Welfare Reform and Poverty
Number of unique resources found: 107
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American Humane Association - Protecting Children
Description: This is the Web site for American Humane Association's Children's Services. The main goals of Children's Services are to advance child welfare practices, improve and enhance the capacity of child welfare systems, and prevent child maltreatment. They provide education and training, program evaluation, policy analysis and design, and advocacy. A number of fact sheets about child abuse can be found on this site as well as information anout the many programs offered by American Humane.
Description: This Web site offers a variety of information on child welfare topics. Sections on adoption, foster care, and abuse are included as well as "report cards" for child welfare in each state.
Consultative Group on Early Childhood Care and Development
Description: The Consultative Group on Early Childhood Care and Development (CGECCD) is a global inter-agency consortium with strong links to regional networks and a track record of advocacy and knowledge generation and dissemination at an international level. This site provides information about Early Childhood Care and Development of young children (0-8). A history of how this Consultative Group began and information on initiatives is provided along with resources relating to ECCD.
Description: The Food and Nutrition Service (FNS), formerly known as the Food and Consumer Service, administers the nutrition assistance programs of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The mission of FNS is to provide children and needy families better access to food and a more healthful diet through its food assistance programs and comprehensive nutrition education efforts.
National Center for Children in Poverty
Description: This website provides information on identifying and promoting strategies that prevent child poverty in the United States and that improves the lives of low-income children and families.
National Center for Children in Poverty (NCCP)
Description: This website identifies and promotes strategies that prevent child poverty in the United States and that improve the lives of low-income children and their families. It also provides links to articles and other resources concerning child poverty in the U.S.
National Center for Homeless Education
Description: This website provides information and links to help educators, service providers, and families ensure that homeless children and youth have access to educational opportunities and success in the classroom.
National Center for Homeless Education at SERVE
Description: This is the Web site for the National Center for Homeless Education. It provides information for educators, service providers, and parents on various aspects of education and homelessness including legal information, state and local resources, and publications. Some materials are available in Spanish.
– Evaluation –
Child care and employment: Evidence from random assignment studies of welfare and work programs
Description: An investigation into the effects of welfare reform policies and links between employment and child care choices, using data from random assignment pilot welfare programs begun between 1993 and 1996 in a variety of urban and rural areas in the United States.
Child care subsidies and leaving welfare: Policy issues and strategies
Description: The second part of a three-part study of the interaction between state and local welfare-to-work programs and child care assistance programs, focusing on child care subsidy use by parents in transition from TANF to employment.
Child care subsidies for TANF families: The nexus of systems and policies
Author: Adams, Gina (3 more by this author); Koralek, Robin; Holcomb, Pamela, A., Snyder, Kathleen; Capizzano, Jeffrey
Description: First of a three-part study of the interaction between state and local welfare-to-work programs and child care assistance programs, focusing on administrative structures, protocols and interagency coordination as they affect TANF parents.
Child care subsidies promote mothers' employment and children's development
Author: Henry, Colleen; Manita C. Rao; Misha Werschkul
Description: A summary of research on the relationship between high-quality child care, mothers' employment and child development.
Description: An analysis of the effects of changes in child care policies on the child care choices of families participating in pilot welfare and employment programs from the late 1980s to the early 1990s.
Description: Third in a series of reports using measures of the employment outcomes and family well-being of a sample of 1998 TANF grantees to assess the ongoing value of Illinois' 1997 welfare reforms.
Description: A study using longitudinal data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) 1993 and 1996 Panels to examine the effects of child care access and job quality on the employment duration and wage growth of former welfare recipients and working women.
Welfare Research Perspectives, Past, Present, and Future, 2002 Edition
Author: Blum, Barbara
Description: The National Center for Children in Policy's 2002 Edition of Welfare Research Perspectives. Research findings provide valuable information about the effects that welfare changes have on families receiving public assistance.
– General Information –
Author: Lowe, Edward; Weisner, Thomas S.
Description: A study of the factors explaining the low and episodic use of center-based child care and child care subsidy programs, on the basis of data from the New Hope Ethnographic Study.
Description: This tool, part of CLASP's Charting Progress for Babies in Child Care project, is designed to provide a policy framework that lays out child care subsidy policies that can be implemented to better support babies and toddlers and their families. Users can download and save a copy of this tool, then fill in the appropriate columns with their state's current policies and opportunities for change.
America’s Children in Brief, 2012
Description: Prepared by the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics, the report highlights 14 of the report’s 41 key indicators on important aspects of children’s lives and features 7 domains--family and social environment, economic circumstances, health care, physical environment and safety, behavior, education, and health. Includes indicator tables and figures.
The full report is available in pdf along with the press release.
Basic Facts About Low-Income Children 2010: Children Aged 6 to 11
Author: Addy, Sophia (2 more by this author); Vanessa R. Wright
Description: This fact sheet describes general demographic characteristics of children aged 6 through 11, in low-income families; their number and proportion, where they live and how often they move, if they have health insurance, their age distribution, race, and ethnicity, and their parent's education, employment, marital status, income level, and country of origin. It has been designed to provide comparable data for different age groups because young children are more likely to live in low-income families.
Basic Facts About Low-Income Children 2010: Children Under Age 3
Author: Addy, Sophia (2 more by this author); Vanessa R. Wright
Description: This fact sheet describes general demographic characteristics of children under the age of 3, in low-income families; their number and proportion, where they live and how often they move, if they have health insurance, their age distribution, race, and ethnicity, and their parent's education, employment, marital status, income level, and country of origin. It has been designed to provide comparable data for different age groups because young children are more likely to live in low-income families.
Basic Facts About Low-Income Children 2010: Children Under Age 6
Author: Addy, Sophia (2 more by this author); Vanessa R. Wright
Description: This fact sheet describes general demographic characteristics of children, birth to age 6, in low-income families; their number and proportion, where they live and how often they move, if they have health insurance, their age distribution, race, and ethnicity, and their parent's education, employment, marital status, income level, and country of origin. It has been designed to provide comparable data for different age groups because young children are more likely to live in low-income families.
