Formal and informal services and supports help families promote their children’s good health, on-track development and school success.
Formal Supports are services that help families obtain necessities, such as:
- Food
- Housing
- Income
- Child care
Formal supports increase families’ abilities to deal with adversity and instability and contribute to children’s overall well-being.1
Children living in families with incomes below the poverty line face many obstacles to school success and early literacy, including:
- Parental unemployment2
- Housing instability or insufficiency3
- Hunger or inadequate nutrition4
- Toxic stress5
Family income is nearly as strong a predictor of children’s achievement as is parents’ education.6
Informal Supports are responsive and supportive social networks, services and institutions, such as:
- Extended family
- Friends
- Neighbors
- Peer support or mentorship groups
- Faith-based groups
Families connected to supportive informal networks and services are:
- Strengthened in their parenting
- Likely to have better health, well-being and resilience
- Better able to expose their children to activities and educational opportunities that will help them succeed7
What Can We Do About It?
What supports families?
- Increasing family income, particularly for very low-income families with young children
- Improving work supports, such as family and medical leave, health insurance and child care subsidies (see Family Forward NC)
- Making it easier to access public benefits to support basic needs
- Expanding trauma-informed policy and practice
Featured Resources
What Works for Third Grade Reading: Supports for Families
This brief considers why formal and informal family supports matter for children’s third grade reading proficiency, outlines the connection with other factors that impact early literacy, and highlights options that have been shown to support families. It is one of 12 new working papers that offer research-based policy, practice and program options to states and communities working to improve third grade reading proficiency.
Research Basis for Family Friendly Policies
This booklet describes a wide range of family friendly workplace policies that have evidence of positive outcomes for children, employees and employers.
Family Forward NC Research Presentation
This powerpoint describes the results of interviews conducted in the fall of 2017 with 300 businesses and a survey of 300 employees in North Carolina highlighting that employers and employees alike see great value in deepening family-friendly practices.
Family Forward NC Presentation at kidonomics
This powerpoint presentation makes the case for the value of family friendly workplace policies to children's health and development, to employees and businesses and describes the goals and strategies of Family Forward NC.