a daily basis (NDBN, 2021). As a result, parents who may desire to work full-time to better their financial predicament are now hindered by the little access they have for their child to be taken care of during the workday.
With diaper-related medical issues accounting for the almost one million pediatric visits per year, the 5.7 million children living in poverty under three-years-old are affected (Porter and Steefel, 2015).
These medical issues are further exasperated when children don’t have access to diapers and are forced to stay in saturated diapers for extensive periods of time, or parents use alternative resources such as plastic bags to substitute for diapers, causing diaper rash and urinary tract infections.
Policy Overview-The Background, Relevance, and shortcomings of TANF
Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) was first created through the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) of 1996.
The purpose of PRWORA of 1996 was to help these families to have their children be cared for in their own homes or the homes of other family members, discontinue government dependence, prevent out-of-wedlock pregnancies, and keep nuclear families together (Policy Basics: Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, 2020)
TANF allocates $16.5 billion to states, most of which is allocated to the categories of general assistance and child care for families in need (Policy Basics: Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, 2020)
Policy Overview-The Background, Relevance, and shortcomings of TANF
The stakeholders of TANF include the low-income families who are recipients of the monthly funding and legislators in Congress who have the ability to change how the funds are spent. Other stakeholders include the Office of Family Assistance (OFA) who administer the TANF (About TANF, 2019).
The drawbacks of TANF include how states allocate funds in ways that are not always effective for the target population, as well as how the issue of diaper need is not addressed through TANF, making the need for this policy to be amended more relevant.
Policy Overview-The Background, Relevance, and shortcomings of WIC
The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) became finalized through the Healthy Meals for Healthy Americans Act of 1994 (About WIC, 2013).
The purpose of WIC is to help children in poverty to have improved nutrition, health, and health care (Carlson and Neuberger, 2021).
The U.S. Department of Agriculture, through the Food and Nutrition Service, administer WIC federally (About WIC, 2013).
Through federal grants, WIC helps states receive funding to allow low-income women and their children to receive food, health care services, and education about nutrition.
Policy Overview-The Background, Relevance, and shortcomings of WIC
The stakeholders for this policy are members of Congress, women and children who are beneficiaries of WIC, and members of the health care system.
The drawbacks of WIC include its complete exclusion of men in this program, the main resources provided being limited to food and nutrition, and more preventative resources for health care not being taken into consideration.
Policy Analysis-TANF
Benefits
Consistency of monthly cash payments to impoverished families allow each family to do what is necessary for their family and their personal budgeting purposes.
Giving cash directly to families in need demonstrates governmental faith and respect for a family’s dignity, as well as support for their autonomy to use the monetary assistance as they need.
Limitations
TANF includes a time limit that restricts recipients of TANF to reap the benefits for only 60 months (Policy Basics: Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, 2020).
Immigrants are not permitted to benefit from TANF until they spend at least 5 years in the country (Policy Basics: Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, 2020).
Statistics prove TANF to be highly susceptible to racial discrimination
Black children have less of a chance to benefit from TANF than white children as “41% of Black children live in states with a TPR [TANF-to-poverty ratio] of 10 or less, compared to 30 percent of white children” (Policy Basics: Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, 2020).
Policy Analysis-Continued deficiencies of TANF
The limitations of TANF highlight the fact that its benefits are not widely accessible to citizens in need, regardless of where they are located.
The program’s potential is also stifled when considering that not as many people are reaping the benefits of the policy currently as they did in the past.
In 1995, when the program Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) preceded TANF, 3 million children were able to escape deep poverty with the program’s assistance, opposed to the 287, 000 children who escaped deep poverty through TANF in 2016 (Policy Basics: Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, 2020).
Policy Analysis-WIC
Benefits
Women who are enrolled through WIC give birth to children who are in a healthier condition and the families are typically more nutritious overall (Carlsen and Neuberger, 2021).
Low-income children who benefit from WIC become recipients of immunizations they would not typically have access to and have proven better mental health development scores by the age of 2 years than children whose mothers do not access WIC (Carlsen and Neuberger, 2021)
There is increased access to fruits and vegetables in low-income neighborhoods or poverty areas (Carlsen and Neuberger, 2021).
