Blog #7

Julia spent fourteen months in the shelter system before Jacqueline was born and they moved into a permanent residence. When Julia went to school, Jacqueline’s father watched her and her sister. This arrangement lasted only the semester and ended because they broke up. She was still relying on public assistance during her summer break and was the primary care provider for her children but she was struggling. Julia had been cut off from receiving food stamps because she did not receive a notice about finger-imaging while she was in the shelters. When the next semester started, Julia’s oldest daughter, Izzy, moved in with her and watched the younger kids for almost five months. Izzy and Julia ended up taking jobs at the Burger Joint, trying to work their schedules around taking care of the children. Julia quit after five or six weeks because she did not want her PA to get cut off. When Julia applied for ACD, she was put at the end of the long waiting list because her case was not high priority. Her case was not a high priority case because she was neither working nor attending school. When she was called into the Work Experience Program, she received child care benefits and put Jacqueline into family day care arrangement that did not last very long. The arrangement ended because the WEP continuously messed up her checks or paid the provider late, making it so Julia always owed the provider money. Julia had to take a month off of work to get it sorted out. When she went back to work, she turned to her cousin to watch Jacqueline, but this arrangement was also short lived because the welfare agency lost all Julia’s file. After missing more than a month of work trying to sort everything out with welfare and almost losing both jobs, Julia turned to Becky from the CWP who helped her get ACD. Julia put Jacqueline into family care with Sonia and it turned out to be the most stable and long lasting arrangement. Sonia was flexible with Julia’s work hours and agreed to keep Jacqueline longer than hours than normal. Julia was still receiving PA and knew once she was required to make ACD copayments she would not be able to pay Sonia to keep Jacqueline the extra hours and she would have to have her mother watch her while she was at work. Minimum wage jobs make it difficult for poor working mothers to find and maintain child care because of the systematic barriers. It is difficult for them to work with the system either because they don’t understand it or are unaware of the benefits they could receive. Mothers have to either come up with a strategy to find work that works around child care or child care that works around work. Often times, mothers work odd hours or different hours so they are always having to change their care arrangements, sometimes they are even forced to leave their jobs and take care of their children.