What is the Child Watch Visitation Program?

• Business leaders can adopt flexible personnel policies that support teens with children.These should include paid parental leave. flexible wort hours. job sharing • and sick leavepolicies that reflect teen parents' need to care for sick children.• Join the teen coalition in your community or state.• Write articles for newsletter or local newspapers summarizing what you have learned aboutthe needs of the teenagers in the community. You can also talk to newspaper staff andsuggest that they write such an article or develop a series about teen issues.• Work with local schools and develop and support inventive programs that reward academicachievement and school attendance.• To raise the incomes ofpoor. teen families with children. comprehensive efforts by federal.state. and local governments as well as the private sector are essential. Improvements mustbe made in tax assistance. wage enhancement. job training and education. child support.AFDC and food assistance.• Volunteer to work with a variety ofgroups including businesses. health professionals. andhospitals. to sponsor health fairs that highlight critical health issues such as prenatal care.substance use. and sexually transmined diseases especially AIDS.• Help pregnant teenagers and new. teen mothers enroll in the Medicaid programs by assistingthem with filling out the application fonns. Such help is particularly needed for non-Englishspeaking teenagers.• Volunteer as a tutor or "buddy" at an agency worKing to help teenagers with children.• Private housing developers can: contribute money. materials. and expertise (throughconsultation or staffloans) to nonprofit organizations worKing to develop low-incomehousing; set aside a portion ofthe units in all new housing developments for low-income.teen families: and invest in affordable housing through the Low Income Housing Tax Credit• Religious congregations can develop respite care programs for families headed by teens.Include the children ofthese teens in existing day care. religious education. and otherministries of a religious congregation.• Sponsor parenting education programs. Consider sponsoring these sessions with schools inthe area.• Adopt a teen with a child in need of assistance and offer them ongoing assistance andsupport.• Adopt a social worker in your community's public department ofchildren and family servicesand help support that worker by responding to the unmet needs of the children and familieshe or she is serving. The worker may ask for basic supplies. such as clothing. bedding. orhealth care supplies: for financial assistance to get the family through a crisis: or for helpwith home repairs. transportation. child care or other services.• Join with teen and children issue advocates in your state to push for greater investments ofpublic funds in teen support and teen family preservation services for vulnerable teens. Startfirst with those areas where the majority of the needy live. Ifyour city has several successfulpilot programs already. support an initiative to expand the programs statewide as part of acomprehensive system of services.MC/9-92138