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May 14—This month marks the 20th annual celebration of the National Foster Care Month campaign. Connect for Kids spoke with two experts—the Casey Family Programs' Candice Douglass and FosterClub's Celeste Bodner—to get the latest on foster care and child well-being, and emerging trends we should all know about, including the Kinship Caregiver Support Act currently in Congress.

Find out what’s new, what’s working, and how you can make a difference no matter how much time you’ve got to give! Read more.

Geography Matters:
Child Well-Being in the States

April 16 —Where a child is born and raised plays a surprisingly large role in his or her chances of getting and staying healthy and surviving to adulthood, according to this major new report by the nonpartisan Every Child Matters Education Fund.

Why the differences? In part, the answer lies in the “huge investment gap” in social programs nationally and across the states. Every Child Matters is urging adults to get the facts and take action to make better investments and better outcomes a priority. Here’s what you need to know. Read more.

April 2—The America’s Promise Alliance launched its Dropout Prevention Campaign with stunning data about the high school graduation rate in our nation’s 50 largest cities: only about half (52 percent) of students in the main school systems actually finish high school with a diploma—the number is as low as 35 percent in Baltimore, Cleveland, Detroit, and Indianapolis.

Some schools and areas have made progress in raising graduation rates, as we reported in our Ready by 21 coverage (see below). In the coming weeks, Connect for Kids will feature a Q&A with America’s Promise, and other tools and resources. Read a summary of the report and campaign.

Precision Engineering

Karen Pittman's Youth Today ColumnKaren Pittman

 

Changing the odds for young people requires both passion and precision: passion in our commitment to providing high-quality support to all youth, and precision in measuring how well we and they are doing.

In this column, Karen Pittman says it's possible, affordable and essential that we develop ways to measure community-level outcomes to help leaders change the ways they do business. Read Karen's column.

 

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The CFK Update
From the editor, Caitlin Johnson
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May 14 issue—The subprime mortgage crisis is big news—but we don't hear much about the estimated 2 million children who are likely to be affected. As Congress takes up housing finance reform, First Focus and its partners are urging an amendment that addresses the needs of children made homeless by foreclosures and evictions.

Also on Capitol Hill, the Farm Bill is moving forward with improvements to the Food Stamp program. The Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on the Runaway and Homeless Youth Act reauthorization. And early learning got a boost with the introduction of the Starting Early, Starting Right Act. For tools, grant information and more, read the CFK Update.

 

 

Because I have a strong belief in the power of community action and citizen engagement in all areas of child well-being, I constantly comb major Websites and print publications for relevant Real People, Real Results stories to share with CFK readers. My most recent find in Casey Family Services' Voices publication prompted these thoughts on how nonprofits can do a better job reaching a broad audience. Read Hershel's column.

 

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>>Learn more about CFK and Child Advocacy360.

 

SomeoneToday

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