This Making Connections Peer Technical Assistance Match report summarizes the learnings from a meeting of two Making Connections sites -- Hartford, Connecticut, and Providence, Rhode Island -- when key members from the communities came together to exchange ideas and experiences about engaging youth in community change.

The Annie E. Casey Foundation’s quarterly Family Economic Success (FES) Newsletter provides updates on activities, developments, and resources in the three major areas of FES—workforce development, family economic supports, and asset building. The goal of Casey's FES work is to promote specific strategies that enable parents to get jobs and advance in the workforce, increase their income, and build and protect a base of assets sufficient to secure a better future for their families.

The “Counting What Counts” Media Webinar, hosted by Laura Beavers, coordinator of the national KIDS COUNT project and Patrick McCarthy, senior vice president of the Annie E. Casey Foundation, covered the latest state-by-state indicators of child well being, why data-driven decision making is critical for improving the futures of those children and families most in need, and the features of the new KIDS COUNT Data Center. The archived webinar and PowerPoint slides are now available on our website.

After weeks of debate, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee just passed legislation to transform our broken health care system. And the House of Representatives recently introduced a similar bill which will be debated in three key committees.

These are major steps forward for health care reform.

Both the Senate HELP Committee and House bills propose significant health care advances that would:

(1) End discriminatory practices by insurance companies that deny coverage to people based on pre-existing conditions, or charge higher rates because of gender or health status;
(2) Help make coverage more affordable by capping families' out-of-pocket costs and providing subsidies for low-income families; and
(3) Keep costs under control by getting more for our health care dollars, for example by rewarding doctors for quality (not quantity) of services provided.

We applaud this progress, but the fight continues. There is still a long way to go in both the Senate and the House!

The House is preparing to mark-up health reform legislation in all three committees with oversight over the issue and the Senate Finance Committee is releasing their draft this week or next. We are very concerned about the possibility of children being left worse off in the legislation and need to keep raising awareness about the important issues for children in health reform. We have drafted the following sign-on letter to the House and Senate.

If your organization would like to sign-on to this letter to the House and Senate, please reply to signon@firstfocus.net or contact Cate Hodgetts at catherineh@firstfocus.net if you have any questions or need additional information. Thanks so much for your consideration!!!

The Nonprofit Risk Management Center's 2009 Risk Management and Finance Summit is an educational event that draws nonprofit leaders from across the country who assist and support nonprofits. The Summit offers a time and place for nonprofit executives, managers and other leaders to network and discuss hot topics and trends that affect the governance and operations of their organizations. At the Summit a spotlight is focused on the topics of risk management, finance and human resources-three disciplines that play a significant role in creating and sustaining a firm foundation on which an effective nonprofit organization can deliver its mission. The Summit is an event for those who want to strengthen the foundations of their organizations, fine tune risk management practices, and thereby enable greater focus and resources to be devoted to mission fulfillment. Sunday to Tuesday, September 20-22, 2009, Austin, TX.

Last month the Section 8 Voucher Reform Act was introduced in the House. H.R. 3045 would streamline and make improvements to the Housing Choice Voucher program and authorize 150,000 new vouchers in fiscal year (FY) 2010.

By providing state Medicaid programs with $87 billion in fiscal relief, American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) is likely to be effective in preventing many large Medicaid cutbacks. Targeting 35% of assistance to states with particularly high unemployment rates, ARRA will provide more "bang for the buck" in preventing state cutbacks and stimulating the economy than did fiscal relief legislation in 2004, which gave all states the same level of help.

Anyone planning a Semester of Service or Global Youth Service Day project is invited to register for these calls, all at 2:00 pm EST. February 17, 2009 will cover partnerships and volunteer recruitment, March 3 will discuss fundraising and grantwriting and the March 17 webinar will address media and web communications.

Join Youth Service America in mobilizing young people to improve their communities during the Semester of Service that kicks off on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, January 19, 2009. Semester of Service provides the framework and tools for children and youth, aged 5 to 25, to prepare a plan, take action to implement their solution, reflect on their progress and next steps and celebrate their success.