Limitations
Lawmakers have too much power to impose their beliefs on the benefits and constraints of WIC.
Take breastfeeding, for instance. In order to encourage mothers who are enrolled in WIC to breastfeed, formula is no longer provided during the first month of the child’s birth (Carlsen and Neuberger, 2021)
Another limitation to WIC is its tunnel-vision focus on nutrition and health care referral, specifically.
Lawmakers should pay attention not only to the nutrition of a child, but the situations that most often lead children to need medical attention or pose the greatest threat to their health
When applying the CDC evaluation framework to TANF and WIC, the ultimate goal is to determine whether the policies mentioned are accomplishing their intended purpose for the target population. The CDC’s evaluation framework can be utilized to conclude which policy would be ideal in finding and implementing a solution to diaper need for families experiencing poverty in America.
TANF
TANF covers multiple categories spanning from child welfare, day care, and Pre-K to work activities; however, it does not cover the cost of diapers for families experiencing poverty (Policy Basics: Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, 2020).
For a policy that has the intention of helping families to care for their children in their own homes, promote participation in the workforce, and keep both parents actively engaged in the home, not addressing diaper need through TANF provides a barrier in achieving these goals.
WIC
While access to resources such as nutritious food, health care, and education on nutrition are provided by WIC, the program fails to cover the issue of diaper need. With a program that aims to improve the health of children in poverty, it makes logical sense to also include access to diapers as well.
With approximately 6 million people using the services of WIC, this program proves to be relevant and applicable to many women, infants, and children (Carlson and Neuberger, 2021).
Policy Evaluation
CDC Policy Analysis Table
Below is the CDC Policy Analysis Table that illustrates how TANF through PRWORA of 1996 and WIC of the Healthy Meals for Healthy Americans Act of 1994 would compare and contrast if the social issue of diaper need were included in either policy.
Policy Evaluation-Best Legislative Solution
The best legislative solution would be to increase the amount in cash allowances that is dispersed to each family through TANF. This would allow for low-income families to have the money to buy the exact size of diaper their child needs, as well as help to eliminate the stress that comes with not being able to provide for a child.
When it comes to feasibility, TANF has more of a chance of addressing diaper need because cash allowances can be increased for families with small children that would cover the expense of diapers on a monthly basis.
Implementing this solution would allow for each family to use the money as they see fit to accommodate their child’s specific diapering needs to include buying brands that will cater to their child’s size, sensitivity, and allergenic needs, as well as promotes a sense of dignity.
Policy Evaluation-Worst Legislative Solution
Utilizing WIC, although it proves to be an effective program in the realm of food and nutrition, would not be advantageous to the majority of those experiencing diaper need.
Some of the limitations that would occur if WIC were the program used to solve diaper need include the fact that single fathers may have a more difficult time accessing this benefit as it is traditionally a program for women and their children.
Some low-income families who reside in severe poverty areas may not be able to access stores where WIC vouchers are accepted.
This is already a pre-existing issue for families of poverty who are not located near large, mainstream grocery stores and are forced to buy diapers at exponentially higher prices at markets closer to them because they are accessible (NDBN, 2021).
New Policy Proposal-TANF
While both TANF and WIC have purposes of helping low-income families access resources they would not typically have, neither address the social issue of diaper need.
TANF would be the most feasible option to correct this problem by increasing the amount in cash allotments to low-income families with infants so that they can cover the cost of diapers for their children.
The applicability of increasing the amount of money given to each family is considerably simple when keeping in mind that there is a greater source of funding for this program as $16.5 billion is allocated for TANF.
In order to make sure the integrity of this policy proposal remains intact, the Office of Family Assistance (OFA) should be tasked to make sure no families are barred from accessing this benefit, especially as it pertains to racial discrimination that has been a problem with TANF in the past.
New Policy Proposal-TANF
Benefits
Low-income families would be able to afford and choose the specific diapers their child would need.
Having diapers would allow families to utilize child care when they could not before if they did not have the ability to supply their child with diapers throughout the day.
Increased funding for diapers will decrease the number of child hospitalizations due to diaper rash and urinary tract infections.
