National Center for Children in Poverty, Bank Street Graduate School of Education

High-quality early childhood education can be a powerful building block for future academic success. Children in foster care, however, face unique challenges in accessing quality ECE programs. Our researchers Todd Grindal, Kirby Chow, Nancy Perez and Nicholas Ortiz have been working to change that. We’re excited to share three new publications that shed light on these challenges and offer actionable solutions. Our team’s findings—based on foster parent surveys and state data—highlight key challenges: ??? Foster parents struggle to find child care, sometimes declining placements as a result. ??? Children in foster care face more instability in their ECE arrangements. ??? Many eligible providers don’t consistently serve foster children. This work, supported by a grant from OPRE at the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) was performed in collaboration with the Arkansas Office of Early Childhood, the Arkansas Division of Children and Family Services, the National Center for Children in Poverty, Bank Street Graduate School of Education, Sheila Smith, Maribel Granja, and Dr. Nicola Edge at the UAMS - University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. Learn more and access all of the publications here: https://lnkd.in/euYCDenP

The?National Center for Children in Poverty (NCCP)?is please to announce its new?Legislative Library (version 1.1) https://lnkd.in/eYkKRSC7 which supplements other NCCP?resources?that support low-income families. The Legislative Library provides over 160 examples of state legislation in recent years?designed to expand or restrict families' access to support from TANF, SNAP, and state-level tax credits. Most bills included were proposed in the period from 2021 to 2025. Here are some key trends we see in bills introduced in 2025: Legislation around?work requirements?is picking up speed, particularly for?SNAP, and there are other significant attempts to restrict access to nutritional assistance, mostly connected to?purported fraud?or?restrictions on food purchases, such as candy or soft drinks. Most state bills relating to?TANF?cash assistance aimed to?expand eligibility, increase benefits, drop full-family sanctions, or otherwise increase the generosity of cash assistance for cash assistance recipients. A few states saw legislation that was proposed to restrict TANF access, but only a few of these bills were enacted. All of the legislation we collected relating to?state-level CTCs or EITCs was expansive?rather than restrictive. Bills included in the collection show states?creating new tax credits?as well as bills to?restructure or increase existing credits. We plan to update the Library with new legislation on an on-going basis, beginning in the coming weeks. The most up-to-date version of the Library can always be found using this link:?https://lnkd.in/eYkKRSC7. Please let us know if you have?feedback or are interested in a particular policy issue.

The National Center for Children in Poverty (NCCP) is pleased to announce "Basic Facts About Low-income Children: Children Under Age 9, 2023." https://lnkd.in/e_H7Mi59 At a time of heightened concern about vulnerable groups in the US, this brief uses ACS/Census data to highlight key facts that should inform policy debates about preserving and strengthening supports for children in their earliest years. These include the fact that: Over half (55 percent) of young, low-income children live in families with parents who work full-time/full year, while over a quarter (29 percent) live in families with parents who work part-time/part-year 17 percent of young Black children live in families experiencing deep poverty (income below half the federal poverty threshold); 15 percent of young American Indian or Alaska Native children experience this level of severe financial hardship Almost half (47 percent) of children in low-income families benefit from SNAP food assistance and 75 percent from public health insurance. The report includes links to NCCP resources showing current state opportunities to strengthen family economic security policies that help young children thrive.

The National Center for Children in Poverty (NCCP) is pleased to announce new resources to help advocates and policymakers understand state economic support policies that have been tied to reduced cases of child maltreatment, neglect, and foster care placements. States that adopt more policies to increase access to supports see greater positive impacts on child and family protection. These resources include: A 50-State Comparison of SNAP Policies Linked to Child and Family Protection: https://lnkd.in/evqSvQpY A 50-State Comparison of TANF Policies Linked to Child and Family Protection: https://lnkd.in/eez4aqxS NCCP's Family Economic Support (FES) team also provides a range of technical assistance supports tailored to individual states, including policy analysis, simulation and analysis of benefit cliffs, assistance with messaging, and facilitating stakeholder groups working to strengthen FES supports.

