Father- and grandfather-turned-activist Allan Shedlin has spent the past decade working to make the “Daddying Movement” a household term. He recently launched a new organization, REEL FATHERS, which aims to blend father-centered film showings and community organizing to reflect on, celebrate and support father involvement. CFK looks at the early stages of the project and its plans for Fathers Day 2009.

Quality child care matters for kids and parents—just ask single mother Marla Campos, who spends $900 a month for child care. Although her two daughters are eligible for state-subsidized child care, they are among the more than 360,000 kids nationally who are stuck on state waiting lists because there isn’t enough funding. In California, the parent-led activist organization Parent Voices is working to change this.

(2008) May is Foster Care Month, and for the 20th anniversary celebration of the campaign, Connect for Kids spoke with Candice Douglass, communications director with Casey Family Programs, to get the latest on foster care and child well-being, and emerging trends we should all know about. We also got the scoop the Kinship Caregiver Support Act currently in Congress and an innovative approach to permanency for teens in a Q&A with Celeste Bodner, executive director of FosterClub, the national network for young people in foster care. 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.

Where a child is born and raised can 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. There’s a “huge investment gap” across the states—Every Child Matters is urging adults who care to get the facts and take action to make better investments and better outcomes a priority.

An April 2008 report from the America’s Promise Alliance has 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. A new Dropout Prevention Campaign is working hard to make sure those numbers improve, and that all students are ready for college, work and life.

Tracking the reach and results of the work is a challenging task for many child and youth organizations. In our ongoing Scorecard series, CFK and Child Advocacy 360 highlight examples of organizations' efforts to measure impact and results. Here, Children's Rights, Inc., shares its follow-up to the groundbreaking Hitting the M.A.R.C. foster care reimbursement study.

In Bakersfield, California, parents formed a walking group that turned out to be good for the health of their community, as they took on dangerous litter, crime and traffic to make their streets more “walkable.” This grassroots snapshot from the Children’s Advocate has the story.

On February 27, the Forum for Youth Investment and its national partners launched the Ready by 21 Challenge to help state and local leaders "change the odds for youth by changing the way they do business." Here are some of the voices from the launch, and more on the initiative, which supports bigger goals, bolder strategies and better partnerships to ensure that every young person is ready by 21—ready for college, work and life.

If you work with teens with disabilities, you’ll want to know about the Social Security Administration’s Ticket to Work (TTW) program. Its Youth Transition portion offers funds for organizations that help students receiving Social Security disability benefits find employment. Is it right for you? Melody Goodspeed, Youth Transition Specialist for TTW answers some common questions about the funding.

Could you have made it entirely on your own at 18 or 21? Each year, roughly 25,000 young people “age out” of the foster care system, many without family or economic supports. Without connection to a caring adult and support to plan and prepare, these youth face steep challenges, including higher rates of unemployment, poor educational attainment, health issues, incarceration, and homelessness. But those are the problems, the statistics—what about the potential of these teens, and their desire to succeed? We spoke with Betsy Krebs, co-director of the New York City-based Youth Advocacy Center, about what works to help teens aging out of foster care succeed. There’s room for the whole community...