FRAC Priorities for Child Nutrition Reauthorization
2003
New Opportunities to Improve
Children’s Nutrition, Development,
Health, Learning and Family Economic Well-being
The expected 2003
reauthorization of the child nutrition programs (School Breakfast and School
Lunch, WIC, the Summer Food Service Program, and the Child and Adult Care Food
Program for children in child care centers, family child care homes,
afterschool programs and homeless and domestic violence shelters) presents substantial
opportunities to achieve important national goals. A well-conceived reauthorization bill can help reduce childhood
hunger, improve prenatal care and child nutrition and health, reduce obesity,
enhance child development, raise the quality of child care for low-income
families, increase jobs and entrepreneurial opportunities for low-income women,
get young children ready for school, improve the achievement of school-age
children, and support the efforts of low-income families to make the transition
from welfare to work.
These opportunities exist because the child nutrition programs
are fundamentally sound investments that already help accomplish these goals.
But they are not flawless investments, and they can do much more. The following
recommendations, if adopted, would qualitatively improve the programs, help
them better achieve all these goals, and give an important boost to America’s
children.
1. Every
child should have an equal chance at success in school. Making school breakfast programs more
broadly available to schoolchildren will help our nation achieve this goal.
The experience of the last several years has shown that offering breakfast free of charge to all children in a school, rather than just to low-income children, improves student achievement, behavior and attendance. Also, breakfast for all pulls more hungry, low-income children into the programs as the stigma applied to a program “just for poor kids” is removed.
There are a number of ways to broaden the availability of breakfasts, including:
L Grants for breakfast pilot programs open to all children at no charge in states with the lowest School Breakfast Program participation among low-income children;
L A competitive grants program to pay part of the cost difference for the reduced price and paid meals in schools that want to provide breakfast through Provision 2;
L A broad universal breakfast initiative for children in pre-K through grade 3;
L Universal breakfast in those schools with a higher percentage of children receiving free and reduced-price lunches.
The other essential step is to help more schools operate successful school breakfast programs under the existing, non-universal approach and do so for more children.
Two ways to achieve this goal
are:
L Facility grants for start-up, expansion, outreach, and adoption of breakfast in the classroom;
L Removing the unwieldy cost accounting requirement for severe need schools so that the lowest income schools can receive more easily the small but important additional reimbursement for breakfasts they serve.
2. More children in care outside school hours
should have access to nutritious meals and snacks year-round so they can learn,
play, and be safe while their parents work.
The strength of child care and
nutrition programs for both preschoolers and school-aged children becomes
increasingly critical as more low-income children have both parents or the
custodial parent working, many with lengthy commutes, and long and/or
non-traditional hours. Although there has been some progress in the last few
years, the child nutrition programs must become a stronger support for
school-aged child care programs both during the school year and in the summer.
L The area eligibility threshold for both Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) afterschool programs and the Summer Food Service Program (SFSP) should be lowered from 50 percent to 40 percent.
L The CACFP afterschool supper option, based on area-eligibility and currently operating in seven states, should be expanded to all states. Additionally, schools should be allowed to serve supper on this basis to children through the National School Lunch Program (NSLP).
L Summer Food Service Program (SFSP) sites, both open and enrolled, should be automatically eligible to offer afterschool snacks and suppers during the regular school year.
L Programs receiving federal funds (directly or through state or local agencies) to operate after- school or summer programs should be automatically eligible to participate in the afterschool snacks and suppers program and the SFSP, and required to participate as a condition of receiving the underlying federal assistance.
L The rules of the “Lugar” Summer Food Service Program pilot, now operating in 13 states and Puerto Rico, should be the basic operating rules for all sponsors in all states and the District of Columbia.
L The SFSP “seamless waiver,” which allows schools to feed children during the summer through NSLP, should become law and be available to all schools.
L Grants should be provided to underserved areas for transportation, start-up, and expansion of SFSP and afterschool snack and supper programs.
Many SFSP and afterschool snacks program sponsors report that even the best-managed programs have difficulty paying for the costs of running these programs at the current reimbursement levels.
L The true costs of these programs should be evaluated. Based on the study results, an increase in the reimbursement rates for these programs should be part of the Administration’s and Congress’agenda.
3. It is vital that we meet the developmental needs of very young children. Good nutrition and quality child care are essential to the healthy development of preschool children. The Child and Adult Care Food Program in family child care homes and child care centers promotes both, which allows children to develop fully, prepares children to enter school ready to learn, and helps working families work.
Key steps to ensure that
children in family child care get the strongest start possible include
improving CACFP’s ability to reach more low-income families by:
L Reducing the area eligibility threshold in family child care from 50 percent to 40 percent;
L Reducing paperwork by extending CACFP categorical eligibility to beneficiaries of means-tested, federally funded programs that support working families, such as Medicaid/SCHIP and child care subsidy programs.
