CSSP Home Page

Making Well-Being a Priority: Meaningful Supports for Mental Health

Learn more about how we can meaningfully support the mental health of young people and families in this blog from CSSP’s Shadi Houshyar, Senior Associate, as part of our Five for 2025—the policy ideas that will help advance a more equitable, family-centered set of solutions—so we can all thrive.

Read more

Progress Report on New Mexico’s Child Welfare Reform Efforts

This report produced by the Co-Neutrals summarizes the Final Settlement Agreement reached in the Kevin S. v. Blalock and Scrase lawsuit and New Mexico’s mutual agreement to achieve its commitments and develop a trauma-informed system of care that meets the needs of New Mexico’s diverse children and youth and their families.

Read more

Manifesto for Race Equity and Parent Leadership in Early Childhood Systems

Created by parents for parents, the brand-new parent edition of the Manifesto for Race Equity & Parent Leadership in Early Childhood Systems is a new version of the original Manifesto, released in 2019. It provides a platform for parents to address inequities and racism in early childhood agencies and systems through building awareness, advocating, and organizing.

Learn More

Designed By and With Families

Cultural identity is a source of strength, especially for people of color and others who have been marginalized. Services are therefore more effective when they are culturally tailored. Learn more about Five for 2025: CSSP’s Policy Priorities to Champion Economic Justice, Health Justice, and Family Autonomy.

Read more

New Podcast

Season 4 of the New Neighborhood has arrived! Listen to episode one. 

Listen here

I Just Want to be a Father

This brief spotlights systemic barriers faced by fathers who are themselves youth in New York City’s foster care system or who co-parent with a young parent in foster care when they try to exercise their rights to be with their children.

Read more

Let’s get REAL

We owe all people safe and affirming spaces that allow them to express their whole selves. In the following clips, which are highlights from a longer conversation, CSSP President and CEO Leonard Burton and Senior Fellow Bill Bettencourt underscore how and why we need to show up for LGBTQ+ youth. 

Watch here


Who We Are

The Center for the Study of Social Policy works to achieve a racially, economically, and socially just society in which all children, youth, and families thrive. We translate ideas into action, promote public policies grounded in equity, and support strong and inclusive communities. We advocate with and for all children, youth, and families marginalized by public policies and institutional practices.

Learn more.

Our Approach

Justice icon.

Systems Change

We draw on the latest research and work to make systems more responsive, accountable, and rooted in policies that ensure equity and inclusion for all children, youth, families, and communities.

Community icon.

Community Outreach

We believe in the power of communities to shape their futures. We work with communities across the country and with local systems to impact policy and systems change.

Policy icon.

Policy

We work to influence public policy to create opportunity, advance equity, achieve impact, and scale results. We fight against inequitable policy proposals and promote policies that ensure equity and inclusion.