Economic services directly improve children’s environments and can also improve parent wellbeing, which helps children thrive. However, many families miss out on the economic wellbeing services that can help them build assets because systems are designed to exclude them.
Our mission is to build economic mobility and health equity by leveraging trust in and access to healthcare.
We are redesigning pediatric primary care — which reaches 90 percent of children each year — to include economic wellbeing services. This holds huge potential to break down barriers and improve health equity.
What We Do
Newborns and young children have many clinic visits — at least seven in the first year of life. These visits help build trust in and comfort with the healthcare system, which can be leveraged to help with other needs.
We use this time to help break down economic barriers for low-income families, particularly those who identify as people of color, by embedding assistance with economic resources into pediatric primary care, including:
- Financial coaching
- Tax preparation
- An economic bundle that includes access to the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) Program, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), a 529 College Savings Plan, Family Self-Sufficiency Program (FSS), access to BMC’s Food Pantry, and Paid Family Medical Leave (PFML)
Services are offered proactively to all newborn families in our clinic, to reduce barriers and provide broader access.
Why We Do It
Forty percent of children in the United States are low-income, which negatively affects children’s brains, learning, and health into adulthood. Our approach helps families grow assets by increasing savings, decreasing debt, and improving credit and economic opportunity while building a solid foundation for lifelong financial, physical, and mental health.