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 […]

Building Strong Systems of Support for Young Children’s Mental Health: Key Strategies for States and a Planning Tool

  Learn about our Supporting Young Children’s Mental Health project. What’s Inside… This report describes key strategies for creating a comprehensive system of supports for young children’s mental health and provides examples from states using these strategies. It also includes a tool that state planners can use to assess progress and plan steps toward building […]

Making Work Pay in Montana

Learn about our Making Work Supports Work project. In Montana, 44 percent of children live in low-income families—defined as income below twice the federal poverty level (FPL). Despite 86 percent of these children having at least one parent who is employed, many of their families struggle to make ends meet on earnings alone. Work support […]

When Work Supports Don’t Support Work: A Case for Parental Health Coverage in Mississippi

Learn about our Making Work Supports Work project. The recession has wreaked havoc on America’s workforce, putting pressure on states to make difficult budgetary choices. As the perennial concern of balancing the budget takes hold of state government, recessionary spending cuts further jeopardize the health and economic security of families. An increasing number of Americans […]

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 […]

Linking Home-Based Child Care And State-Funded Preschool: The Community Connections Preschool Program (Illinois Action for Children)

Introduction to the Community Connections Program Model The Community Connections preschool program (herein referred to as Community Connections) was developed to help prepare children in home-based child care for success in school and in life. It has three goals: (1) to make state prekindergarten classroom experiences available to children in home-based care, (2) to extend […]

Quality in Family, Friend, and Neighbor Child Care Settings

Learn about our Research Connections project. This is an excerpt from the full report. Introduction Currently, more than 60 percent of children in the United States under the age of 5 are in some type of non-parental child care on a regular basis ( Johnson, 2005) and care by family, friends, and neighbors (FFN care) […]

Healthy Kids and Strong Working Families: Improving Economic Security for North Dakota Families with Children

North Dakota is currently experiencing an economic boom that is bringing prosperity to the state and many of its citizens. The prosperity is not shared by all, however. Many workers helping to generate the economic boom do not feel its benefit and nearly one third of North Dakota families struggle to make ends meet. Most […]

Poor Children by Parents’ Nativity: What Do We Know?

Learn about our Social Inclusion & Respect for Diversity project. Immigration in the United States has held a longstanding and transformative role in shaping the country’s social and economic landscape. State and local policies have, likewise, responded to the changing presence and composition of immigrants in American society. Yet, significant gaps in policies that address […]

Quality Stars NY: Field Test Evaluation Report

Background QUALITYstarsNY is New York State’s Quality Rating and Improvement System (QRIS). The current QUALITYstarsNY standards were developed to apply to programs and providers under the regulation of one of New York’s public agencies – the State Office of Children and Family Services, the State Department of Education, or the New York City Department of […]