In Dec. 2022 The Arkansas Women’s Commission released its report that analyzed the economic status of women in the workforce. According to Women’s Foundation of Arkansas CEO Anna Beth Gorman, this report is the first to be completed in almost 50 years.
Gov. Asa Hutchinson reestablished the Women’s Commission to look particularly at the boundary and retention rate for labor force participation with women, among other reasons.
There were eight major recommendations made by the 2022 Arkansas Women’s Commission, which are listed below:
- Meaningfully engage the business community to address child care challenges
- Increase access to women’s and mental health resources, especially in rural communities
- Increase equity in the labor force and in entrepreneurship
- Increase mentorship for women
- Incentivize Arkansans to enter or remain in the early childhood education profession
- Increase awareness of programs designed to assist single parents
- Increase equity in STEM education
- Provide technical assistance and capacity building for expanding existing child care businesses
These recommendations were made from the creation of four subcommittees, including research and writing, family caregiving, impact of COVID-19 and barriers to entry and labor force participation and retention.
Of the eight recommendations made, four have received financial support. These recommendations deal with childcare, women’s health, increasing mentorship for women and single-parent program awareness.
Excel by 8, a nonprofit, received funding to hire a campaign director to work with the Arkansas Chamber of Commerce and business leaders in addressing childcare needs.
Life360 HOMEs Program Suite, created by Gov. Hutchinson, allows for the support for new and expectant mothers. In DecHutchinson committed $200,000 in supporting the expansion of Arkansas State University’s Women Business Leadership Center, for a program called Delta Women’s Leadership Academy.
“Delta Women’s Leadership Academy is a program that allows young female college students who want to become entrepreneurs to receive mentorship. The program is funded, which is a great start to at least the first year,” Maddie Spickard, director of strategic initiatives at WFA, said.
Arkansas Department of Commerce’s Division of Workforce Services had partnered with the Arkansas Single Parent Scholarship Fund in order to increase awareness of single-parent programs.
“This partnership is really neat because it’s newly formed, partly because of the work of this commission,” Spickard said. “Gov. Hutchinson was really clear that he did not just want to produce a report with stats and numbers, but that he also wanted to have actions associated with it. Allison Williams, chair of the commission, worked really, really hard to make sure that these recommendations were not only left to the responsibility of the government and legislature, but brought into the business community in both the nonprofit and for profit sectors.”
Gorman credits much of the success of this commission to the hard work done by all who served on the commission.
“In Arkansas, we can accomplish things. Agencies stepped up to develop partnerships to make good on these recommendations to take action. All of this was accomplished in just a year of work, so you can imagine if we had a longer runway to address the challenges that women and girls continue to face,” Gorman said. “Again, we could just not be more proud of the outcome fot the commission. It was a cross section of stakeholders and people worked across the aisle on this commission. That is where you solve real problems.”
According to Gorman, WFA also has every intention of ensuring that the commission’s report is amplified. WFA will celebrate its 25 year anniversary in 2023, and according to Gorman, the foundation will take the findings of the report back on the road to revisit locations where commission meetings were held and address all of the recommendations made in the report.
“Our main goal is to see women and girls economically secure in our state. When you’re facing economic challenges, it impacts every aspect of your life, it impacts your mental health, physical health and emotional health,” Gorman said.
Moving into the 25th-anniversary year, Spickard explained that WFA has a lot planned for 2023.
“We serve all women across Arkansas, but because we are based in central Arkansas it can be difficult to make those connections outside of the area,” Spickard said. “We really like to address challenges at a systemic level and be creative and innovative because we are small and more nimble as an organization.”
Gorman agrees that WFA is innovative and resourceful, among being strategic in partnerships and how it accomplishes goals.
“I think that the 25th anniversary is really about just amplifying the work that we do. Our message is that if you’re a woman or girl in Arkansas, you’re already part of this organization and we want every woman or girl in the state to feel they have a partner and champion in us at WFA,” Gorman said. “We represent every woman and girl and want them to know that we exist, we have programs and resources and we produce research on the status of women. We’re really the only institution that does that in our state and it’s so important that there are these resources here.”
For more information about WFA or to read the Arkansas Women’s Commission 2022 report, click here.
Photo Credit: Women’s Foundation of Arkansas.
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