Basic Facts About Low-Income Children: Birth to Age 18 (2008)
Author: Douglas-Hall, Ayana (2 more by this author); Chau, Michelle
Description: This fact sheet describes general demographic characteristics of children ages birth to age 18 in low-income families; their number and proportion, where they live and how often they move, their age distribution, race, and ethnicity, and their parent's education, employment, marital status, and country of origin. It has been designed to provide comparable data for different age groups because young children are more likely to live in low-income families.
Basic Facts About Low-Income Children: Birth to Age 3 (2008)
Author: Douglas-Hall, Ayana (2 more by this author); Chau, Michelle
Description: This fact sheet describes general demographic characteristics of children, birth to age 3, in low-income families; their number and proportion, where they live and how often they move, their age distribution, race, and ethnicity, and their parent's education, employment, marital status, and country of origin. It has been designed to provide comparable data for different age groups because young children are more likely to live in low-income families.
Basic Facts About Low-Income Children: Birth to Age 6 (2008)
Author: Douglas-Hall, Ayana (2 more by this author); Chau, Michelle
Description: This fact sheet describes general demographic characteristics of children, birth to age 6, in low-income families; their number and proportion, where they live and how often they move, their age distribution, race, and ethnicity, and their parent's education, employment, marital status, and country of origin. It has been designed to provide comparable data for different age groups because young children are more likely to live in low-income families.
Building a Competitive Future Right from the Start: How Paid Leave Strengthens 21st Century Families
Author: Ochshorn, Susan; Curtis Skinner
Description: This paper provides a brief history of paid family leave policy, in the United States and abroad; synthesizes cutting-edge knowledge about paid leave and its impact on family and civic life; and concludes with a set of recommendations – for policymakers, researchers, public health and early childhood stakeholders, business leaders, and federal,
state, and local education agencies – to guide the work going forward.
Building Public Early Childhood Data Systems for a Multi-Ethnic Society
Author: Bruner, Charles (13 more by this author); Betty Emarita
Description: This resource brief describes some of the issues and opportunities states face in building early childhood data systems for a multi-ethnic society.
As states are developing early childhood systems, they also are
developing data systems that provide information about young children
and their families and the public services that are provided to them.
Some of this information is for basic monitoring and claims processing
purposes, but states increasingly seek to design data systems that can
be used to evaluate program strategies, identify gaps in services, and
support continuous learning and results accountability.
Child care subsidies and TANF: A synthesis of three studies on systems, policies, and parents
Description: A summary of findings from a three-part study of the interaction between state and local welfare-to-work programs and child care assistance programs, focusing on administrative structures, protocols and interagency coordination as they affect administrators and TANF parents, child care subsidy use by parents in transition to work, and the experiences of current and former TANF recipients with the subsidy system.
Child care subsidies for TANF families: The nexus of systems and policies
Author: Adams, Gina (3 more by this author); Koralek, Robin; Holcomb, Pamela, A., Snyder, Kathleen; Capizzano, Jeffrey
Description: First of a three-part study of the interaction between state and local welfare-to-work programs and child care assistance programs, focusing on administrative structures, protocols and interagency coordination as they affect TANF parents.
Child Care Subsidy Policies and Practices: Implications for Child Care Providers
Author: Adams, Gina (3 more by this author); Kathleen Snyder
Description: This brief (and the larger report upon which it is based) takes initial steps toward filling the gap in our knowledge of child care providers and how they experience the subsidy system, and the effects of subsidy policies and practices on provider’s willingness and ability to participate. These issues are particularly important because one of the cornerstones of the federal Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) is the principle that families receiving subsidies should have “equal access” to child care that is comparable to the care available to nonsubsidized children.
Child Food Insecurity: The Economic Impact on our Nation
Author: Cook, John (2 more by this author); Karen Jeng
Description: A report commissioned by Feeding America and The ConAgra Foods Foundation, and written by Children's HealthWatch, details the impacts that food insecurity in children has on the nation's economic future. The report explores data from Children's HealthWatch and other literature that demonstrates how food insecurity and hunger with other correlates of poverty can significantly alter the architecture of children's brains, thus affecting their ability to reach their full potential as adults.
Children Cared for by Relatives: What Do We Know about Their Well-Being?
Author: Billing, Amy (1 more by this author); Katherine Kortenkamp; Jennifer Ehrle
Description: This research brief examines the well-being of children living in kinship care. This study focuses on behavioral and emotional well-being, school and activity experiences, interaction with adults and physical health. Also available in PDF.
Children, Families, and Foster Care: Analysis and Recommendations 
Author: Bass, Sandra; Richard E. Behrman; Margie K. Shields
Description: An analysis of the current state of foster care and a discussion of specific measures for enhancing the accountability of the child welfare system and improving how children and families experience foster care.
Climbing the Ladder of Reading Proficiency: Atlanta Civic Site
Description: This report tells how a group of parents, educators, community-based service providers, funders, and education experts created the Dunbar Learning Complex with the goal of permanently changing the path of children living in poverty. This unique educational model was
launched in January 2010. Since then, 374 children, ages six weeks to PreK, have enrolled at the ELLRC and 385 are currently enrolled at Dunbar Elementary School, an Atlanta public school serving children from kindergarten through fifth grade. The report shares the impact of those efforts on children and their parents, two years later.
Continuity and stability: Dynamics of child care subsidy use in Oregon
Description: A comparative study of child care subsidy programs in five states, focusing on length of subsidy receipt and provider stability for Oregon families, compared to those in Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, and Texas.
Author: DeBord, Karen (61 more by this author); Rebekah F. Canu
Description: Fact sheet on decision making for parents making the transition from welfare to work.
