The Economic Crisis and the Health, Well-Being and Security of New York's Children and Families: Report of a Meeting, March 13, 2009

The March 2009 New York Child Health Forum shed light on troubling long-term trends that have become only more salient in the context of today's economic crisis. These range from the rising income inequality and erosion of the income tax base that has jeopardized the state and city's fiscal situation to the persistent underpayment for community health center services that has put the centers very survival at risk. Moreover, while some indicators of child and family well-being in New York have been quite positive in recent years, serious problems persisted even in good economic times, such as insufficient access to affordable housing and child care. This brief meeting summary provides highlights from each of the speakers' comments, including their recommendations for addressing the critical challenges New York faces. Also below is information about where to find more detailed and up-to-date information about the impact of the economic crisis on New York's children and families

United States Early Childhood Profile

This national profile aggregates the policy choices of the 50 states and the District of Columbia alongside other contextual data related to the well-being of young children. The first page presents demographic information on children younger than age 6, and subsequent pages profile the policy context related to their: (1) health and nutrition, (2) early care and education, and (3) parenting and economic supports

How Maternal, Family and Cumulative Risk Affect Absenteeism in Early Schooling: Facts for Policymakers

What is the role of the schooling experience in the educational trajectories and outcomes of children exposed to risk? Maternal and family risks are associated with greater absenteeism and the cumulative exposure to risk best predicts chronic absenteeism in early schooling. Kindergarten children in contact with three or more risks missed three or more days than their peers not facing any risks. But as children progress through the elementary grades, the impact of cumulative risk on school attendance lessens, only to rise again in the fifth grade. The most vulnerable children — those who are poor or racial/ethnic minorities or suffer from poor health — have the greatest exposure to cumulative risk

Making Work Supports Work: Tools for Policy Analysis

The National Center for Children in Poverty’s (NCCP) Making Work Supports Work project is designed to identify and promote policies that make work pay for low-wage workers and their families. Millions of parents work full-time, year-round and yet struggle to provide even minimum daily necessities for their families. Government “work supports” – such as earned income tax credits, child care subsidies, health insurance, food stamps, and housing assistance – can help. These benefits encourage, support, and reward work, helping families close the gap between low wages and the cost of basic needs. To assess the effectiveness of existing state and federal work support policies, we examine how much families need to make ends meet and how public benefits impact family budgets. We then work with state partners to identify, model, and promote alternative policies that better support low-wage workers and their families. Our work draws on results from two web-based tools: the Family Resource Simulator and the Basic Needs Budget Calculator

Mental Health Chartbook: Tracking the Well-being of People with Mental Health Challenges

This chartbook documents the prevalence of mental health problems and illness, patterns of treatment and service use, cost of mental health care and quality of care, and life measures for children, adults and the elderly in the United States from the mid-1990s to 2008. Trends are also examined across different racial/ethnic groups and income levels. The data are compiled from nine different national and local surveys

Reducing Disparities Beginning in Early Childhood: Short Takes No. 4

Research shows that many disparities in health and well-being are rooted in early childhood. These disparities reflect gaps in access to services, unequal treatment, adverse congenital health conditions, and exposures in the early years linked to elevated community and family risks.1 Early health risks and conditions can have long-range implications for physical, emotional, and intellectual development as well as health. Their contribution to disparities in health status, disabilities, and educational achievement is well documented.2 But many risks can be addressed in the early years, starting with quality prenatal care and interventions in the earliest stages of life. Thus, literally, reducing disparities begins with babies

Poverty and Brain Development in Early Childhood

Researchers have gathered new evidence on the importance of the first years of life for children’s emotional and intellectual development. Unfortunately, millions of American children are poor during these crucial years. More than one in five of America’s children under age three lived in poverty in 1997. These 2.5 million poor children face a greater risk of impaired brain development due to their exposure to a number of risk factors associated with poverty. Many poor young children are resilient and able to overcome tremendous obstacles but poverty poses serious threats to children’s brain development. Recent advances in the study of brain development show a sensitive period when the brain is most able to respond to and grow from exposure to environmental stimulation. This window of optimal brain development is from the prenatal period to the first years of a child’s life. While all children are potentially vulnerable to a number of risk factors which can impede brain development during this sensitive period, a disproportionate number of children in poverty are actually exposed to such risk factors. These risk factors can influence the brain through multiple pathways

