Using Data to Drive Action on Behalf of Children and Families By the Numbers This brief tells how data shaped and strengthened efforts to build financial stability among low-income rural families in west central Minnesota. It highlights Annie E. Casey’s Rural Family Economic Success framework and is part of the Foundation’s Strengthening Rural Families publication series. Read More
When Work Supports Don’t Support Work A Case for Parental Health Coverage in Mississippi This brief tells how Mississippi’s work support system fails to support working families. Readers will learn about gaps in the state’s parental health insurance coverage and explore policy ideas aimed at addressing these gaps while also strengthening the health and economic security of low-income families. Read More
An SEA Quick-Start Guide for Identifying Evidence-Based Interventions for School Improvement The quick-start guide provides a brief overview of the self-study process which is described in more detail in the full State Education Agencies (SEAs) Guide for Identifying Evidence-Based Interventions for School Improvement. This process helps SEAs to identify appropriate and relevant interventions that may be implemented in schools requiring comprehensive or targeted support. Read More
Exploring United Way Engagement in EITC Campaigns A Report to the Field This report — the result of a United Way of America survey and working group — reflects the organization’s staunch commitment to helping vulnerable families utilize the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). It offers field-tested advice, square-one strategies and EITC program facts as part of a larger effort to help United Way sites across the country support local EITC campaigns. Read More
Unlocking the Promise A Guide for Funders Interested in Transformational Grantmaking This assessment guide aims to help funders make smarter—and fairer—grantmaking decisions. It shares specific questions to ask and plan examples to consider in pursuit of transformative change. Prospective grantees can also use this guide to strengthen their proposals and projects before advancing them within the funding pipeline. Read More
Trying Out a Real Time Advocacy Self-Evaluation Process Guidance and Considerations for KIDS COUNT Grantees This brief describes an existing advocacy evaluation concept for policy work and discusses the pros and cons of how grantees could effectively test this real-time self-evaluation approach to document and support their advocacy work. Read More
Using Local Data to Explore the Experiences and Needs of Children of Incarcerated Parents The Urban Institute partnered with organizations in Chicago, Illinois; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; and Providence, Rhode Island to merge local and state level criminal justice and human services data to learn about children of incarcerated parents in their localities. This report presents findings from the three sites and a discussion of the possibilities and difficulties involved in merging and analyzing administrative data on this population. Read More
Financial Services in Making Connections Neighborhoods A financial analysis of survey responses by residents living in the Making Connections sites about their use of bank services, check cashing services, payday lenders, pawn shops and credit cards, as well as how they would respond to financial emergencies. Read More
Resident Engagement and Leadership to Improve Results An International Tool Kit helping Children and Youth, Families and Communities This toolkit contains results-based case studies from 6 countries showing resident-engaging community change strategies that can be adapted to work in other localities. Read More
A Doctor When We Need One Access to Healthcare in Wisconsin for Immigrant Children and Families From flu shots to school physicals, basic medical care is vital to growing up healthy. Yet, for immigrant families, the hurdles to health care can be steep. This policy brief is set in Wisconsin but packed with statistics, stories and solutions that cross all geographic boundaries. Its main message? We must do more to connect America’s immigrant families with quality, timely medical care — and here’s how. Read More
