From the Urban Institute, this paper reviews the use and quality of care and education that children in low-income families receive. Authors focus on these issues and provide suggestions for better supporting the development of children in low-income families before they enter the public school system. Current public policies are focused on supporting parental work, child development, and the quality of market-based settings, and many policies do not focus on all three of these issues, which are important.

This GAO report reviews leveraging Federal dollars for Federal housing, community, and economic development programs. Leveraging funds can be useful for financing affordable housing and community and economic development programs, but can have limitations.

From the Funder’s Network, this paper examines how housing conditions can affect aspects of child well-being in their communities. The study reviews housing characteristics, such as the cost of housing, residential mobility, and the surrounding neighborhood on the health, social, and emotional well-being of children. Authors call for a more rigorous evaluation of existing housing programs and outcomes for children.

The African American Healthy Marriage Initiative is a component of the ACF Healthy Marriage Initiative and promotes a culturally competent strategy for fostering healthy marriage and responsible fatherhood, improving child well-being, and strengthening families within the African American Community. This newsletter is from the African American Healthy Marriage Initiative for the month of May. It provides information on Black Marriage Day and an overview of events from the month of March.

This publication is part of a series on examining strategies for financing supports and services to assist youth in foster care transition into adulthood. This brief reviews financial education and asset building strategies to support youth aging out of foster care, including partner agencies and resources that communities can leverage to support youth.

Evidence-based practice is the practice of applying the best available research evidence in the provision of health, behavior, and education services to enhance outcomes for serving families. This brief on evidenced-based practice is from Child Trends and reviews strategies for front line workers to bring research to practice. Additionally, authors provide strategies to help reduce the lag time between the identification and application of evidence-based practice and make evidenced-based research easily accessible to practitioners.

GAO conducted this study on dental services for children on Medicaid because the 31 million children on Medicaid are particularly vulnerable to tooth decay, which, if untreated, may lead to more serious health conditions. Research looked at the data that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) requires States to report on the provision of dental services. Children on Medicaid should have access to services to treat dental disease, as these services are critical for ensuring that children and adolescents are healthy and prepared to learn.

This paper focuses on poverty in the last 40 years in the United States, focusing on policy and poverty in the African American community. Between 1968 and 2005, the black poverty rate fell from 35 percent to about 25 percent. However, in 2005, blacks were more than three times as likely as whites to be in “deep poverty,” meaning incomes below 50 percent of poverty. Additionally, Hispanics were twice as likely as whites to be poor (8.6 percent versus 3.5 percent).

Thirty-five million Americans face hunger every day, and this study shows the economic costs that hunger has on the population as a whole. This research, from Harvard, Brandeis, and Loyola Universities, shows that Americans pay $90 billion per year for hunger issues in our country. Increasing funding for food stamps and nutrition programs could alleviate hunger in our country, while decreasing the financial burden.

Currently, most measures of poverty focus mainly on income and income level and do not include other aspects of economic status such as assets or debt. From the National Center for Children in Poverty, this fact sheet reviews the current measures of poverty in the United States. Authors also provide alternative ways that economic hardship can be measured to accurately portray poverty.