Ask Congress to Increase Funding for Child Care
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Photo courtesy of Annie E. Casey Foundation. Results. This season you’ve heard politicians and pundits tout them, your gym advertises them, and your boss demand them. Results make the world go ‘round. Without them, progress is unobtainable and success is unreachable. We live in a country obsessed with results. We post them to our Facebook, Twitter and Instagram feeds for all to see. The rush to produce results, and show those results off, [...]
The federal Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA) was first authorized by Congress in 1974 to establish universal standards for how kids are treated in the youth justice system. With a strong emphasis on supporting prevention-focused programs, rehabilitation, and reintegration while still holding kids accountable for their behaviors, the JJDPA quickly became recognized as one of the most significant laws for kids involved in the justice system. On December 11, 2018, after passing through [...]
There are nearly 100,000 Kentucky kids living in kinship care. While beneficial for children, kinship care can pose considerable financial, legal, and emotional challenges for caregivers. Research has shown that kinship caregivers go to great lengths to meet the needs of the relative children, however, their efforts often come at the expense of their own personal care. Social support contributes to caregivers’ ability to provide a nurturing environment for the children in their care [...]
Schools, policymakers, students, parents, and health advocates celebrated a big win for student health in the 2019 Kentucky legislative session with passage of House Bill 11, which established a statewide tobacco-free school campus policy. All are celebrating again at the start of the school year as school districts are acting early to comply with HB 11. When the bill became law, only 72 of the state's 173 school districts, or 42 percent, were tobacco-free [...]
By Noa Weiss Noa testifying before the Louisville Metro Planning Commission. My name is Noa, I am 10 years old and live in the city of Hurstbourne, District 18. I attended Lowe elementary and I’m now a 6th grader at Meyzeek middle school in the MST Program which stands for Math Science Technology. I am also doing Meyzeek Field hockey, orchestra and Cross Country , and in the future, I plan to do Lacrosse, [...]
Happy New [School] Year to all of Kentucky’s educators! Here’s your first pop quiz of the year: Do you wish Head Start could serve all eligible children? Would you like smaller class sizes? Have you ever yearned for more school funding? If you answered YES to any of the above questions, you’re going to want to read these 4 things your school needs to know about the 2020 census this school year: 1. Children are [...]
This school year, pending federal Centers of Medicaid and Medicare approval, local school districts will have the opportunity to expand health and behavioral health services already offered to students in schools by leveraging federal Medicaid dollars. By expanding health services to all students and billing services for Medicaid-eligible students, schools can help address immediate health care needs, connect students to quality health providers, and keep students learning. Additionally, this opportunity, called free care, creates a [...]
This was originally posted as an op-ed by the Courier Journal on August 19, 2019. By Keith Inman and Terry Brooks Kentucky’s kids owe a debt of gratitude to the Courier Journal’s editor, Rick Green, for making a considerable commitment of resources to focus on abuse and neglect in Kentucky. That gratitude extends to Debby Yetter, whose reporting prowess highlighted the multitude of factors that are contributing to the tragic state of this commonwealth when it comes to the [...]
Last spring, Congress delivered an historic increase in funding for the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) at a critical time for children and families in Kentucky. The Bevin Administration is utilizing the additional $42 million to cover identified gaps in access to high-quality child care, including increase provider payment rates, increase eligibility at re-certification so that parents do not suddenly lose child care assistance when they get a promotion or better paying job, remove [...]
This post originally appeared as an op-ed in the Courier Journal on August 14, 2019. By Emilee McCubbins When I made the decision to go out of state for college, I knew that my heart would always pull me back to this place — Beechmont. Louisville is my hometown, but the steps of Iroquois Library is where I think of when I think of home. Traversing Woodlawn Avenue, popping into the corner store by the gazebo, and [...]
