What's New?
“It’s About Our Kids” Website Launches with Survey of Iowa
On Wednesday, September 1, 2010, Every Child Counts, the advocacy arm for the Child and Family Policy Center, launched itsaboutourkids.org to encourage Iowa voters to raise the visibility of children’s issues in the 2010 campaign.
“Two-thirds of the Iowa budget is directed to ensuring the health, safety, education and security of Iowa children and youth, but children’s issues receive nowhere near that level of attention during elections,” said Sheila Hansen, Director of Every Child Counts. “How our children fare is critical to Iowa’s vitality and economic future. Voters need to know how candidates for office will address critical child policy issues.”
Available on the site for the first time on Wednesday are the responses from Gov. Chet Culver and former Gov. Terry Branstad to a survey developed by 22 Iowa organizations to document candidates’ positions on children’s issues. The survey covers preschool and K-12 education, childhood poverty, child safety, support for infants and toddlers, after-school programs, and children’s health and mental health.
“We are grateful to the candidates for responding to the survey and providing their thoughtful comments,” said Charles Bruner, Director of the Child and Family Policy Center. “It shows their commitment to and understanding of children’s issues as a critical role of state government.”
Bruner indicated that the “It’s About Our Kids” website will post responses by the U.S. Senate candidates to a similar set of questions next week.
Visitors to itsaboutourkids.org will find:
• A Gubernatorial Voter’s Guide that can be downloaded in whole or by individual question.
• Links to Gubernatorial, U.S. Senate, and U.S. House websites and all position statements candidates have posted on their websites on child and family issues.
• Information about Iowa House and Senate candidates and links to the Republican and Democratic party platforms.
• Links to national and Iowa organizations that focus upon child policy issues from a diversity of policy perspectives – including the Iowa organizations that developed the survey.
• Information on how to register and to vote and how Iowans can take action to increase awareness of children’s issues.
Feminism and Poverty: New Directions in Advocacy and Public Policy
CFPC was one of 20 presentations at the Northwest Area Foundation's Grassroots & Groundwork national conference for reducing poverty and building community prosperity, held May 13 – 14 in
CFPC was invited to present on the "feminization of poverty" that spurred significant policy reforms in the past. The report and presentation, Feminism and Poverty: New Directions in Advocacy and Public Policy, reveal that women are at higher risks of poverty due to increased single parenting, decreased earnings for less-educated workers, and reduced support through Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. The presentation shows now is the time to mobilize a new movement against poverty on the basis of gender equity.
Webinar: Click on the button to listen to the presentation (you will be required to submit a first name):
Presentation : Click on the link below to view the pdf version of the presentation
Feminism and Poverty: New Directions in Advocacy and Public Policy
In partnership with Voices for
Early Learning Left Out, 3rd Edition
CFPC outlines opportunities for states to improve healthy development within federal health reform
CFPC has outlined sixteen different provisions within the Child Health Reauthorization Act (CHIPRA), the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act that offer states and communities the opportunity to strengthen primary, preventive, and developmental health services for children. CFPC also describes possible advocacy and foundation roles in effective implementation of these opportunities.
Click here for the most recent draft of Federal Health Reform and Children's Healthy Development: Opportunities for State and Community Advocacy and Foundation Action.
CFPC also revised the Healthy Child Story Book to reflect federal actions and indicate areas for state leadership in improving children's health. Many of the exemplary programs highlighted in the Healthy Child Story Book could be adapted and implemented within one or more of the federal provisions.
Click here for the revised Healthy Child Story Book.
CFPC assists Polk County Health Department with new children's mental health initiative
Extending a history of collaborative work, the Polk County Health Department (PCHD) contracted with the Child and
Project LAUNCH activities are supported by a five-year, $850,000 grant to the
To lay the groundwork for Project LAUNCH efforts, CFPC:
- performed an environmental scan of the mental health services currently available in the
- identified gaps and overlaps in those services;
- summarized local demographic and fiscal data;
- conducted interviews with over two dozen individuals working in health, social service and government organizations; and
- conducted five focus groups with parents to hear how they address the social, behavioral and developmental needs of their children.
The results of the scan showed that although Polk County has high-quality, innovative services addressing children's social-emotional and behavioral health, many are in short supply, and, as a whole, the system is complicated, poorly coordinated and sometimes difficult to access. Parents and policymakers alike stressed the need for respectful, culturally competent services to meet the needs of families in
Kevin Walker, President and CEO, Northwest Area Foundation
Tresa Undem, Vice President of the research firm of Lake Partners
Victor Elias, Andrew Berg, and Anne Discher, Child and Family Policy Center
To view the recorded webinar, click on the link below. You will need to provide your name before you can access the link (If you do not have Flash installed, you will be prompted to install Flash before viewing):
https://cc.readytalk.com/play?id=fx92ss
To download a pdf of the presentation, click on the link below:
Views on Poverty Solutions and Their State Policy Implications
CFPC develops draft Young Child Assessment for Des Moines Public Schools
CFPC collaborated with the Des Moines Public Schools to develop an assessment for use with preschool programs that can measure children’s development and readiness for kindergarten. A DMPS team examined current available tools, including DMPS progress reports and Iowa’s Early Learning Standards, to identify 25 different components for assessing children’s development. CFPC then incorporated these into a draft assessment tool for use by teachers and parents, including a statement of the skill area, background information describing the skill, a guide for assessing a child’s level in terms of beginning, development, or mastering, and tips for parents on what they can do to support school readiness.
