Medicaid Expansion Populations in Health Reform: This Health Affairs blog summarizes the vulnerable populations who may benefit from the Medicaid expansion in the Affordable Care Act. They include persons who are homeless, veterans, and criminal justice populations.
Overview of Privatization of Child Welfare Services: This First Focus brief provides an overview of child welfare privatization and how advocates can be involved if there are efforts to privatize those services. Guided by advice from public and private agency administrators and advocates, it includes practical tips for advocates when privatization is being considered, planned, evaluated, or re-assessed. A checklist may be accessed here.
National Youth in Transition Database Highlights: This HHS report presents highlights from State NYTD reports submitted in FFY 2011, including information on independent living services paid for or provided to youth and the outcomes of youth in foster care at age 17. NYTD provides the first national snapshot of service delivery efforts of agencies aimed at assisting youth in making the transition to adulthood. In FFY 2011, States reported that 98,561youth and young adults received at least one independent living service. As shown in the highlights, States are providing a broad array of services and supports to a diverse group of youth.
Child Welfare Outcomes 2007-2010: Prepared by HHS, this Executive Summary is designed to inform Congress and professionals related to the child welfare field about national and state performance on several measures of outcomes for children served by child welfare systems nationwide. (12 pp.)
Asset Building Strategies for Youth in Transition: This Jim Casey Youth Opportunities report examines the impact of the Opportunity PassportTM's asset matching and financial education resources in the lives of young people aging out of foster care. The report found that these supports have a tangible impact on the ability of young people to lead financially stable lives long after they have left the foster care system. Click here to read a summary.
Myth: 'Single, Poor Moms Don't Work':The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities addresses the low-income mom myth. For several decades, policy debates about cash assistance for very low-income families have focused almost exclusively on work requirements that are rooted in a basic assumption: that mothers who have never been married and who have a high school education or less - a high-poverty group comprising the majority of cash assistance recipients - are much less likely to work than others with comparable levels of education. That assumption is wrong - and it's been wrong for the last decade. Among women with a high school education or less, never-married mothers are just as likely to work as single women without children and more likely to work than married women with children. Click here to view the rest of the story, including a chart comparing employment rates of never-married moms versus single women without kids.
State Launches Kids Dashboard: Louisiana has created a one-stop, online system to help parents and others keep track of how the state's children are doing when it comes to education, health care and poverty statistics. The website -- Louisiana Kids' Dashboard -- tracks 16 different indicators of children's health care, education and well-being.
Adult Protective Services in 2012: Increasingly Vulnerable: From the National Adult Protective Services Association and the National Association of States United for Aging and Disabilities, this report provides a snapshot of the APS program during a period of transition and change. Key elements driving the change include the economic environment, the continuation of states' reorganization, and the federal budget impasse and decision of whether or not to fund the Elder Justice Act.
Downward Slide: State Child Care Assistance Policies 2012: This National Women's Law Center report finds that child care assistance for low-income working women lags significantly behind demand and jeopardizes the economic stability of millions of families. Families in twenty-seven states are worse off under one or more key child care policies in 2012 than in 2011, and better off in just seventeen states. Twenty-three states have waiting lists or frozen intake for eligible families. Seven states set new eligibility requirements that reduced the number of eligible families. Only one state reimburses providers at the federally recommended level. State-by-state tables are found beginning on page 19 of the PDF.
America's Report Card 2012: Children in the US: Co-released by First Focus and Save the Children, this report card examines how the U.S. supports five key areas of a child's life. NACHSA attended the press conference announcing its release.