Economic Success Clearinghouse
Description: The Welfare Information Network Web site provides information regarding program issues (such as child support, domestic violence, and substance abuse), management issues (such as agency reorganization and state and local collaboration), and research issues.
Ensuring Success for Young Children: Early Childhood Literacy
Description: Research shows that reading abilities in third grade act as a tell-tale barometer for later school success, since children who read at grade level are more likely to graduate from high school. And those who graduate from high school are more likely to pursue further education or get a job. This discussion guide for small foundations explores strategies for supporting nonprofits that provide early childhood education programs and services, especially those that focus on early childhood literacy and reading at grade level by third grade.
Ensuring Success For Young Children: Transition to Kindergarten
Description: Research shows that as much as half of school failure may be due to gaps in school readiness even before children transition to kindergarten. This discussion guide for small foundations explores strategies for supporting nonprofits that provide early childhood education programs and services, especially those that focus on ensuring school readiness and smoothing transition to kindergarten.
Extending Home Visiting to Kinship Caregivers and Family, Friend, and Neighbor Caregivers
Description: The report explores how home visiting programs are serving children in kinship care and in family, friend, and neighbor care, based on CLASP's interviews with major national models of home visiting and other stakeholders. It also presents detailed considerations for implementing home visiting with these caregivers, including matters of curricula, staffing, and service referral, and discusses opportunities that result from serving these caregivers. It concludes with recommendations for states and the federal government.
Federal Policy for Immigrant Children: Room for Common Ground?
Author: Haskins, Ron (1 more by this author); Shawn Femsted; Mark Greenberg
Description: This policy brief, part of the Future of Children Policy Brief Series by the Brookings Institution, offers differing views from its authors on how to improve the well-being of children in immigrant families to work through such policies as education and training and the earned income tax credit for families with children.
Getting and retaining child care assistance: How policy and practice influence parents experiences
Author: Adams, Gina (3 more by this author); Sandfort, Jodi R.; Snyder, Kathleen
Description: A study of parents' interaction with the child care subsidy system and how state and local subsidy policies and practices affect parents' experiences. Particular attention is paid to the process of applying for and retaining subsidies.
Horizons for Homeless Children
Description: This is the website of Horizons for Homeless Children whose mission is to improve the lives of homeless children and their families in MA. We provide homeless children in Massachusetts with the nurturing, stimulation and opportunities for early education and play that all children need to learn and grow in healthy ways.
Horizons for Homeless Children improves the lives of homeless children by providing early care and education in our Community Children's Centers, creating Playspaces (recreational spaces) in shelters throughout Massachusetts and recruiting thousands of volunteers to help us in our efforts. Horizons for Homeless Children is a leader in advocating for homeless children and their families. At the local, state and federal levels, we promote and support policies that will benefit homeless children and families. We also share our knowledge and expertise with other service providers.
Description: Large numbers of immigrant children are experiencing serious problems—inadequate education, poor physical and mental health, and poverty—that compromise their assimilation into American society. The purpose of this volume is to examine the well-being of these children and what might be done to improve their educational attainment, health, social and cognitive development, and long-term prospects for economic mobility.
This volume has an executive summary, policy brief, and 10 chapters/articles for downloading as PDF.
Improving Early Reading Skills for Children in Poverty
Author: Kainz, K; Vernon-Feagas, L
Description: This news brief discusses researchers from FPG Child Development Institute and the School of Education at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who found that classroom and school characteristics had a larger effect on student’s long-term reading abilities than the method of instruction or the child’s background.
Specifically, they found that children attending minority segregated schools, schools where the minority population exceeded 75 percent of the student enrollment, underperformed even after controlling for the quality of their literacy instruction, the reading abilities of the classroom peer group, and characteristics of the students and their families.
KIDSCOUNT Data Snapshot on Children Living in High-Poverty Communities
Description: This Data Snapshot highlights newly available national, state, and city data in the KIDS COUNT Data Center that shows a 25 percent increase in the number of children residing in areas of concentrated poverty since 2000. The snapshot indicates how high-poverty communities are harmful to children, outlines regions in which concentrated poverty has grown the most, and offers recommendations to address these issues.
Low Income and Impoverished Families Pay More Disproportionately for Child Care
Author: Smith, Kristin (1 more by this author); Kristi Gozjolko
Description: This brief demonstrates how working families with young children who are living in poverty pay nearly five times more than families living at more than 200 percent of the poverty level.
Measure by Measure: The Current Poverty Measure v. the National Academy of Sciences Measure
Author: Smith, Dorothy
Description: This report highlights alternative poverty measures for each state and the District of Columbia using a Census tool that calculates alternative measures based on a National Academy of Sciences recommendation and an NAS recommendation that considers geographic price difference adjustment.
Author: Kinukawa, Akemi; Lippman, Laura; Guzman, Lina
Description: A research brief using data from the National Household Education Survey, 2001, to examine the characteristics and child care arrangements of children aged zero to six receiving child care subsidies.
Navigating the child care subsidy system: Policies and practices that affect access and retention
Author: Adams, Gina (3 more by this author); Sandfort, Jodi R.; Snyder, Kathleen
Description: This news brief summarizes the results of a study of child care subsidy policies and practices that can affect parents' interaction with the subsidy agency, the subsidy application process, and subsidy retention.
New Findings on Welfare and Children
Description: The National Academic Press has posted an on-line browsable book titled "New Findings on Welfare and Children's Development: Summary of a Research Briefing."
Parents and the High Cost of Child Care: 2012 Report
Description: This report provides information about the cost of child care from a recent survey of Child Care Resource and Referral (CCR&R) State Network offices and local agencies. Child care costs were reported for infants, 4-year-olds, and school-age care in centers and family child care homes.
