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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)

Culture Of Healing Small Report Cover Page
Policy Paper

Supporting Youth Aging Out of Foster Care through SNAP

October 2023

The Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 (FRA) includes new provisions which should eliminate some of the barriers former foster youth have  experienced in accessing SNAP. This brief explains the new rules and the steps that state agencies can take to ensure that former foster youth are able to access the critical nutrition assistance they are now owed.

This brief updates a version originally published in 2016.

(11 pp)

Small Cover Supporting Youth Aging Out Of Foster Care With Snap 2023
Policy Paper

The Biden Administration’s Budget Recognizes Investments in Families Are Long Overdue: Now Let’s Get To Work

March 2023

In its annual budget released in March 2023, the Biden administration once again proposed critical investments in families, including restoring the Child Tax Credit, establishing a national paid family and medical leave program, and expanding access to high quality child care and early education. This fact sheet shares how the Biden administration's proposals reflect what Black, Indigenous, and Latinx parents and caregivers have told us that they need.

Cover Small The Biden Administration’s Budget Recognizes Investments In Families Are Long Overdue
Policy Paper

Rescuing Child Care: The American Rescue Plan Act’s Positive Impact for Families

January 2023

This report looks at interview data combined with research and analysis from additional sources to understand how families benefited from ARPA child care relief funds, with a particular look at Michigan and North Carolina. This report was co-authored by CSSP and The Century Foundation. 

Visit The Century Foundation for a digital version of this report.

(8 pp)

Rescuing Child Care Small Cover
Brief

Investing in Families Prevents Child Welfare Involvement

July 2022

To truly take an anti-racist approach to prevention, child welfare and safety net policies must address the organizational structures and injustices contributing to and perpetuating underlying economic and concrete needs of children and families. This brief, updated in July 2022, highlights policies that can make a significant impact for children and families when implemented as part of a multi-pronged approach to supporting the needs of children and families outside of child welfare.

(2 pp)

Investing In Families Prevents Child Welfare Involvement
Policy Paper

Policy Change to Promote Early Relational Health

July 2022

The early and foundational relationships that babies and toddlers experience with their parents shape the health and well-being of two generations. This brief highlights opportunities to promote early relational health with policy change and investments, including with existing programs, pandemic funding, and pending legislation in Congress.

(6 pp)

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Report

“We Don’t Have that in Mississippi”: How Temporary Expansions of the Child Tax Credit & Child Care Demonstrate the Importance of Federal Investments & Oversight

June 2022

This brief synthesizes findings from our research in Mississippi, where we interviewed and surveyed families who identified overwhelmingly as Black or African American, along with diverse child care providers and other stakeholders in the child care sector, to learn whether the Child Tax Credit and child care investments were advancing economic and racial equity and helping families.

(26 pp) 

Cover We Don't Have That In Mississippi
Report

The Child Care Paradox: How Child Care Providers Balance Paid and Un-Paid Caregiving

June 2022

Care work is some of the most important work in our society, supporting children, families, and individuals across their lifespans. But, despite the critical work child care providers do for families and society as a whole, their work is systematically undervalued. This brief reports the findings from our interviews and the recommendations from providers.

(15 pp)

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Report

A ‘Godsend’: How Temporary Investments in the Child Tax Credit and Child Care Impacted Michigan Families

March 2022

To learn about the impact of the American Rescue Plan’s short-term investments in the CTC and child care, CSSP conducted interviews with low- and moderate-income (ranging from $0-$55,000/year) families of color, child care providers, and stakeholders in Michigan between September and December 2021. The findings make it clear: Robust, long-term investments in both the Child Tax Credit and child care are necessary so that all families—and particularly families of color—have the support they need to not just survive, but to thrive.

(24 pp)

A Godsend: How Temporary Investments in the CTC and Child Care Impacted Michigan Families thumbnail.
Policy Paper

What We Owe Young Adults Involved with Child Welfare: A Youth Thrive Policy Agenda

January 2022

We owe young people who age out of care the structure and supports that they need to thrive. To fulfill this obligation and to remove barriers to thriving, we need new investments to support these young people. This policy agenda highlights key opportunities to advance the health and well-being of young people who are involved with child welfare systems.

(8 pp)

What We Owe Young Adults Involved with Child Welfare: A Youth Thrive Policy Agenda thumbnail.