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The New York State Assembly this week released their annual New York State Economic and Revenue Reports. These reports highlight the available monies for state spending and the outlook for next year's economy.
Reports are available for download below:
Download 2008_assembly_revenue_report.pdf
Download 2008_assembly_economic_report.pdf
Los Angeles, CA – Close to 150 business leaders, policy makers, and advocates will convene today at the Milken Institute for the West Coast Economic Forum on Early Childhood Investment to discuss strengthening the United States economy through proven investments in children. The Partnership for America’s Economic Success, which is managed by The Pew Charitable Trusts, and the Milken Institute are co-hosting the forum to develop strategies, policies, and practices for building human capital by investing in children prenatal to age five. The Partnership will release three new research studies at the forum, which highlight the economic benefits of investing in early childhood programs and raising poor families out of poverty.
“Business leaders are already aware that investing in early childhood can strengthen economic development and can provide the country with the work force we need to stay competitive,” said Robert Dugger, managing director of the Tudor Investment Corporation and Advisory Board chair of the Partnership for America’s Economic Success. “This new research emphasizes more than ever how important it is to invest in children in their first years of life in order to strengthen our position in this increasingly global marketplace.”
The three new research studies, conducted by Greg Duncan of Northwestern University, William Dickens of the University of Maryland, and Timothy Bartik of the Upjohn Institute, conclude that strategic investments in children can have significant positive impacts on those children, their families, and the nation’s fiscal health. Duncan finds that raising young children out of poverty not only pays for itself, on average, in increased adult earnings, but also provides benefits to society through taxpayer savings. Dickens and Bartik conclude that implementing proven childhood programs on a large scale would produce greater job growth and earnings, and boost future GDP and government revenues.
The researchers will present these findings at the forum, and business and policy leaders will engage in discussions on how to increase early-childhood investments to further economic growth. Speakers at the conference include Colorado Lieutenant Governor Barbara O’Brien, McKinsey Global Institute Chairman Lenny Mendonca, Milken Institute Chairman Michael Milken, Bay Area Council President and CEO Jim Wunderman, and Kiwanis International President Dave Curry.
“The Milken Institute believes that investing in human capital is a key tenet in any national, organizational or individual path to sustainable prosperity,” said Mike Klowden, CEO and President of the Milken Institute. “Today’s forum is part of our commitment to the research, innovation and action needed to realize the benefits of early-childhood investment and ensure the strength of the future workforce.”
Other conference attendees include Richard Atlas of the Atlas Family Foundation and formerly of Goldman Sachs and Co., Ted Lempert of Children Now, and Bernard Guyer of Johns Hopkins University.
For a full conference agenda, please visit www.PartnershipforSuccess.org
Doubling our efforts to prevent child abuse and neglect nationwide
The
Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company and NBA Cares invite you to participate in the
first Wrigley's™ brands "Double-Double Challenge" to support Prevent
Child Abuse (PCA) America.
Between February 19 and April 16, whenever an NBA player records a
double-double, Wrigley's will donate $50 to PCA America up to $50,000.*
A "double-double" is achieved when an individual player in a game
accumulates a double digit total in any two of these categories:
points, rebounds, assists, steals and blocked shots.
During the same period, Wrigley's Doublemint invites you to join the
Challenge and make a financial pledge for every double-double recorded
in an NBA game to help us support PCA America and its state chapters
nationwide.
Learn more about the campaign and make your pledge today!
On behalf of Wrigley's Doublemint, NBA Cares and PCA America, thank you
for helping us "double" our efforts to prevent the abuse and neglect of
our nation's children.
The Child Welfare League of America has released it's 2008 legislative agenda online, with a focus on two specific items: a White House Conference on Children and Youth, and Kinship Care and Guardianship Assistance.
More information can be found here: http://www.cwla.org/advocacy/2008legagenda.htm
Just before the President's Day break, Representative Jim McDermott (D-WA) introduced the Invest in KIDS Act, H.R. 5466. McDermott is Chair of the House Subcommittee on Income Security and Family Support, the key subcommittee to the child welfare community.
