Blog

Let’s begin with a middle school stage play in Detroit. The lights are dim, the demerits are high, and a boy named Leonard has just been kicked off the production. Enter Miss Liggins, a teacher with a different script. She doesn’t erase the consequences—she rewrites the role. “You’ll be our stage manager,” she says. [...]

All children and youth should have the opportunity to live and grow in communities with supportive adults who care for them, learn in environments that promote their growth and development, and access quality and affirming health care. The current administration is undermining these essentials and has deployed a range of tactics, including Executive Orders, guidance [...]

To work, care for, and support our families and communities, we need to be healthy. To be healthy, we need health coverage. Health insurance, in other words, should come before work. This is why other wealthy countries guarantee access to health care, and health coverage is not typically tied to work.[i] The American health care [...]

As we mark another year in the Center for the Study of Social Policy (CSSP)’s legacy, we reflect on the extraordinary journey we’ve taken and feel immense pride and gratitude for all we’ve accomplished. Since our founding over four decades ago, CSSP has worked tirelessly to transform public systems, partner with communities, and advance public [...]

When I first read the Parent Edition of the Manifesto for Race Equity and Parent Leadership, it was hard for me to get past the phrase “Parents know what’s best for their children.” As a child growing up in foster care, I’m pretty sure my mom didn’t know what was best for me, or herself, [...]

Photo of Fannie Lou Hamer, an American voting and women's rights activist, community organizer, and leader of the civil rights movement. Black History Month offers a powerful opportunity to intentionally recognize and celebrate the immeasurable contributions of Black people in America. Nearly a century ago, Carter G. Woodson founded Negro History Week in 1926 to [...]

With lightning speed, the Trump administration has undertaken a deliberate campaign to sow chaos and confusion in its first days in office, grounding federal agencies to a halt and disrupting the day-to-day work of child and family-serving organizations across the country in a radical effort to refashion our democratic institutions and advance an agenda that [...]

On this National Day of Racial Healing, we’re reflecting on what it means to heal as a nation from the pervasive effects of racism. Yesterday, people celebrated the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr —a visionary leader who spearheaded the Civil Rights Movement in the United States and advocated for racial equality, [...]

This September, CSSP Senior Policy Analyst Elisa Minoff spoke with Kali Daughtery, a working mother, to discuss the lack of paid family leave in the United States. This year, Kali was pregnant with her second child and was expecting 12 weeks of paid maternity leave in her current job. However, she later discovered that she [...]

As we move into 2025, we know we have a lot of important work ahead of us. While administrations may change, along with their policies and priorities, organizations like the Center for the Study of Social Policy must not lose sight of this simple truth: the hopes, aspirations, and needs of families across the country [...]