Penny Wise, Pound Foolish: Why Fighting Child Poverty in the Great Recession Makes Sense
Author: Holzer, Harry
Description: Child poverty generates serious long-term economic costs not only for those children (when they become adults), but for the U.S. economy as a whole. This paper argues that these long-term costs will rise because of the Great Recession, as child poverty rises substantially and remains elevated for years to come. Children growing in newly poor families, and/or those whose parents suffer permanent job loss, will likely have worse educational and employment outcomes. Those young people who enter the labor market during this period will suffer reduced earnings as well. This will impose fiscal as well as economic costs on the U.S. in the future. Investments to reduce child poverty in both the short and long-terms thus make economic sense for the U.S., despite the nation’s ongoing fiscal crisis.
Predictors of child care subsidy use
Description: A review of research on factors influencing child care subsidy use among eligible families.
Author: Bruner, Charles (13 more by this author)
Description: This essay provides an overview of two different but potentially complementary approaches to poverty reduction: “community-building and social justice pathways to community vitality” and “work pathways to economic self-sufficiency.” It then discusses the role of advocacy in developing policies that can support these approaches.
Rethinking the Medicaid Child Support Cooperation Requirement
Author: Roberts, Paula (2 more by this author)
Description: This news brief provided by CLASP helps to weigh the costs and benefits of the Medicaid Child Support Cooperation Agreement. It discusses issues surrounding single-parent families, health care coverage for children and pregnant women, child support services, medical support, and parent location services.
Author: Rogers, Carolyn
Description: Economic Information Bulletin No. (EIB1) 6 pp, April 2005
This report provides the latest information on the demographic, social, and economic characteristics of rural children in families. Child poverty in 21st century America is higher (18 percent in 2003) than the rate for the general population (12.5 percent), as well as above the rates in most other industrialized countries. Child poverty is a significant social problem that negatively affects children's development. Although rural child poverty rates declined in the 1990s, they remain higher than the rates for urban children (21 percent vs. 18 percent). In 2003, 2.7 million rural children were poor, representing 36 percent of the rural poor. Nonmetro children are more likely than metro children to receive food stamps and free or reduced-price school lunches, in part a reflection of higher nonmetro poverty. The geographic distribution of child poverty—heavily concentrated in the South—is important for targeting poverty reduction policies and program assistance such as child nutrition programs, food stamps, and health insurance coverage in rural areas.
State Child Care Assistance Policies 2010: New Federal Funds Help States Weather the Storm
Author: Schulman, Karen (4 more by this author); Helen Blank
Description: A new report from the National Women's Law Center finds that ARRA/stimulus funds helped states avoid cuts to their child care assistance policies between 2009 and 2010. The report finds that most states did not have major changes in their child care assistance policies, including income eligibility limits, waiting lists, parent copayments, and reimbursement rates, despite cuts to other programs during the same time frame. However, now that states are beginning to exhaust these funds, child care assistance programs may be at risk of cuts without additional funding.
Description: A survey of actions taken by southern states to implement a regional action plan to improve access to child care assistance for low-income families. Includes a table with action steps and progress of specific southern states. (AL, AR, DE, DC, FL, GA, KY, LA, MD, MS, MO, NC, OK, SC, TN, TX, VA, WV)
Strategies to support child care subsidy access and retention: Ideas from seven Midwestern states
Author: Snyder, Kathleen; Adams, Gina; Banghart, Patti
Description: An overview of the child care subsidy policies and strategies in place in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin in 2005, focusing on access to and retention of subsidies.
The dynamics of child care subsidy use: A collaborative study of five states
Description: A multi-state study of child care subsidy dynamics from July 1997 to June 1999 in Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Oregon, and Texas.
Uninsured Children in the South (Third Edition)
Author: Ravenell, Nicole; Kathryn Luchok
Description: This third edition of Uninsured Children in the South is the first since the inception of SCHIP. In
addition to providing state-by-state estimates of uninsured children in the southern region, this
report also provides state estimates of uninsured pregnant women at the time of delivery to the
extent that these data are available. This report defines the southern region as 17 states and the District of Columbia and contains fact sheets showing estimates of uninsured children for each of these states as well as for the District of Columbia. This report reviews the impact of expanding Medicaid and SCHIP to those states.
Who are America’s Poor Children? The Official Story
Author: Fass, Sarah (1 more by this author); Cauthen, Nancy K.
Description: This fact sheet provides information on the number of children living in poverty in America. Over 13 million American children live in families with incomes below the federal poverty level, which is $21,200 a year for a family of four in 2008. The number of children living in poverty increased by 15 percent between 2000 and 2007. There are 1.7 million more children living in poverty today than in 2000. It includes an explanation of how poverty is determined and how many children fall into that category.
Also available in html at http://www.nccp.org/publications/pub_843.html.
Why do they leave?: Child care subsidy use in Oregon
Description: An investigation into why Oregon parents leave the child care subsidy system and a comparison of those findings to studies examining why eligible parents did not take up subsidies.
Description: This Web page provides information and links to other sources concerning the issue of women's health policies.
Workforce Development, Welfare Reform, and Child Well-Being
Description: This brief summarizes evidence from a series of evaluations of family self-sufficiency programs. These studies show that policies can be successful in achieving both positive economic benefits for parents (increased employment, for example) and positive educational effects on their children. It need not be the case that increasing mothers’ work effort, for example, simply increases their time away from the family and harms their children. Certain types of economic policies can in fact benefit children’s school performance and social behavior.
– Professional Development –
Children, Families, and Foster Care: Analysis and Recommendations
Author: Bass, Sandra; Richard E. Behrman; Margie K. Shields
Description: An analysis of the current state of foster care and a discussion of specific measures for enhancing the accountability of the child welfare system and improving how children and families experience foster care.
Five Commentaries: Looking to the Future
Author: Badeau, Susanna; Ernestine S. Gray; Will Lightbourne; Alfred G. Perez
Description: A series of responses from experts representing various disciplines and backgrounds to the question: "How can the child welfare system be improved to better support families and promote the healthy development of children in foster care?"
