Manpower Training and Child-Development Services

Abstract

Making quality child-development services available for children of mothers in one vocational training program significantly improved the mothers' performances. On the average, mothers with children receiving these services stayed in the Job Corps longer and more frequently completed their vocational training program. Since longer length of stay and program completion show a positive correlation with a better chance of placement and higher initial wage, the new Job Corps program improves a mother's potential for economic self-sufficiency. In addition, mothers in the program are able to learn how to better understand their children and provide for their needs. Nonresident mothers in the new mother-and-child program performed as well as resident mothers. This similarity points towards the widespread potential for initiating similar programs in many vocational training and educational settings. If, as in the Job Corps program, providing quality child-care arrangements for mothers in such settings as high schools, colleges, other manpower training programs, prisons, and places of employment can improve the mother's general motivation, enhance her earning capacity, and improve her ability to be a good mother, then dollars invested in these programs will show a high return.