{"id":51652,"date":"2026-03-31T09:27:01","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T13:27:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newamerica.org\/?post_type=insight&p=51652"},"modified":"2026-04-02T11:04:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T15:04:14","slug":"families-know-what-they-need-we-just-need-to-ask-them","status":"publish","type":"insight","link":"https:\/\/www.newamerica.org\/insights\/families-know-what-they-need-we-just-need-to-ask-them\/","title":{"rendered":"Families Know What They Need. We Just Need to Ask Them."},"author":50,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","issue_tax":[257],"topic_tax":[198,210],"program_tax":[138],"project_tax":[],"person_tax":[398,574,1009],"podcast_show_tax":[],"insight_type":[3765],"fellowship_tax":[],"award":[],"class_list":["post-51652","insight","type-insight","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","insight_type-in-short"],"acf":{"details":{"hero_type":"small-image","abstract":"The New Practice Lab centers listening, and cities like New York are leading the charge.","subheading":"Why good policy starts with listening to families","read_time":"","watch_time":"","podcast_player":"","apple_podcast_link":"","spotify_podcast_link":"","podcast_link":null,"listen_time":"","youtube_id":"","":null,"featured_image":51655,"add_image_caption":false,"caption":"","pdf_version":null,"helper_taxonomies":{"issue_tax":[257],"topic_tax":[198,210],"program_tax":[138],"project_tax":false,"person_tax":[574,398,1009],"fellowship_tax":false,"event_type":false,"location":false,"insight_type":[3765],"award":false,"podcast_show_tax":false,"person_type":false,"demographic_key":false,"survey_topic":false,"organization":false},"media_inquiry":false,"media_inquiry_title":"","media_inquiry_email":""},"page_layout":[{"acf_fc_layout":"layout_wysiwyg","_acfe_flexible_toggle":null,"component_wysiwyg":{"add_background_color":false,"content":"Today, we\u2019re launching a new effort to listen to families with the City of New York<\/a>\u2014part of a broader movement the New Practice Lab is driving to center family voices in how policy is designed and delivered at all levels of government.<\/span><\/i>\r\n\r\nAcross the United States, families with young children are struggling. In 2024, the Surgeon General issued an <\/span>official advisory<\/span><\/a> about the unsustainable levels of stress and exhaustion shouldered by caregivers. Between the rising costs of child care and overall cost of living and raising a family, parents are overworked and under-supported.\u00a0<\/span>\r\n\r\nExisting policy in this country often fails to address root causes, is not responsive to what people actually want, and poor program delivery compounds barriers by leaving families disconnected from the supports that do exist\u2014keeping too many families from achieving economic stability.\u00a0<\/span>\r\n\r\nThere is no shortage of information about the challenges families face. Yet one of the most underutilized tools in our policy toolkit is deceptively simple: asking families what they actually want. One thing is clear: our institutions need both fresh ideas and better ways of working to help families have agency and access what they need to thrive. How might our family policies shift if they were informed by what families say they want their children\u2019s early years to look like? What do parents actually want?<\/span>\r\n\r\nAt the <\/span>New Practice Lab<\/span><\/a>, we believe that families\u2014especially those with children under six, at the intersection of multiple economic challenges\u2014already know a great deal about what they need. A co-design approach allows those with lived experience to uniquely speak to the ways that public programs and social issues intersect to impact their lives. Excluding the people that policies are meant to serve in the process of policy design and implementation increases the likelihood that programs will be inefficiently delivered, inaccessible and exclusionary, or ineffective in achieving their intended outcomes.<\/span>\r\n\r\nWe must build better pathways for those voices to reach decision makers.<\/span>\r\n\r\nWhether you lead a city or town as mayor, you are a member of Congress, or are a Federal agency Secretary or local school board member, we think all leaders, at all levels of government, should be listening to families.\u00a0<\/span>\r\n