Sponsors need the resources that let them focus on important nutrition education and support services – services that have been pushed aside since 1996 by an avalanche of means test paperwork.
This can be accomplished by:
L Establishing an incentive grant program for using CACFP to improve children’s nutrition and child care quality. Initiatives would include:
o Enhancing CACFP nutrition education, including obesity prevention, focusing on food and activity, anemia prevention, and food safety;
o Producing models and materials addressing language and cultural issues for serving special populations, including immigrant communities;
o Creating outreach partnerships;
o Making innovative use of technology to improve program access and nutrition education;
L Increasing sponsoring organizations’ administrative reimbursement rates to reflect the increased administrative burden of the means test.
Some areas require additional time and resources to best serve the target communities. Rural areas need more resources for transportation; certain low-income areas require two-person monitoring teams; other areas need additional assistance to help low-income families and providers overcome language and literacy barriers in order to participate in CACFP.
L Sponsor reimbursement rates for serving family child care homes in rural and low-income areas should be supplemented to strengthen CACFP to cope with these circumstances.
The
final rates adopted for Tier 2 CACFP family child care were considerably lower
then those initially proposed, and the new means test system with these reduced
rates has had the unintended consequence of driving providers from the program.
L Tier 2 reimbursement rates should be increased to assure that they are at least minimally adequate to make it worthwhile for providers serving homes with a mix of children from low-income and middle-income families to participate in CACFP.
It is important to build on the successes of USDA’s Management Improvement Initiative by:
L Making the initiative permanent;
L Increasing funding;
L Focusing on making program management more efficient and reducing barriers to participation. This would include:
o Streamlining program and paperwork requirements;
o Developing models for maximizing the use of technology for program operations, nutrition education and training;
o Creating partnerships with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Department of Education to strengthen
class=Section2>o quality child care and early education efforts using CACFP;
o Improving program recruitment and retention.
Key steps to ensure that children in child care centers get the strongest start possible include:
L The current temporary extension of CACFP eligibility to children in for-profit child care centers serving 25 percent or more low-income children should be made permanent;
L CACFP should offer a third meal for children who are in child care centers for more than eight hours a day;
L State-supported Head Start and Even Start programs should be categorically eligible.
In order to meet the child nutrition program needs of school-based preschool programs:
L The National School Lunch Program, School Breakfast Program and CACFP for these preschool programs should be streamlined by extending benefits year-round (including holidays if the preschool is open) and including the option of a dinner and snack meal service without limiting eligibility or lowering reimbursements.
4. Pregnancy and
early childhood are critical periods for good nutrition. Numerous evaluations
of the WIC program demonstrate its positive impact on children’s health and
development.
L WIC should be structured so that all women, infants and young children who qualify to participate in WIC are able to do so.
5. “Streamlining” of
child nutrition programs is desirable when it makes it easier for program
sponsors and children to participate in the programs, while maintaining the
federal framework and the availability of the current programs.
L Schools and sponsors should be able to fill out one application in order to be approved to operate all the child nutrition programs for which they are eligible;
L Families should be able to fill out one application for all their children to participate in any of the child nutrition programs;
L A child nutrition program sponsor that feeds children year-round should be able to do it the entire year with one program, rather than being required to change over to another program for several months or weeks;
L The number of allowable meals and snacks should be based upon the amount of time the program operates and children are being cared for, with programs being eligible to serve a maximum of three meals and one snack;
L Each program (other than WIC) should allow all children 19 years and under to participate.
6. Schools should improve the nutrition environment where children consume meals and snacks.
L The Secretary of Agriculture should have the authority to control the sale of competitive foods throughout the school, from the time school opens in the morning until the end of the last lunch period, to ensure that the healthfulness of foods offered to children is optimal.
L In addition, USDA should recommend, based on research, the optimal amount of time that children should be provided for the consumption of breakfasts and lunches. States should be encouraged to set a minimum amount of time for meal consumption in schools based on this research.
7. Some of our most vulnerable children are homeless, many living in homeless and domestic violence shelters. It is essential that their nutritional needs be met every day.
L Homeless and domestic violence shelters should be allowed to serve meals through CACFP to children up to 18 years of age, rather than just up to 12 years old.
L The changes made by the April 4, 2002 USDA guidance regarding homeless children’s eligibility for the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) and the School Breakfast Program should be permanently included in legislation. Homeless children should be made categorically eligible for school meals.
L The NSLP’s definition of homeless children should be brought up to date with the McKinney-Vento Act, including children whose families are “doubled up” with another family, and children whose families are living in a motel, car, campground or an emergency shelter.
L In keeping with the McKinney-Vento Act’s establishment of local homeless education liaisons, these liaisons, in addition to homeless shelter directors and local officials, should be able to document a child’s homelessness and subsequent eligibility for free school meals.