Help Children and Families Today by Emailing Your Elected Officials!
Right now, our elected leaders are in Richmond discussing and making decisions about children and families. The three topics for the special session are: COVID-19, State Budget and Criminal Justice Reform.Both the House and Senate are revisiting the entire state budget AND debating and discussing bills. Help people you serve by emailing legislators and asking them to prioritize children and families in the state budget.
Below is a sample email you can easily customize and send to your Delegate and State Senator:
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Dear Sen (or Del) _____________,
My name is (insert your name) and I live in (your city/county) VA. Please support the following budget amendments that increase funding for children and families. Many of these programs experienced significant cuts during the Great Recession and had not recovered their full funding from that crisis before being hit by this new one.
Item 312 #2h (Del. Guzman) Extend FAMIS Coverage for Prenatal Care for All
Item 313 #3h (Del. Aird) Medicaid Home Visiting Demonstration Project
Item 482.20 #18h (Del. Sickles) Postpartum Coverage for Pregnant Women
I’m also writing to ask you to use $80 million of Virginia’s unallocated $1.3 billion in CARES Act funding to provide child care stabilization grants to local community partnerships and providers. The Virginia Department of Education and Department of Social Services must develop grant criteria that local communities or regional collaboratives could apply for to meet any of the above needs for working parents and their children.
Such funding will support the supply of available child care to meet both the long-term needs of early childhood programs, and short-term care responding to school closures. For the child care industry to survive, programs need funding to make up for the loss of tuition, and to cover the cost of hiring and compensating additional staff.
Thank you for your time.
Sincerely,
Your Name
Your Address (to show the elected official you are a constituent)
Thank you for being a part of our family! Together, we’re disrupting the cycles of child abuse, neglect and poverty in Virginia’s families and communities, two generations at a time.
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