What Can Listening to Families Look Like?<\/b><\/h2>\r\nListening is a muscle, with supporting approaches and skillsets to be implemented meaningfully and effectively. Models of <\/span>public participation and community engagement<\/span><\/a> have been well researched and implemented globally, but we often still expect them to be adopted by public sector staff and leaders that are caught up in their day-to-day workflow, in organizations that haven\u2019t invested in the tools and talent that can do it.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\r\n\r\nThe New Practice Lab collaborates with people impacted by family policy every day: using human-centered design and service design methods, we work together to explore what it would mean for their families to thrive, and what resources and support might be necessary to help them get there.\u00a0<\/span>\r\n\r\nSometimes, this means going deep with the same families over multiple years to understand their lives comprehensively.\u00a0Our <\/span>Thriving Families<\/span><\/a> initiative has engaged cohorts of families with young children across three states through in-person co-design workshops\u2014held in both English and Spanish\u2014followed by an 18-month remote diary study. Consistent themes have emerged across families in very different realities: in rural, urban, and suburban communities; across racial and ethnic backgrounds; and navigating a wide range of public programs. For example, caregivers want greater control over their time, they experience care needs and paid work in conflict, they need more autonomy and financial freedom than what\u2019s offered by existing public supports, and they seek greater safety across many areas of their lives. We continue to publish insights from this group.<\/span>\r\n\r\nOther times, our team works together with families on more responsive research around particularly timely policy or implementation questions. Understanding <\/span>how people navigate tax filing (or don\u2019t)<\/span><\/a> and <\/span>how small businesses and workers think about supporting intermittent leave<\/span><\/a> can help governments better design and deliver efforts more effectively.<\/span>\r\n\r\nAnd finally, representative survey data can provide quantitative rigor to qualitative \u201cindicator light\u201d insights. Earlier this year, we launched our <\/span>2026 Parent Survey<\/span><\/a>, a nationally representative survey of more than 5,000 parents and primary caregivers, including approximately 2,000 parents with incomes below 200% of the federal poverty line. Administered by <\/span>NORC at the University of Chicago<\/span><\/a>, we believe this to be the largest effort of its kind. We\u2019re not just asking about hardship and what\u2019s not working. We\u2019re asking parents about their preferences and aspirations: How do they want to spend their time? What kind of care do they want for their young children? How would they structure their working lives if real choices were available to them? What do they hope for in their children's future?<\/span>\r\n

A Leading Example of Government Listening to People\u00a0<\/b><\/h2>\r\nNew York is currently a national test case for how to effectively design and deliver a universal child care program, and for opening up greater access to early care and education writ large. Earlier this year, New York Governor Kathy Hochul and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani <\/span>announced<\/span><\/a>\u00a0a commitment of $1.2 billion in new State funding to support the expansion of free child care in the city. Implementation is key to the initiative\u2019s success \u2014 requiring coordination across city and state agencies, as well as existing federal child care funding streams. We can\u2019t forget that underpinning this success will be aligning the mayor\u2019s priorities with how New Yorkers want a universal child care program to work, ensuring that the child care agenda is responsive to their needs.\u00a0<\/span>\r\n\r\nToday, we\u2019re excited to join the New York City Mayor\u2019s Office<\/a> to announce the launch of the NYC Parent Survey<\/a>, which will run through April 13.\u00a0\u00a0<\/b>\r\n\r\nWorking with NORC at the University of Chicago and funded by the Robin Hood Foundation, the New Practice Lab has worked to design this survey based on lessons learned from our national Parent Survey, and is eager to partner with the Mayor\u2019s Office of Child Care to better understand how parents in New York City envision this policy commitment turning into real, lasting support for families.<\/span>\r\n\r\nToo often, policymakers assume answers to questions rather than asking them. Our work is designed to fill that gap\u2014and to give parents and primary caregivers a direct role in shaping policy conversations at every level of government.<\/span>\r\n

How Leaders Can Listen<\/b><\/h2>\r\nMeaningful listening doesn't require a massive budget or a dedicated research department. Whether you're a federal agency, a state program office, a city council member, a foundation, or a nonprofit working in communities\u2014there are accessible, low-cost ways to build this practice into your work. You can learn more about this here<\/a>.<\/span>\r\n\r\nIf you\u2019re interested in collaborating with the New Practice Lab to better center people in your policy design and delivery, please contact us at NPL_work@newamerica.org<\/a>.<\/span>","":null,"drop_cap":false,"anchor_id":""}},{"acf_fc_layout":"layout_add_component","_acfe_flexible_toggle":null},{"acf_fc_layout":"layout_authors","_acfe_flexible_toggle":null,"component_authors":{"":null,"anchor_id":""}},{"acf_fc_layout":"layout_taxonomies","_acfe_flexible_toggle":null,"component_taxonomies":{"":null,"anchor_id":""}},{"acf_fc_layout":"layout_related","_acfe_flexible_toggle":null,"component_related":{"":null,"anchor_id":""}}]},"yoast_head":"\nFamilies Know What They Need. 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