Mental Health and President Biden's Plan for America Families

¡Hola! I am Dr. Jameca Cooper, and today I want to talk to you about President Biden's plan for American families. So President Biden has a plan called the American Families Plan, and with this plan, he has lots of sweeping changes and modifications to the budget. That will help Americans in various ways. So I want to talk about how all of these changes, or at least a few of these changes, um, are associated with mental health. One of the things that I've seen in the plan is that it has an increase in child care credit. So in other words, it will allow American families to have more financial assistance when it comes to child care. I live in the Midwest, and right now our child care costs are extremely high. It's very difficult for parents to be able to afford to have someone to take care of their children, children, so that they are able to work. One of the things that this plan would include is a childcare credit that would enable parents to have a lot less financial stress. One of the things I see with my patients is that part of their anxiety that they feel overall is related to financial stress., and that financial stress has a lot to do with the monies that it takes to care for their children, especially in the childcare, daycare, preschool stage, because that can be very expensive. In the St. Louis area right now, it's anywhere between $300 and $400 a week for a family to have to pay just to be able to work and have someone take care of their child full-time. That is extremely high. Much more than I paid for my children almost 20 years ago. But, um, this is one of the things that Biden's plan includes. So this will be a great help for families and parents and a great help for mental health. One of the other changes that Biden's plan includes is free universal preschool. This would be excellent. This would be a huge asset to families and for mothers. Um, extremely because it would enable them to have not just childcare for their children that are preschool ages, but education as well. And what we know about preschool is that children who attend preschool fare a lot better educationally later on. They're less likely to repeat grades and they're more likely to do better in math and science in the 8th grade. So if we can get all of our children in this country to have that advantage and that benefit, then it would be great, and it would prepare them more for not just kindergarten and elementary school, but even beyond that. Another part of the Biden plan is 2 years of free community college. This is huge because community college, although not as expensive as a traditional college or university, it is expensive enough so that many families are not able to afford it in addition to the expenses that they already have. What we know about the workforce now is that 70% of the workforce in this country has over a high school education. So we need to be able to train individuals better to be able to compete in the workforce so that they have the skills and the training and education necessary to get jobs that will allow them to take care of their families. What I see from individuals that I work with is that not having the necessary training and education is a big stressor for parents and families because it makes them always feel this underlying level of anxiety, always feeling like they can have their jobs taken away from them, they can be released, laid off, turnovers can be high. So these are things that play into the minds of parents all over this country and creates an additional level of stress and anxiety. So another thing that Biden's plan would include is support for HBCUs in this country. This is major because what we know about, um, HBCUs and HBCU education is that although they only make up 3% of colleges and universities in this country, 80% of all Black judges come from HBCUs, and that 50% of all doctors and lawyers come from HBCUs in this country, which is really an astonishing amount. But what that tells us is that HBCUs in this country are preparing the bulk of all of the Black professionals in these areas. So what we hope from Biden's plan is that it provides additional resources to the universities and also more affordable tuition so that students can make choices to attend HBCUs. I'll say that as an alum of Tougaloo College, which is an HBCU in Jackson, Mississippi, my college education has been one of the key aspects of my success. It, it is what has been one of the pieces that has given me the most training, preparation, and confidence to enter into the world and to do great things. Really, it's all stemming from HBCUs and some of the resources that I've been able to experience at my college. So all these things are part of Biden's plan, and they all associate with mental health because all of these pieces will help mental health by reducing the amounts of stress that adults all over this country feel in various areas. Being able to afford education for your child at the preschool levels is really just as important as being able to afford education for your child at the college level. And So through Biden's plan, we will be able to make sure that all Americans have access to these same benefits and thus will be able to compete more in the workforce. Because one of the things that we know about this country and what we've seen in the past 12 months is that systemic racism is a really big piece of the different levels and experiences of people all in this country. So Biden's American Families Plan Hopefully this will level the playing field for families all over the country and reduce the amounts of stress that they feel on a day-to-day basis. So for more information on how mental health impacts various areas in our lives, tune in to this channel, make sure you subscribe, and I'll catch you later.