CWLA, and PCANY, supports the new bill since it advances many of the key principles for a major reform proposal: federal support for all children in care, more flexibility in the use of funds to provide key services, support for kinship families, expanded access to federal funds by tribal communities, expanded support for youth, and funding to address the workforce shortage in child welfare.
McDermott introduced a similar measure in the last Congress, and this bill builds on that effort in several areas. Similar to his last bill, this legislation would allow federal funding through title IV-E foster care and adoption assistance to all children, replacing current eligibility limitations. As many people in child welfare understand, currently eligibility for federal foster care and adoption assistance is based on whether a child was removed from a family that would have been eligible for the now nonexistent AFDC cash assistance program. Fewer than 45% of foster children are eligible for federal support. The bill would extend coverage to all children in care and hold down the cost by reducing the federal funding matching rate. It would allow states up to three years to update their current coverage, meaning states would have time to maximize coverage and funding.
The bill would extend Title IV-E to kinship and guardianship placements, and allows tribes and tribal consortia to apply for direct access to federal funds. Another feature would allow states to draw down IV-E funds for services in a more flexible manner than currently allowed. State spending in this flexible manner would be based on a state plan to address some of the shortfalls outlined by a state's Child and Family Service Reviews and the resulting Program Improvement Plans. States would have to have outcomes to measure the results.
The legislation contains a new subpart three under Title IV-B to assist in the development of a state child welfare workforce strategy. A state would submit a plan for these federal dollars and measure such data as caseloads. Another provision that has long been supported by CWLA is access to Title IV-E training funds by nonprofit agencies. These funds could also be used for court personnel.
A new provision in the McDermott bill that is gaining interest in this Congress would allow states to provide Title IV-E foster care funds through age 21, at state option. HHS would issue regulations around the supervision for this extended care population. Currently, states that allow such coverage use state funds, or they use a patchwork of federal funding, including funds from the Chaffee Independent Living program, to provide a mix of services as a transition but not to keep children in care.
A new concept in H.R. 5466 is a grant that could be used in three ways: to create a kinship navigator program, similar to provisions in the Kinship Caregiver Support Act (S. 661/H.R. 2188); to fund intensive family-finding programs, and to fund the use of family-group decision making. Fifty million dollars a year would be provided to allow states to fund such efforts.
The bill would also reauthorize the current adoption incentive fund, which is due to expire, and seek to better promote the use of adoption tax credits to lower income families, especially foster families. The bill would require states to have better health planning with the state Medicaid agency and would also require states to have plans that would allow a child in foster care to remain in his or her school of origin when it's in the best interest of the child, or when they have to relocate, to be allowed immediate admission into a new school.
The legislation is scheduled for an initial hearing this week. The subcommittee is still limited by the "paygo" rules that require committees--at least in the human service area--to pay for any new programs or program cost increases with offsets or reductions in other areas of the committee's jurisdiction. Some provisions have been gaining in popularity and may be low in cost, such as the two kinship bills, the extension of funding to tribes, and extending the age of foster care. One or a combination of these proposals could pass in this Congress, depending on the political momentum.
SAN ANTONIO—Through its Precious Minds, New Connections program,
Baptist Child & Family Services is trying to break the cycle of
child abuse by offering specialized parent-training courses.
According to the Center for Public Policy Priorities, the number of
confirmed victims of child abuse in Bexar County was 5,755 in 2006—and
most abusers reportedly were parents or caregivers.
The Precious Minds, New Connections program is an annual $3.6 million
initiative funded by the Kronkosky Charitable Foundation. It is carried
out through annual grants to 26 organizations in the foundation’s
four-county service area, which includes Bandera, Bexar, Comal and
Kendall counties. The Baptist Child & Family Services program is
the largest in both size and reach.
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| Fili Garcia |
“Parenting education enables parents to understand early childhood development and develop realistic expectations for child behavior,” according to the Kronkosky Charitable Foundation. “All of this knowledge is known to lead to less likelihood that a child will be abused and his or her development neglected.”
For more information on the article, visit: http://www.baptiststandard.com/postnuke/index.php?module=htmlpages&func=display&pid=7462
The NCCP followed the money trail in children’s behavioral health and found that it leads to strange and unexpected places: fiscal policy that is out of sync with the knowledge base, missed opportunities to spend resources more intelligently and many obstacles to funding strategies to improve mental health for children and youth. On occasion, the money trail also leads to pockets of excellence.