Limitations
Increasing the amount of money that goes to individual families will require states to re-prioritize the funding they receive for TANF to make sure low-income families with infants get the help they need.
Gaps/Deficiencies
In order for the federal government to be able to hold states accountable in assuring the appropriate families receive this additional financial assistance, the new policy proposal must come with qualifiers that make it transparent to states that if they do not allocate TANF funds correctly to include addressing diaper need, they will be exempt from receiving additional funding through TANF.
New Policy Proposal-The Counterargument
Opposers of this new policy proposal could argue that too much funding/government support would go to low-income families if additional diaper funding was given to those in need.
However, this argument would not hold up considering that this policy proposal would not pull money from other unrelated state programs, but simply require states to be more intentional of how they allocate the $16.5 billion already assigned to TANF to ensure families with infants get extra funding to address diaper need.
Furthermore, in the more recent years, TANF has been seen as less effective as the program, AFDC, that preceded it. AFDC pulled 3 million children out of deep poverty in 1995, which is a great deal more than the 287,000 children liberated from deep poverty in 2016 by TANF (Policy Basics: Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, 2020). Re-allocating funds to address diaper need for low-income families will specifically target the 5.7 million children under 3-years-old living in poverty (Porter and Steefel, 2015), making TANF a more effective program.
Social Media
Existing Social Media Campaigns
The National Diaper Bank Network (NDBN) currently hosts the “#NationalDiaperAwarenessWeek” campaign at the end of September each year.
Diaper Banks nationwide use this campaign to spread facts and statistics relating to diaper need for low-income families.
The campaign also encourages community members to host diaper drives that will allow for diapers to be dispersed to families in need.
Improved Social Media Plan Going Forward
Where the existing social media campaign falls short is getting the word out to low-income families of how they can access the diapers they need and discussing the lack of social policies to address the issue of diaper need.
Going forward, social media could be leveraged by having the National Diaper Bank Network partner with social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Tik Tok, and Instagram to spread factual information about diaper need, where diaper banks can be found, as well as how people can help this cause.
Social media can also be helpful in encouraging the public to write their legislators about diaper need and the urgency of implementing a policy that solves it.
Conclusion
Diaper need is a social issue that has persisted for years for low-income families who cannot afford diapers for their small children.
Social programs like TANF and WIC, established through the policies PRWORA of 1996 and Healthy Meals for Healthy Families Act of 1994, respectively, are intended to ease the economic, social, and medical care burden for low-income families, but in their current condition, they are not completely meeting this intention.
Legislators have the ability to change the lives of low-income families by increasing the amount in cash allotments given to low-income families with infants which will allow more parents to utilize daycare when they attend work, decrease the stress parents experience from not being able to provide diapers, and decrease the number of times a child visits a medical facility as a result of a diaper issue. With the help of social media campaigns spreading the facts about diaper need and increasing awareness, the potential for the social issue of diaper need to be eradicated from our nation for low-income families could become a reality.
References
About TANF. (2019, July 19). U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Retrieved January 17, 2021 from https://www.acf.hhs.gov/ofa/programs/tanf/about
About WIC. (2013, October 10). U.S. Department of Agriculture. Retrieved February 6, 2021 from https://www.fns.usda.gov/wic/about-wic-wics-mission
Berry, F. & Kim, N. (2019). Do state-customized TANF work policies actually reduce unemployment? Social Science Quarterly, 100(3), p. 911-922. doi: 10.1111/ssqu.12566
Carlson, S. & Neuberger, Z. (2021, January 27). WIC Works: Addressing the Nutrition and Health Needs of Low-Income Families for More Than Four Decades. Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. https://www.cbpp.org/research/food-assistance/wic-works-addressing-the-nutrition-and-health-needs-of-low-income-families
National Diaper Bank Network (NDBN). (2021). What is Diaper Need? https://nationaldiaperbanknetwork.org/diaper-need/
Policy Basics: Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. (2020, February 6). Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Retrieved February 6, 2021 from https://www.cbpp.org/research/family-income-support/temporary-assistance-for-needy-families
Porter, S. & Steefel, L. (2015). Diaper need: A change for better health. Pediatric Nursing, 41(3), p. 141-144.