SRI Education researchers Kirby Chow, Christen P., and Todd Grindal, along with colleagues from the National Center for Children in Poverty, Bank Street Graduate School of Education and UAMS - University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, have published a new study examining Arkansas’s expulsion prevention policy in early care and education settings. The study explores how program leaders and teachers understand and implement the policy, their use of exclusionary discipline, and participation in professional development to address challenging behaviors. Findings reveal differences in policy awareness and discipline practices across program types, offering insights for strengthening policy supports and future research. To learn more, visit https://lnkd.in/g5XnBtJY.

The U.S. Administration for Children and Families recently released a new resource, the Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health Funding Compendium: https://lnkd.in/eh_2-Nqm We are happy to have been contributors to this resource, which will support states, territories, Tribes, and local communities in making full use of existing federal resources to address the mental health needs of young children and their families. The compendium promotes a strong foundation for mental health during the earliest, most critical years of a child’s life, and helps build the systems needed to serve families.

Our growing set of resources for advocates and policymakers provides details on states' options to increase the generosity of social benefit programs and increase families' access to them. Resources include: -Profiles of states' current TANF and SNAP policies, with options for strengthening these policies: https://lnkd.in/ecy_6Cnz -A 50-state comparison of TANF benefit amounts using multiple metrics: https://lnkd.in/eUWiGN2S -A 50-state comparison of restrictions on TANF access presenting five policy options: https://lnkd.in/e4Ug_Adv Additional resources explain state options for policy improvement for the EITC and CTC, strategies for addressing benefit cliffs, and approaches to reducing the harms of payday lending. The full collection of resources can be found here: https://lnkd.in/eqjswWiQ

TOMORROW! Register now for Two Systems, One Vision: Quality Early Care and Education for Children in Foster Care webinar and learn potential strategies for improving ECE access and quality for children in foster care: https://ow.ly/aImx50TJ4Bu

National Center for Children in Poverty, Bank Street Graduate School of Education, PRiSM Project, which promotes research-informed infant and early childhood mental health policies and scaled initiatives, has released eight new profiles. Read highlights below or visit https://lnkd.in/ePbt-ePZ to explore our full profiles. - California Medicaid is now supporting infant and early childhood mental health through dyadic behavioral health well-child visits, including the use of HealthySteps and DULCE models: https://lnkd.in/eYiBhzEm - In Fremont County, Colorado, the ECHO and Family Center Early Childhood Council is implementing community-wide social-emotional and risk factor screening and response: https://lnkd.in/eAMKCg9G - A Kansas initiative to deliver Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-Up (ABC) in home visiting, Part C Early Intervention, and other settings is helping to expand social-emotional support for young children: https://lnkd.in/eyPWp7pP - Massachusetts statewide training and support for DC:0-5 is helping more professionals better understand and address the mental health needs of infants and young children across the state: https://lnkd.in/emtnqpbu - Community-based family navigators in Minneapolis and Cook County in Minnesota are helping address critical needs and connect families to community supports: https://lnkd.in/e-wPFTKw - In New York, the PlayReadVIP intervention, designed for use in pediatric settings, is supporting responsive parenting, early relational health, and infant and early childhood mental health: https://lnkd.in/eWavYCdV - North Carolina’s Healthy Social Behaviors Project is helping child care centers address challenging behaviors and support social-emotional development for all children: https://lnkd.in/eHcaSRy2 - In Texas, a pilot program offering infant and early childhood mental health consultation to Part C Early Intervention providers supported young children’s healthy development from the start: https://lnkd.in/e-B94R53 #EarlyChildhood #MentalHealth

Sheila Smith and Maribel Granja, National Center for Children in Poverty, Bank Street Graduate School of Education, with colleagues from SRI Education and UAMS - University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences are presenting on topics related to preventing expulsion in preschool programs and helping young children in foster care access high-quality child care at the National Research Conference on Early Childhood this week. View the conference program for session details: https://lnkd.in/g_shXqk7 #NRCEC2024