NCCP Perspectives: Youth Employment

When President Obama took office in 2009, he faced the worst recession since the Great Depression. As a direct response to the economic crisis, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) introduced a series of coordinated investments in the economy with the goals of spurring job creation, increasing economic spending, and creating a new foundation for long-term prosperity for all working families. The Recovery Act increased funding for health care, education and entitlement programs by $224 billion. Specifically, states received$1.2 billion through the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) youth funds to provide employment and training services targeted to disadvantaged youth. At a recent White House Briefing organized by the Office of Public Engagement, the administration announced a number of ARRA-funded job creation initiatives. Officials identified two promising priorities for future job-related investments: The TANF Emergency Contingency Fund; The Summer Youth Employment Initiative. The TANF Emergency Contingency Fund, created through ARRA with $5 billion to cover FY2009 and FY2010, helps states serve more families that seek employment opportunities and assistance during the economic downturn. The TANF Emergency Fund served as a resource for job creation by subsidizing state employment programs and initiatives (such as paid work, work-study, etc). According to recent estimates, more than 100,000 jobs will be created by the time authorization expires. The Summer Youth Employment Initiative (SYEI), implemented last summer, has enrolled 355,000 youth in summer jobs nationwide. This is a critical program not only for stimulating the local economy in depressed communities but offering income support to families through youth employment. Through SYEI, public and private employers worked with states and counties to create summer youth internships and programs that provided financial support through the summer and linked them to year-round career readiness programs and skills training for the future. The administration is currently evaluating ARRA-funding programs with an eye towards investments that have far-reaching impacts across communities and on the economy. Moving forward, the administration will focus on youth employment as a critical workforce and economic development strategy

Another Milestone: 20 Years of NCCP: 2008 Annual Report

This year, as we mark NCCP’s 20th anniversary, we have so many things of which to be proud, yet there is so much more that we know needs to be done. Our work is driven by a vision of an America where families are strong, nurturing, and economically secure; where healthy child development is the norm across the country, and where children’s opportunities don’t depend on the state in which they live. In the two decades since we began our mission to shine a spotlight on the youngest children in poverty, we have expanded that mission to include all children, their families, and the socio-economic environment around them. Today we promote family-oriented policy solutions and the smarter use of scarce public resources at the state, local, and national levels. As a national policy center situated in an academic institution, NCCP has developed a strong reputation for using research to inform policy and practice, and to promote, wherever possible, the use of research-informed, cost-effective approaches to improve outcomes and reduce disparities in access to quality services and informal supports for the 39 percent of American children and their families with household incomes at or below 200 percent of the poverty level. The challenges to implementing this vision are enormous. During the last eight years, low-income children and their families have lost ground. Although the percentage of low-income and poor children declined steadily for most of the 1990s, it began to increase again in 2000. In 2007, this percentage was at its highest since 1998. Given the rapidly changing context of today’s realities, we know NCCP must continue to deepen our foothold as a national organization focused at the state level, while we develop new capacities to bring our knowledge to bear on the design and implementation of national policies. In our quest to improve outcomes for low-income children and families, NCCP is proud to be a part of the Mailman School of Public Health as we work to embed a public health vision, focusing on prevention and early intervention into America’s child and family health and mental health polices and to serve as an important placement and research resource to the School’s students and faculty. We couple this role with our commitment to strengthen the public health framework to include more attention to reducing disparities– based on race and ethnicity, language access, and income – and to addressing the core challenge at the heart of so many public health challenges, both domestically and internationally – poverty. In the coming years we will expand our work on national policies as we strive to solidify our role as a “go-to” organization for resources on child and family poverty, and join the anti-poverty conversation with the public health conversations to advance the wellbeing of children and families. I am very proud of NCCP’s accomplishments during the past year. We have had some remarkable successes in 2008. This report focuses on those as well as takes a look back at our first two decades – and if the past is predictive of the future, we anticipate that 2009 and beyond will bring us closer to our vision of rendering poverty in America a distant memory. With sadness for his loss, and gratitude for his leadership, we dedicate this annual report to the memory of Dr. Allan Rosenfield, dean of the Mailman School for 22 years, and a tireless champion for low-income children and families, for NCCP and its mission, and for social justice across the entire world. --Jane Knitzer Director, NCC