Read Towards Better Behavioral Health for Children, Youth and their Families: Financing that Supports Knowledge http://mcsv.net/cgi-bin/redir?MCid=hYRwVx1292hClyNCLnX6
In order to access the full report you can go to: http://www.nccp.org/publications/pdf/text_804.pdf
Stress is an unfortunate part of our daily life. No one, even the youngest of infants, is immune to its potentially devastating effects. Research has shown that intensive and prolonged stress can have a variety of negative health outcomes. Childhood stress can disrupt early brain development, compromise functioning of the nervous and immune systems, and lead to chronic diseases.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is pleased to announce the availability of The Effects of Childhood Stress on Health Across the Lifespan. This document summarizes the available research on childhood stress and its long-term consequences. The CDC hopes this publication provides practitioners, especially those working in violence prevention, with ideas about how to incorporate this important information into their work. The publication is available on-line at http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/pub-res/effects_of_childhood_stress.htm Requests for hard copies can be submitted on-line at http://wwwn.cdc.gov/pubs/ncipc.aspx
CDC is particularly interested in the stress caused by child maltreatment. An estimated 8,755,000 juvenile victims live in this country. That means that more than 1 of 7 children between the ages of 2 and 17 years have experienced maltreatment.
The Division of Violence Prevention at CDC is working to stop child maltreatment before it begins. They have recently adopted a new platform for child maltreatment prevention—the promotion of safe, stable, and nurturing relationships (SSNRs). Children’s experiences are defined through their relationships with parents, teachers, and other caregivers. Healthy relationships act as a buffer against traumatic childhood experiences. From a public health perspective, the promotion of SSNRs can have synergistic effects on a broad range of health problems as well as contribute to the development of skills that will also enhance the acquisition of healthy habits and lifestyles.
Child maltreatment prevention, particularly through the promotion of safe, stable, nurturing relationships, can prevent or buffer toxic stress in children’s lives. Improving our understanding of the role of toxic stress in long-term health and well-being will provide a more complete picture of the importance of child maltreatment prevention and the consequences of missed prevention opportunities. Additional information on child maltreatment prevention is available on-line at http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc
Like every other state across the nation, New York is wrestling with what to do about the numbers of
violent children in our midst, overwhelming our education, social services and juvenile justice systems, to
name but a few. In the aftermath of particularly horrific incidents – Jonesboro, Paducah, Springfield, Columbine, Virginia Tech – we grieve together, bringing flowers and candles, playing “Amazing Grace” on the bagpipes as yet again we bury dead students and dead teachers.
And as the dreadful images play over and over on the evening news and the headlines splash across the front pages of the morning papers, we ask ourselves why? What gets into these kids? How can they go to school and gun down their classmates in such a cold-blooded, calculated manner? Where are these kids coming from?
Contrary to what many may believe, the answer to the question “why” is not a mystery. It lies in the developmental processes of the human brain where all behavior originates. Psychiatrist Dr. Bruce Perry, founder and head of the Child Trauma Center in Houston, Texas, says it best: “It isn’t the finger that pulls the trigger, it’s the brain. It isn’t the penis that rapes it’s the brain.”
Read more of Meredith Wiley's article by downloading it below:
Prevent Child Abuse New York and the NYS Children and Family Trust Fund are proud to announce the 13th annual award recognition of excellence in the field of child abuse prevention in New York State. We are seeking nominations of individuals who have helped create families and communities where children are loved, nurtured and protected; whose efforts are helping to create promising futures for children.
Excellence awards will be presented at the 13th Annual Child Abuse Prevention Conference, "Possibilities," at the Albany Marriott. Albany 7-9, 2008.
You may nominate a person for any of the following categories:
Parenting Education: A Parent Leader or a Service Provider
Kinship Care: A Kinship Care Provider or a Service Provider
Fatherhood Programs: A Father or a Service Provider
Download nyscap_08_excellence_nom_form.pdf
Deadline: March 7, 2008
