42 U.S.C. § 12351 — Findings and purpose

fundamental changes in the demographics and economics of family life in the United States over the past 20 years have had a profound effect on children and their parents;

since 1966, the number of women working outside the home has increased by 92 percent and the number of two earner families has increased by over 50 percent;

61 percent of the children born today will live in a single-parent family before reaching the age of 20, with one out of every three single female heads of households living on income below the Federal poverty level;

one out of every four children under the age of 6 in the United States currently lives below the Federal poverty level;

over the past 10 years, parents have increasingly come together with other parents to organize family resource and support programs^* that promote healthy child development and increase parental competency, particularly families at risk; and

Federal investment in promoting the development of family resource and support programs will reap long-term benefits for individual families and the nation as a whole.

stimulate the development and expansion of family resource and support programs that are prevention oriented;

encourage early intervention of such programs with families to ameliorate problem situations before such situations become crises; and

assist parents in enhancing their children’s development to ensure that their children enter school prepared and ready to learn.