HIGH/SCOPE Perry Preschool Project
Description: The HIGH/SCOPE Perry Preschool Project is a longitudinal study that has examined the lives of African Americans born into poverty and has tracked their academic achievements to determine if they are at higher-risk for academic failure than others. With the findings the researchers hope to develop programs and policies to aid in the education of poor African Americans.
Safety and Stability for Foster Children: The Policy Context
Author: Allen, MaryLee; Mary Bissell
Description: A detailed analysis of the federal foster care policy framework and a discussion of policy recommendations for improving the foster care system.
State Child Care Assistance Policies 2010: New Federal Funds Help States Weather the Storm
Author: Schulman, Karen (4 more by this author); Helen Blank
Description: A new report from the National Women's Law Center finds that ARRA/stimulus funds helped states avoid cuts to their child care assistance policies between 2009 and 2010. The report finds that most states did not have major changes in their child care assistance policies, including income eligibility limits, waiting lists, parent copayments, and reimbursement rates, despite cuts to other programs during the same time frame. However, now that states are beginning to exhaust these funds, child care assistance programs may be at risk of cuts without additional funding.
– Programming Resource –
Better Strategies for Babies: Strengthening the Caregivers and Families of Infants and Toddlers
Author: Gilman, Elizabeth; Ann Colins
Description: Families in poverty often have specific challenges to obtaining quality child care. This report outlines these challenges and offers promising strategies for improving child care for low-income families. The executive summary and full text are available in pdf.
Children, Families, and Foster Care: Analysis and Recommendations
Author: Bass, Sandra; Richard E. Behrman; Margie K. Shields
Description: An analysis of the current state of foster care and a discussion of specific measures for enhancing the accountability of the child welfare system and improving how children and families experience foster care.
Author: DeBord, Karen (61 more by this author); Rebekah F. Canu
Description: Fact sheet on decision making for parents making the transition from welfare to work.
ECONOMIC SUCCESS CLEARINGHOUSE
Description: This website provides a comprehensive clearinghouse for information, policy analysis and technical assistance on welfare reform and issues related to welfare.
Federal Policy for Immigrant Children: Room for Common Ground?
Author: Haskins, Ron (1 more by this author); Shawn Femsted; Mark Greenberg
Description: This policy brief, part of the Future of Children Policy Brief Series by the Brookings Institution, offers differing views from its authors on how to improve the well-being of children in immigrant families to work through such policies as education and training and the earned income tax credit for families with children.
Five Commentaries: Looking to the Future
Author: Badeau, Susanna; Ernestine S. Gray; Will Lightbourne; Alfred G. Perez
Description: A series of responses from experts representing various disciplines and backgrounds to the question: "How can the child welfare system be improved to better support families and promote the healthy development of children in foster care?"
HIGH/SCOPE Perry Preschool Project
Description: The HIGH/SCOPE Perry Preschool Project is a longitudinal study that has examined the lives of African Americans born into poverty and has tracked their academic achievements to determine if they are at higher-risk for academic failure than others. With the findings the researchers hope to develop programs and policies to aid in the education of poor African Americans.
National Coalition for the Homeless
Description: This website provides facts and policy information on homelessness. The National Coalition of the Homeless (NCH) is dedicated to ending homelessness, and uses many approaches to reducing homelessness.
Poverty and Brain Development in Early Childhood
Description: This fact sheet describes the multiple ways in which poverty negatively impacts children's brain development. Inadequate nutrition, substance abuse, maternal depression, exposure to environmental toxins, trauma/abuse, and quality of daily care are discussed.
Author: Rogers, Carolyn
Description: Economic Information Bulletin No. (EIB1) 6 pp, April 2005
This report provides the latest information on the demographic, social, and economic characteristics of rural children in families. Child poverty in 21st century America is higher (18 percent in 2003) than the rate for the general population (12.5 percent), as well as above the rates in most other industrialized countries. Child poverty is a significant social problem that negatively affects children's development. Although rural child poverty rates declined in the 1990s, they remain higher than the rates for urban children (21 percent vs. 18 percent). In 2003, 2.7 million rural children were poor, representing 36 percent of the rural poor. Nonmetro children are more likely than metro children to receive food stamps and free or reduced-price school lunches, in part a reflection of higher nonmetro poverty. The geographic distribution of child poverty—heavily concentrated in the South—is important for targeting poverty reduction policies and program assistance such as child nutrition programs, food stamps, and health insurance coverage in rural areas.
Safety and Stability for Foster Children: The Policy Context
Author: Allen, MaryLee; Mary Bissell
Description: A detailed analysis of the federal foster care policy framework and a discussion of policy recommendations for improving the foster care system.
Starting School at a Disadvantage: The School Readiness of Poor Children
Author: Isaacs, Julia (1 more by this author)
Description: The Brookings Institute recently published a new report, which shows that only 48% of poor children are ready for school at age five, compared to 75% of children from families with moderate and high income, a 27 percentage point gap. The paper discusses why poor children are less ready for school and evaluates three interventions that can improve their school readiness.
Preschool programs offer the most promise for increasing children’s school readiness, according to a simple simulation that models the effects of three different interventions. Expanding preschool programs for four-year olds has more direct effects on school readiness at age five than either smoking cessation programs during pregnancy or nurse home visiting programs to pregnant women and infants, the two other alternatives considered.
Supporting Infants and Toddlers in the Child Welfare System: The Hope of Early Head Start
Description: This technical assistance paper will discuss the health, developmental, and mental health risks to infants and toddlers in the child welfare system and how EHS can have a positive effect. The second half of the paper will highlight some of the unique ways that EHS programs participating in a demonstration project have established formal partnerships with their local child welfare agencies to better meet the needs of the children and families who are involved in the child welfare system in their communities.
