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Webinar

Policy in Action – Building a Community that CARES for Young Adults: Mental Health and Well-Being

October 2024

Hosted by the CARES Initiative and the Center for the Study of Social Policy (CSSP), this session discussed youth-centered policy recommendations for mental health and well-being, co-designed with young people who have transitioned out of foster care. During the conversation, we heard reflections on the importance of policies for mental health and well-being and the Atlanta CARES mental health and well-being policy agenda.

This event was part one of a two-part discussion on reimagining a future where public policy empowers young people to pursue their goals and live fully.

Featured Speakers:

  • Malaka "Mali" Y. Nzinga, CHES, Program Manager in the National Center for Primary Care at Morehouse School of Medicine
  • Dimple Desai, MSW, Senior Policy Analyst, Voices for Georgia's Children
  • Jada Brigman, CARES Ambassador, Atlanta
  • Tiffany Cannon, CARES Ambassador, Atlanta
  • Shadi Houshyar, Senior Associate, Center for the Study of Social Policy
Tags: Addressing Poverty, Building Strong Communities, Child Welfare, Learning & Evidence, Racial Equity & Justice, Young Children & Their Families, Youth, CARES: Creating Actionable and Real Solutions
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Webinar

Policy in Action – Building a Community that CARES for Young Adults: Housing Policies for NYC & L.A.

October 2024

Hosted by the CARES Initiative and the Center for the Study of Social Policy (CSSP), this session discussed youth-centered policy recommendations for housing—developed in collaboration with young people who have transitioned out of foster care. During the conversation, we heard reflections on the importance of housing policies and discussed the NYC and L.A. CARES policy agendas and the recommendations they elevate.

This event was part two of a two-part discussion on reimagining a future where public policy empowers young people to pursue their goals and live fully.

Featured Speakers:

  • Michael Santos, Associate Director, RESULTS Educational Fund
  • Jenny Pokempner, Policy Director, Youth Law Center
  • Cara Baldari, Vice President of Family Economics, Housing, and Homelessness, First Focus
  • Kayonda Branch, CARES Ambassador, New York City
  • Elizabeth Villa, CARES Ambassador, Los Angeles
  • Alex Citrin, Senior Associate, Center for the Study of Social Policy
Tags: Addressing Poverty, Building Strong Communities, Child Welfare, Learning & Evidence, Racial Equity & Justice, Young Children & Their Families, Youth, CARES: Creating Actionable and Real Solutions
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Policy Paper

Advancing Culturally Responsive Services: Incorporating Community-Defined Evidence When Evaluating What Works

October 2024

Despite the body of research demonstrating the benefit of services that respect cultural and racial identity, government funders are increasingly favoring “colorblind” programs that have been approved by research clearinghouses as evidence-based practices (EBPs). This limited approach to evidence promotes services that may be non-responsive to diverse communities’ needs while hampering the development and dissemination of responsive services that have community buy-in. This publication outlines the concerns with exclusively relying on empirical data at the expense of community-defined evidence and identifies actions government agencies can take to ensure services are evaluated according to the standards set by the community members who are supposed to benefit.

(4 pp)

Tags: Addressing Poverty, Building Strong Communities, Child Welfare, Immigration, Learning & Evidence, Racial Equity & Justice, Young Children & Their Families, Youth
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Advancing Culturally Responsive Services Incorporating Community Defined Evidence When Evaluating What Works
Video

Standing on Our Principles: How the Child Tax Credit can Promote the Economic Security and Well-Being of Children and Families

June 2024

Every child deserves the opportunity to grow and thrive. During this briefing from June 2024, Rep. Rosa DeLauro (CT-3) and Rep. Jimmy Gomez (CA-34) spoke about the importance of expanding the Child Tax Credit (CTC) to reduce child poverty, and a panel of parents from across the country discussed how the CTC can promote family well-being and bring equity to the tax code as we look toward 2025 and the expiration of key provisions of the Trump Administration’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017.

Tags: Addressing Poverty, Automatic Benefit for Children (ABC) Coalition
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Policy Paper

Strategies to Compensate Unpaid Caregivers: A Policy Scan

March 2024

Caregiving is essential work, but this work too often falls on individuals with little or no support from society as a whole. As a result, many caregivers experience severe economic security and hardship—especially women, and Black, Latinx/e, and other women of color and immigrant women in particular, who provide the most care. To better understand the current policy gaps and how we might better support unpaid family caregivers moving forward, this new report summarizes the policies in place to compensate family caregivers in the United States and abroad and offers recommendations for ensuring future policies more effectively support unpaid caregivers and their families.

(29 pp)

Tags: Addressing Poverty, Building Strong Communities, Racial Equity & Justice, Young Children & Their Families
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Brief

Direct File: How Parent and Family Engagement in Design Can Improve Access to Refundable Credits

March 2024

The IRS, with the support of partners like the CSSP, has been ensuring that families who are most impacted by barriers to tax filing, such as the  complexity and costs, have been delivering feedback throughout the design and development process of this new Direct File program. Based on what CSSP heard through this engagement, several early lessons emerged not only about how to improve the tool based on feedback that reflects a diversity of circumstances and situations, but also about the needs that tax filers have as they go through the process that the tool itself cannot  address.

(3 pp)

Tags: Addressing Poverty, Racial Equity & Justice
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Video

Culture is Healing: Removing the Barriers from Culturally Responsive Services (Webinar)

January 2024

In this webinar, community providers discuss the challenges they face in providing responsive services, including building evidence and operating in the context of restrictive “evidence-based” standards, as well as recommendations for actions state and federal policymakers can take to ensure all families have the support they need through expanding access and availability of programs that are developed by and for communities of color.

Read the report here. 

Tags: Addressing Poverty, Building Strong Communities, Child Welfare, Racial Equity & Justice, Young Children & Their Families
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Policy Paper

Culture is Healing: Removing the Barriers Facing Providers of Culturally Responsive Services

January 2024

Ensuring child and family well-being requires a radically different, anti-racist response of supports that center the voices of diverse children and families of color, are dignified and strengths-based, and that are offered in spaces they trust. As this brief highlights, community-based organizations across the country are striving to answer that call despite numerous barriers. This brief lifts up the voices of those community providers, with the goal of highlighting and addressing the barriers that stand in the way of all families having the support they need.

Watch the webinar here. 

(19 pp)

Tags: Addressing Poverty, Building Strong Communities, Child Welfare, Racial Equity & Justice, Young Children & Their Families
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Policy Paper

Explainer: Why Racial Disparities in IRS Auditing Practices are an Urgent Matter of Family Economic Security

November 2023

This brief discusses the racial disparities in auditing that are an urgent matter of family economic security, and redressing those disparities to ensure that all families can file their taxes without fear of unjust surveillance or retribution.

(3 pp)

Tags: Addressing Poverty, Racial Equity & Justice
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Policy Paper

Designed to Keep You Down: TANF Creates Obstacles for Families Even as it Provides Critical Support

October 2023

This report shares findings from research conducted by the Center for the Study of Social Policy (CSSP) and parents participating in Project SPARC (Student Parents Are Reimagining CalWORKs), a project of the CalWORKs Association.

(26 pp)

Tags: Addressing Poverty, Building Strong Communities, Supporting Parenting Students in Public Systems
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