Strong at the Broken Places: The Resiliency of Low-Income Parents

Several organizations are actively promoting two-generation approaches, most notably The Aspen Institute, Foundation for Child Development, and Annie E. Casey Foundation. Social-emotional competence in children – the ability to manage emotions, express needs and feelings, deal with conflict, and get along with others – plays a critical role in their cognitive skill building, mental health, […]

Energy Insecurity among Families with Children

Learn about our Making Work Supports Work project. Energy insecurity (EI) reflects an inability to adequately meet basic household heating, cooling, and energy needs. EI is a pervasive and often-overlooked problem for low-income families with children. Conceptually, EI is a multi-dimensional construct that describes the interplay between structural conditions of housing and the costs of […]

Rent Burden, Housing Subsidies and the Well-being of Children and Youth

This is an excerpt from the full report. What is rent burden? Rent burden is defined as spending more than 30 percent of household income on rent. In 2009, more than half of renter-occupied households with children (54 percent) experienced rent burden. Between 2002 and 2009, the proportion of households with children affected by rent […]

Improving the Odds for Adolescents: State Policies that Support Adolescent Health and Well-being

Learn about our Improving the Odds for Adolescents project. Executive Summary For policymakers, adolescence presents an invaluable opportunity to ensure that all young people can access the high-quality services and supports they need to improve their odds of becoming successful, healthy, productive adults. At an historic moment when the provisions and breadth of health care […]

Racial Gaps in Early Childhood: Socio-emotional Health, Developmental, and Educational Outcomes Among African-American Boys

Learn about our Unclaimed Children Revisited project. Learn about our Improving the Odds for Young Children project. This is an excerpt from the full report. Introduction The aims of this study are to examine racial gaps in cognitive and socio-emotional development among boys in early childhood and to identify factors that contribute to early resilience […]

Who are America’s Poor Children?: The Official Story

Over 15 million American children live in families with incomes below the federal poverty level, which is $22,050 a year for a family of four. The number of children living in poverty increased by 33 percent between 2000 and 2009. There are 3.8 million more children living in poverty today than in 2000. Not only […]

A Profile of Disconnected Young Adults in 2010

Learn about our Improving the Odds for Adolescents project. This is an excerpt from the full report. Introduction The purpose of this report is to highlight a growing segment of the population who are arriving at young adulthood disconnected from the main pathways leading to economic independence. Arriving at young adulthood in a state of […]

Addressing the Mental Health Needs of Young Children in the Child Welfare System: What Every Policymaker Should Know

Learn about our Project Thrive project. This is an excerpt from the full report. Introduction: Why Focus on Mental Health in the Child Welfare System? The early years of life present a unique opportunity to lay the foundation for healthy development. It is a time of great growth and of vulnerability. Research on early childhood […]

English Language Proficiency, Family Economic Security, and Child Development

Learn about our Making Work Supports Work project. Key Findings Over 55 million individuals spoke a language other than English at home in 2007, an increase of 140 percent from 1980. The number of Spanish speakers rose by more than 23.4 million between 1980 and 2007, a 211 percent increase. Twenty-one percent of children age […]

Unclaimed Children Revisited: California Case Study

Learn about our UCR: California Case Study project. Executive Summary (2M) Alameda County Profile (469K) Butte County Profile (473K) Humboldt County Profile (479K) Imperial County Profile (474K) Los Angeles County Profile (485K) Placer County Profile (474K) San Diego County Profile (486K) San Francisco County Profile(484K) San Mateo County Profile (485K) Santa Clara County Profile (493K) […]