Author: Reardon, Sean
Description: In new report, findings from a Stanford study show that the gap in test scores between wealthy and poor children has grown by about 40% since 1960 and is now nearly twice as large as the black-white achievement gap. The Stanford researcher who conducted the study suggests that early childhood interventions might be the best way to start bridging the gap.
Welfare Research Perspectives, Past, Present, and Future, 2002 Edition
Author: Blum, Barbara
Description: The National Center for Children in Policy's 2002 Edition of Welfare Research Perspectives. Research findings provide valuable information about the effects that welfare changes have on families receiving public assistance.
– Research –
Author: Lowe, Edward; Weisner, Thomas S.
Description: A study of the factors explaining the low and episodic use of center-based child care and child care subsidy programs, on the basis of data from the New Hope Ethnographic Study.
Author: Lara-Cinisomo, Sandraluz; Maggio, Elizabeth; Berends, Mark; Pebley, Anne; Vaiana, Mary E.; Lucas, Samuel
Description: What factors have the most impact on educational achievement? This article in this issue of RAND argues that socioeconomic factors have a more significant impact on educational achievement than race, ethnicity, and immigrant status.
Access to child care for low-income working families
Description: This report explores the magnitude of the gap between the demand for child care subsidy assistance and the actual acquisition among low-income, subsidy eligible families.
Author: Layzer, Jean; Brown-Lyons, Melanie; Goodson, Barbara D.
Description: This is the executive summary of the National Study of Child Care for Low-Income Families, a ten-year research effort designed to provide federal, state and local policy makers with information on the effects of federal, state and local policies and programs on child care at the community level, and on the employment and child care decisions of low-income families. It also provides insights into the characteristics and functioning of family child care, a type of care frequently used by low-income families, and the experiences of parents and their children with this form of care. Full report at http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/opre/cc/nsc_low_income/reports/care_home/care_home.pdf
Child care and employment: Evidence from random assignment studies of welfare and work programs
Description: An investigation into the effects of welfare reform policies and links between employment and child care choices, using data from random assignment pilot welfare programs begun between 1993 and 1996 in a variety of urban and rural areas in the United States.
Description: A brief on the effects of welfare reform on child care.
Child care as a barrier to employment
Description: An analysis of the relationship between labor market, health, family, and child care problems and work outcomes for a random sample of mothers receiving cash assistance in an urban Michigan county in February 1997.
Child Care Assistance Helps Families Work: A Review of the Effects of Subsidy Receipt on Employment
Author: Matthews, Hannah (2 more by this author)
Description: This policy brief reviews relevant research on the relationship between child care
assistance/subsidy and employment and finds that accessing child care subsidy is associated with positive employment outcomes for low-income workers. Low-income mothers who receive child care assistance are more likely to be employed, to stay off welfare, and to have higher earnings.
Child care subsidies and leaving welfare: Policy issues and strategies
Description: The second part of a three-part study of the interaction between state and local welfare-to-work programs and child care assistance programs, focusing on child care subsidy use by parents in transition from TANF to employment.
Child care subsidies and TANF: A synthesis of three studies on systems, policies, and parents
Description: A summary of findings from a three-part study of the interaction between state and local welfare-to-work programs and child care assistance programs, focusing on administrative structures, protocols and interagency coordination as they affect administrators and TANF parents, child care subsidy use by parents in transition to work, and the experiences of current and former TANF recipients with the subsidy system.
Child care subsidies for TANF families: The nexus of systems and policies
Author: Adams, Gina (3 more by this author); Koralek, Robin; Holcomb, Pamela, A., Snyder, Kathleen; Capizzano, Jeffrey
Description: First of a three-part study of the interaction between state and local welfare-to-work programs and child care assistance programs, focusing on administrative structures, protocols and interagency coordination as they affect TANF parents.
Child care subsidies promote mothers' employment and children's development
Author: Henry, Colleen; Manita C. Rao; Misha Werschkul
Description: A summary of research on the relationship between high-quality child care, mothers' employment and child development.
Child Care Subsidy Policies and Practices: Implications for Child Care Providers
Author: Adams, Gina (3 more by this author); Kathleen Snyder
Description: This brief (and the larger report upon which it is based) takes initial steps toward filling the gap in our knowledge of child care providers and how they experience the subsidy system, and the effects of subsidy policies and practices on provider’s willingness and ability to participate. These issues are particularly important because one of the cornerstones of the federal Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) is the principle that families receiving subsidies should have “equal access” to child care that is comparable to the care available to nonsubsidized children.
Author: Joo Lee, Bong; Staveley, J., Stevens, D., Dryden Witte, A.; Georges, A., Wagmiller, R.L. Jr.,; Goerge, R., Reidy, M., Kreader, J.L.
Description: An analysis of the child care subsidy take-up rate, type of child care chosen, and relation between child care subsidy use and employment outcomes for single working mothers receiving TANF in Illinois, Maryland and Massachusetts.
Description: A study of how states set reimbursement rates and how subsidies and copayments permit families to use various forms of child care.
Children Cared for by Relatives: What Do We Know about Their Well-Being?
Author: Billing, Amy (1 more by this author); Katherine Kortenkamp; Jennifer Ehrle
Description: This research brief examines the well-being of children living in kinship care. This study focuses on behavioral and emotional well-being, school and activity experiences, interaction with adults and physical health. Also available in PDF.
Children Cared for by Relatives: What Services Do They Need? (PDF)
Author: Ehrle, Jennifer; Green, Rob
Description: This research brief shares data from the National Survey of America's Families which demonstrates that kin involved with child welfare agencies enjoy greater access to services compared with kin caring for children privately. Among low-income children in kinship care, 73 percent of those involved with child welfare agencies received government assistance compared to 25 percent of children in kinship families with no contact with child welfare agencies. Researchers analyzed receipt of TANF child-only payments, foster care payments, health insurance, food stamps, housing assistance, and child care. Also available in HTML at http://www.urban.org/publications/310511.html
Continuity and stability: Dynamics of child care subsidy use in Oregon
Description: A comparative study of child care subsidy programs in five states, focusing on length of subsidy receipt and provider stability for Oregon families, compared to those in Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, and Texas.
