Investing in Families

I think they're are pretty dire consequences if we don't ensure that we invest in children and families, particularly children and families in poverty. We can certainly try and pay for these things later on in life. Right. But but that's incredibly expensive. It's incredibly draining on public resources, draining on private resources. And there are so many needs in the community. The more we can focus on children and families early in their development, the better off we'll be in terms of our own public resources, public education and public health. The other thing that I would recommend is we think about linking the two together, right? We have these systems of health. We have these systems of education, but rarely are the two talking to one another. So in particular, in those early years, just before a child is born and then in through those first five years, it's critically important that we invest early on. That way we can make sure that that that individual is on the right path to start school and to start helping. Economists tell us that for every dollar that we invest in a child's life before they turn six years old, returns over seven dollars of community benefits back to all of us. And so what that means for first time and for our county is that every dollar we're investing our communities can down the road as this child gets older, as they succeed through school, and as they become productive citizens. And so early childhood education, particularly if you look at the research, it pays off in the long run. So it's really important for the business community and for the rest of our community to be focused on those aspects of early childhood education, particularly high quality early education that pay off in the long run. We can pay for it now and invest well into a child's well-being, into kindergarten and then beyond. But if you're trying to catch up in third grade, if you're trying to catch up in fifth grade and then you're trying to catch up in high school or in workforce training, that's going to cost the business community in terms of productivity. That's going to cost the public sector in terms of resources.