For a description of the assessment and its use, click here for pdfs of the PowerPoint presentation.
For the most recent Draft Assessment/Progress Report tool click here.
For a primer on kindergarten assessments and their uses, click here for a SECPTAN policy brief on the subject.
Every Child Counts helps working Iowa families make ends meet
Through work with the Iowa Department of Human Services and state legislators, Every Child Counts was successful in securing additional support for working families by expanding Iowa's Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly food stamps) to upwards of 20,000 additional families with children, those generally making between 130% and 160% of the federal poverty.
Working with the Iowa Policy Project, Every Child Counts provided documentation that the expansion will provide over $20 million in additional benefits to families struggling to get by and $30 million in community and state economic activity. "From an economic perspective, this represents the largest anti-recessionary action Iowa government took this session," Peter Fisher, Director of the Iowa Policy Project, indicated. "This was possible due to the hard work and consensus building that Every Child Counts was able to do at the state capital, in partnership with the Iowa Policy Project. These actions do not grab the headlines, but they make a huge difference in working families lives who have been most affected by tough economic times." The new policies will go into effect later this fall.
CFPC partners with UCLA to develop a framework for integrated federal child information collection
CFPC Director Charles Bruner participated in a national conference March 19th, 2010, convened by Nemours with federal administrative leaders, to explore the potential leadership roles for the federal government in providing integrated child and family data to guide decision-making.
An Executive Summary of Making Kids Count: Building a Comprehensive National Early Childhood Data and Measurement System for the 21st Century was presented. This paper, prepared by the UCLA Center for Healthier Children, Families and Communities and the Child and Family Policy Center provided a broad framework for improving health data systems.
In addition, CPFC presented a document outlining six specific steps that the federal government could take to support states in developing early childhood data that can inform policy and practice.
Click on the links below to download the papers.
Making Kids Count: Building a Comprehensive National Early Childhood Data and Measurement System for the 21st Century (March 2010)
Voices for America's Children (and CFPC) recognized in Federal Child Health Reform
In her final remarks on health reform, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi recognized two organizations specifically for their role in advocating for reform - the American Association of Retired Persons and Voices for America's Children. AARP spends nearly $30 million annually lobbying Congress and is a national force on Medicare issues, while Voices relies upon its member organizations, including the Child and Family Policy Center, to provide evidenced-based advocacy at state capitols and the national capital, with collective funding for all advocacy less than one-third the size of AARP (and one fiftieth the size of the insurance industry).
CFPC helped found Voices' Child Health Advisory Committee, in which CFPC Executive Director Charles Bruner was its first chair. CFPC Senior Health Policy Associate Carrie Fitzgerald co-chairs its federal policy implementation task force. CFPC and Voices were successful in their efforts to include child developmental health provisions into both CHIP Reauthorization and the federal health reform provisions, with an emphasis upon preventive programs to improve children's healthy development. Click on the link below to download the CFPC Statement on Health Reform.
Draft Statement to Investors in Health Reform: Supporting Child Advocacy in Implementatio
Child and Family Policy Center Issues Brief on the State of Iowa’s Voluntary Statewide Preschool Program (VSPP)
The Child and Family Policy Center issued a brief describing Iowa’s progress in developing Iowa’s voluntary statewide preschool program (VSPP) for all four-year-olds. The brief showed that nearly two-thirds of Iowa four-year-olds will be served by one of several publicly-funded preschool programs (VSPP, Head Start, Shared Visions, Community Empowerment Preschool, and Part B/Special Education Preschool), if Iowa provides increased funding for VSPP this year, as set out in the Governor’s budget.
As VSPP goes into its fourth year of operation, the brief indicates opportunities to review the program and provide for expanded monitoring to ensure continuous improvement and greater coordination across the different public preschool programs.
To download the report, click on the link below:
The Status of Preschool in Iowa: Opportunities for Continuous Improvement and Development
CFPC releases Special Report on Iowa's immigrant population
Dreams and Opportunities: Immigrant Families and Iowa’s Future
Iowa is becoming more diverse, and children are leading the way. In Dreams and Opportunities: Immigrant Families and Iowa’s Future CFPC Senior Research Associate Michelle Stover Wright explores Iowa’s growing diversity and the opportunities these shifts present to the state, along with their policy implications in the education and development of Iowa’s youth.
The report answers many questions regarding Iowa’s immigrant, such as:
· Who are Iowa’s immigrants?
· What educational background do they bring?
· What are the work participation rates?
· Where do they work?
The report also offers policy implications for Iowa’s education system and other institutions that will be required to meet the growing diversity of Iowa’s youth population.
The download the report, click here.
Iowa Kids Count Report Released
While Iowans pride themselves on their state's overall level of literacy and educational quality Is Iowa Educationally Competitive? challenges such assumptions. A comparison of Iowa's adult workforce and its students' educational achievement with other states provides cause for concern.
Iowa's ranking among states has slipped substantially over the last two decades on significant educational measures, which requires a comprehensive examination of how Iowa can regain leadership in education and not fall into the bottom tier of states.
To download the report, click here.
On March 24, 2010, the National Center for Education Statistics released the 2009 NAEP reading scores for both 4th and 8th grade.
Click on the link below to download the update:
Phone: 515-280-9027 • Fax: 515-244-8997 • E-mail: info@cfpciowa.org