Author: Gennetian, Lisa (1 more by this author); Huston, Aletha C.; Danielle A. Crosby
Description: An examination of the effects of welfare and employment policies on child care outcomes for single parents, and their preschool- to young school-aged children, using data from experimental programs implemented between the late 1980s and the mid-1990s.
Essential but often ignored: Child care providers in the subsidy system
Description: An analysis of subsidy policies and practices that affect providers serving subsidized families, focusing on the amount providers are paid to care for subsidized children and how providers experience the subsidy system.
Author: Lynch, Robert (1 more by this author)
Description: This study demonstrates that providing all 20% of the nation's three- and four-year-old children who live in poverty, with a high-quality early childhood development (ECD) program, would have a substantial payoff for governments and taxpayers in the future. As those children grow up, costs for remedial and special education, criminal justice, and welfare payments would decline. Once in the labor force, their incomes would be higher, along with the taxes they would pay back to society.
A publicly financed, comprehensive ECD program for all children from low-income families would cost
billions of dollars annually, but would create much larger budget savings over time.
Description: Fragile families, defined as couples who are unmarried when their children are born, face greater economic and stability risks, which can endanger child wellbeing. The Future of Children volume, based on the nine year longitudinal fragile families study and other research explores the increase in the number of fragile families over the past fifty years and the ramifications of this reality, and recommends policies to ensure child wellbeing.
This URL provides access to the Journal articles and summaries.
Getting and retaining child care assistance: How policy and practice influence parents experiences
Author: Adams, Gina (3 more by this author); Sandfort, Jodi R.; Snyder, Kathleen
Description: A study of parents' interaction with the child care subsidy system and how state and local subsidy policies and practices affect parents' experiences. Particular attention is paid to the process of applying for and retaining subsidies.
HIGH/SCOPE Perry Preschool Project
Description: The HIGH/SCOPE Perry Preschool Project is a longitudinal study that has examined the lives of African Americans born into poverty and has tracked their academic achievements to determine if they are at higher-risk for academic failure than others. With the findings the researchers hope to develop programs and policies to aid in the education of poor African Americans.
Description: An analysis of the effects of changes in child care policies on the child care choices of families participating in pilot welfare and employment programs from the late 1980s to the early 1990s.
Immigrant Children in the United States Face Economic Hardship
Author: Hsien-Hen, Lu
Description: The National Center for Children in Poverty reports that the foreign-born population in the United States has increased by 57 percent since 1990 to reach a total of 30 million. In 2000, one out of every five children under the age of 18 in the United States was estimated to have at least one-foreign born parent.
Author: Burkam, David; Valerie E. Lee
Description: This report shows that the inequalities of children’s cognitive ability are substantial right from “the starting gate.” Disadvantaged children start kindergarten with significantly lower cognitive skills than their more advantaged counterparts. These same disadvantaged children are then placed in low-resource schools, magnifying the initial inequality.
Conclusions from the analysis and recommendations are included.
Long-Term Economic Benefits of Investing in Early Childhood Programs
Description: This research brief is a summary of a report for the Partnership for America's Economic Success that uses simulation models of U.S. state and national economies to estimate the long-run effects of early childhood program investments. The authors find that implementing proven programs for children would increase job growth and earnings, as well as boost future Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and government revenues.
Author: Herzenberg, Stephen (1 more by this author); Mark Price; David Bradley
Description: This booklet summarizes a new report that provides the hard numbers that ECE can no longer consistently attract and hold onto well-educated teachers. The report sounds the alarm on the pressing need for state and national policy to reverse the fall in the qualifications of ECE staff.
The full report is available as a pdf at this site.
Lost in the Maze: A Look at New York City's Fragmented Child Care Delivery System
Description: A report from the Welfare Law Center discussing the New York City child care subsidy system and offering focus group recommendations to help create an easy-to-use, seamless subsidy system.
Low Income Children in the United States: National and State Trend Data (1995-2005)
Author: Chau, Michelle; Ayana Douglas-Hall; Heather Koball
Description: This paper includes trends and statistics on low income children in the United States. More than one-third of children in the United States live in low income families.
Making Child Care Choices: How Welfare and Work Policies' Influence Parents Decisions
Author: Gennetian, Lisa (1 more by this author); Young Eun Chang, et al.; Danielle A. Crosby; Aletha C. Huston
Description: This policy brief examines whether current child care assistance provisions meet the needs of working families and support childrenÂ’s intellectual and social development. For low-income parents who work securing affordable, accessible, and reliable child care can be very difficult. Key research findings in the area of work and child care are summarized in this brief.
Author: Kinukawa, Akemi; Lippman, Laura; Guzman, Lina
Description: A research brief using data from the National Household Education Survey, 2001, to examine the characteristics and child care arrangements of children aged zero to six receiving child care subsidies.
National Study of Child Care for Low-Income Families: State and Community Substudy: Interim report
Description: A study of the responses of 17 states and 25 communities to the child care needs of low-income families.
Navigating the child care subsidy system: Policies and practices that affect access and retention
Author: Adams, Gina (3 more by this author); Sandfort, Jodi R.; Snyder, Kathleen
Description: This news brief summarizes the results of a study of child care subsidy policies and practices that can affect parents' interaction with the subsidy agency, the subsidy application process, and subsidy retention.
Parents receiving child care subsidies: Where do they work?
Description: A view from four states and the District of Columbia: A summary of findings from seven studies of the employment patterns of low-income parents receiving child care subsidies.
