Annie E. Casey Foundation

Congratulations to our President & CEO Lisa Hamilton for being named to The NonProfit Times Power & Influence Top 50 for 2024! This honor recognizes her leadership in driving positive change for kids and families nationwide, as well as the collective impact of the Foundation's staff, partners and grantees. Please join us in congratulating Lisa and all of the honorees for their inclusion on this year's prestigious list. https://lnkd.in/gghu8CFh

The Child Welfare Transformation Convening at the White House yesterday hosted by the Domestic Policy Council was filled with inspiration and innovation. I was thrilled to host a fireside chat with Marquan Teetz "MT", a youth advocate from Wichita, KS and Secretary Laura Howard of the Kansas Department for Children and Youth. They described the origins and early implementation of the SOUL Family approach, a new permanency option for young people in foster care which enables them to create a legal chosen family while retaining access to resources and supports AND connections to their biological family. What makes SOUL Family so special is that it was developed by a group of young people with lived experience in foster care with the Foundation's support. You can learn more about it here: https://lnkd.in/dVGqkjFm There were far too many highlights to mention them all but a few of my favorites: Opening remarks by Valerie Frost, a parent from Kentucky with lived experience who is a powerful advocate for investments in prevention services for families. She spoke to our board last year about her contributions to our Thriving Families, Stronger Children work in KY and brought us all to tears. Dr. Mona Hanna, a pediatrician from Flint, MI who started Rx Kids, a citywide cash prescription program for pregnant moms and babies designed to end infant poverty. https://flintrxkids.com/ Alex Briscoe from the California Children's Trust who said, "Young people who have overcome adversity make amazing superheroes!" to describe his work using Medicaid funding to train youth who have been in child welfare or juvenile justice for careers in emergency medical services. The Foundation is investing in the expansion of this program. www.emscorps.com Final remarks by Sixto Cancel, founder of Think of Us. I've known Sixto since he was a 17 year old participant in our Jim Casey Initiative. To see him using his extraordinary talents to lead a national nonprofit and give young people a voice in child welfare transformation fills me with hope. One speaker summed it up best -- "Let's work to build policies to protect our children and our potential!" I couldn't agree more and saw so much evidence of this momentum in the room.

When kids in foster care are placed in kinship caregiving arrangements, they’re able to more easily stay connected to their families, communities and cultures, which helps to improve their long-term outcomes. It’s crucial that states work to adapt kinship diversion policies that allow parents, rather than solely child welfare agencies, to make decisions about their children’s living arrangements.

Community In-Site is a new pod­cast, pro­duced with sup­port from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, featuring sto­ries and inter­views from within the Thriving Families, Safer Children network and others working to devel­op effec­tive, fam­i­ly-cen­tered sup­port sys­tems that pro­mote well-being and reduce unnec­es­sary child wel­fare involvement. Many of the episodes will highlight promis­ing com­mu­ni­ty-cen­tered approach­es because, as Casey's Sandra Gasca said in her recent Community In-Site episode: “If we’re focused on cre­at­ing a sys­tem that sup­ports fam­i­lies in a way that they don’t get involved with the child wel­fare sys­tem, the sup­port has to be cus­tomized for fam­i­lies and built at an indi­vid­ual lev­el with peo­ple with­in those com­mu­ni­ties." https://lnkd.in/ey36TRqc

“Togeth­er with Fam­i­lies is empow­er­ing par­ents, who know best what they need, to be part of build­ing solu­tions that keep fam­i­lies togeth­er and thriv­ing. We are eager to help oth­er orga­ni­za­tions learn from this inno­v­a­tive approach so more fam­i­lies can over­come the pover­ty-relat­ed chal­lenges that too often result in fam­i­ly separation.” – Feli­cia Kel­lum, senior asso­ciate with the Foundation’s Fam­i­ly Well-Being Strat­e­gy Group

At the start of the pandemic, K–12 students fell farther behind in math than other subject areas — losing the equivalent of half a grade level just between fall 2019 and 2022. Educators attribute this drop to several reasons, including the fact that math lessons often build on each other sequentially, the difficulty of teaching some math concepts virtually and a shortage of qualified math teachers.

Louisiana's future workforce depends on how well we prepare today's children. There are a lot of things our state can do to help our students catch up from pandemic-era learning loss, including expanding access to high-quality tutoring and creating more community schools. Learn more in the Annie E. Casey Foundation's 2024 KIDS COUNT Data Book. Go to: https://lnkd.in/grmC2ZRj

We often hear that children are our future, so why can’t we seem to make significant, systemic investments in our nation’s kids? Together with our friends at Leading for Kids, we recently released a new set of resources dedicated to reframing how we think and talk about kids by broadening Americans’ understanding of care. Caring for children is often seen as the responsibility of certain designated individuals, but when we understand care in such an individualized way, it can be hard to recognize the role that every single person and every single system plays in ensuring the wellbeing of young people. By helping people think about care as collective, inclusive, and expansive, we can move the narrative in a more positive direction. Take a look at the resources: https://bit.ly/3wUcymg

Kids who were babies, toddlers or preschoolers during the pandemic are academically and developmentally behind, according to experts. These young kids are less likely to have age-appropriate skills — such as holding a pencil, managing their emotions or problem-solving with peers — than their older counterparts. “I definitely think children born [during early COVID-19] have had developmental challenges compared to prior years,” said Dr. Jaime Peterson, a pediatrician and kindergarten readiness researcher at Oregon Health and Science University.

Do you know a talented, accomplished and ambitious professional in the social sector? Nominate them for the Children and Family Fellowship. This 23-month intensive executive leadership program seeks child- and family-serving professionals from across the country who want to strengthen public and nonprofit systems in ways that make them more effective, efficient, equitable and reliable. Learn more: https://lnkd.in/gC9tzbBz