Parents' perspectives on child care subsidies and moving from welfare to work
Description: The third part of a three-part study of the interaction between state and local welfare-to-work programs and child care assistance programs, presenting focus group data on the experiences of current and former TANF recipients with the child care subsidy system.
Predictors of child care subsidy use
Description: A review of research on factors influencing child care subsidy use among eligible families.
Description: Third in a series of reports using measures of the employment outcomes and family well-being of a sample of 1998 TANF grantees to assess the ongoing value of Illinois' 1997 welfare reforms.
Author: Rogers, Carolyn
Description: Economic Information Bulletin No. (EIB1) 6 pp, April 2005
This report provides the latest information on the demographic, social, and economic characteristics of rural children in families. Child poverty in 21st century America is higher (18 percent in 2003) than the rate for the general population (12.5 percent), as well as above the rates in most other industrialized countries. Child poverty is a significant social problem that negatively affects children's development. Although rural child poverty rates declined in the 1990s, they remain higher than the rates for urban children (21 percent vs. 18 percent). In 2003, 2.7 million rural children were poor, representing 36 percent of the rural poor. Nonmetro children are more likely than metro children to receive food stamps and free or reduced-price school lunches, in part a reflection of higher nonmetro poverty. The geographic distribution of child poverty—heavily concentrated in the South—is important for targeting poverty reduction policies and program assistance such as child nutrition programs, food stamps, and health insurance coverage in rural areas.
Stability and change in child care and employment: Evidence from three states
Description: An examination of patterns of child care use and employment stability among welfare recipients in Connecticut, Florida, and Minnesota.
Description: A survey of actions taken by southern states to implement a regional action plan to improve access to child care assistance for low-income families. Includes a table with action steps and progress of specific southern states. (AL, AR, DE, DC, FL, GA, KY, LA, MD, MS, MO, NC, OK, SC, TN, TX, VA, WV)
Description: A study using longitudinal data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) 1993 and 1996 Panels to examine the effects of child care access and job quality on the employment duration and wage growth of former welfare recipients and working women.
Description: A study of the employment patterns and wage growth, from 2001 through 2003, of families in four Minnesota counties who received child care assistance in the first quarter of 2001.
Strategies to support child care subsidy access and retention: Ideas from seven Midwestern states
Author: Snyder, Kathleen; Adams, Gina; Banghart, Patti
Description: An overview of the child care subsidy policies and strategies in place in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin in 2005, focusing on access to and retention of subsidies.
The Benefits and Costs of Head Start
Author: Ludwig, Jens; Phillips, Deborah
Description: This article reviews other high quality preschool programs in addition to data on the effect of Head Start and concludes, "There is an accumulating body of suggestive evidence that Head Start is capable of generating long-term benefits and passes a benefit-cost test, at least for children who participated during the first few decades of the program. For today’s Head Start, we have rigorous evidence of shortterm impacts from a recent experimental evaluation. In the author's viewpoint, "In our view the key questions for expanding early childhood education are how, how much, and how soon, rather than if."
The Case for Investing in Disadvantaged Young Children
Author: Heckman, James (1 more by this author)
Description: This chapter in the report, Big Ideas for Children, Investing in Our Nation's Future, examines the origins of inequality and analyzes policies to alleviate it. Families play a powerful role in shaping adult outcomes. The accident of birth is a major source of inequality. Compared to 50 years ago, a greater fraction of American children are being born into disadvantaged families where investments in children are smaller than in advantaged families. Growing unassimilated immigrant populations in Western Europe create similar adverse trends there. Policies that supplement the child rearing resources available to disadvantaged families reduce inequality and raise productivity.
The dynamics of child care subsidy use: A collaborative study of five states
Description: A multi-state study of child care subsidy dynamics from July 1997 to June 1999 in Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Oregon, and Texas.
The Productivity Argument for Investing in Young Children
Author: Heckman, James (1 more by this author); Dimitriy V. Masterov
Description: This article presents the case for investing more in young American children who grow up in disadvantaged environments. Adverse environments place children at risk for social and economic failure. This article argues that, on productivity grounds, it makes sense to invest in young children from disadvantaged environments. Substantial evidence shows that these children are more likely to commit crime, have out-of-wedlock births, and drop out of school. Early interventions that partially remediate the effects of adverse environments can reverse some of the harm of disadvantage and have a high economic return. They benefit not only the children themselves, but also their children, as well as society at large.
The State of America's Children: 2010 Report
Description: CDF's The State of America's Children 2010, is a compilation of the most recent and reliable national and state-by-state data on poverty, health, child welfare, youth at risk, early childhood development, education, family income and gun violence.
According to the CDF report, children in America lag behind almost all industrialized nations on key child indicators. The United States has the unwanted distinction of being the worst among industrialized nations in relative child poverty, in the gap between rich and poor, in teen birth rates, and in child gun violence.
Download sections in pdf by topic.
Author: Knox, Virginia; Ellen K. Scott; Andrew S. London
Description: This policy brief describes research which examined the work and child care patterns of low-income families. It discusses the fact that families may find child care subsidy programs unhelpful and issues associated with informal child care.
Welfare Research Perspectives, Past, Present, and Future, 2002 Edition
Author: Blum, Barbara
Description: The National Center for Children in Policy's 2002 Edition of Welfare Research Perspectives. Research findings provide valuable information about the effects that welfare changes have on families receiving public assistance.
Welfare-to-work transitions for parents of infants: Indepth sudy of eight communities
Description: A study of welfare-to-work transitions for parents with infants in eight communities within six states.
Why do they leave?: Child care subsidy use in Oregon
Description: An investigation into why Oregon parents leave the child care subsidy system and a comparison of those findings to studies examining why eligible parents did not take up subsidies.
Working in Minnesota: Parents' employment and earinings in the Child Care Assistance Program
Description: An analysis of data on industry employment patterns of parents receiving subsidized child care to increase understanding of the impact of child care subsidies on their labor force participation and on the local economies in which the parents are employed