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Early Childhood Education Task Force – A Focus on the Business Community

On Tuesday, July 26th, Kentucky’s Early Childhood Task Force met for the second time.  The focus of this meeting was to review the impact that child care has on Kentucky’s business community. Sandy Nott, the Vice President of Administration from Toyota’s Georgetown plant, and Twila Burdette, the Director of Rockcastle Hospital’s Child Development Center, both spoke about how having child care for their employees is an incentive to attract new talent to their businesses.  Ms. [...]

By |2022-08-04T14:23:07-04:00August 4th, 2022|Blog, Economic Security, Education|
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Updates on SB 8 Implementation from the Child Welfare Oversight & Advisory Committee

The Child Welfare Oversight and Advisory Committee met last week and heard testimony from the Office of the Attorney General and the Department of Community Based Services about the implementation of Senate Bill 8, a policy priority of the Blueprint for Kentucky’s Children and the Kosair Charities Face It Movement. SB 8 was sponsored by Senator Julie Raque Adams and reformed pieces of the child welfare system. More importantly, SB 8 expanded access and opportunities [...]

By |2022-07-28T15:28:53-04:00July 28th, 2022|Blog, Child Welfare & Safety|
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A Look at the New Kentucky Opioid Abatement Advisory Commission

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates the cost of prescription opioid misuse in the United States is $78.5 billion a year, including health care, lost productivity, addiction treatment and criminal justice. In 2017, approximately 2.2 million children were directly affected by parental opioid use or their own use, and we know that Kentucky children have been particularly hard hit. There is a clear connection of adult and adolescent opioid use to childhood [...]

By |2022-09-09T12:08:56-04:00July 27th, 2022|Blog, Bloom Kentucky, Child Welfare & Safety, Economic Security, Health, Justice|
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A Look at the New Benefits Cliff Task Force

For many people, receiving a raise, promotion, or new job opportunity is something to celebrate. However, for families utilizing public benefits, a raise in wages can often be met with anxiety around what that raise will mean for their benefits and overall ability to provide for their families.  The benefits cliff refers to the sudden decrease in public benefits that often occurs when recipients get a small increase in earnings. This cliff has consistently been [...]

By |2022-07-21T12:48:43-04:00July 21st, 2022|Blog, Bloom Kentucky, Economic Security, Medicaid|
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Implementation of 2022 Wins for Kids and Families

Many of you advocated for the 2022 Blueprint for Kentucky's Children policy and budget priorities through legislative meetings, social media posts, attended Children’s Advocacy Week, called or emailed your legislators, and so much more throughout the 2022 legislative session. Your critical efforts paid off with legislative wins for children and positive investments in the state budget. Many new state laws go into effect 90 days after the last day of legislative session unless the bill [...]

By |2022-07-14T16:28:58-04:00July 14th, 2022|Blog, Child Welfare & Safety, Economic Security, Education, Health, Race Equity|
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Ending the Mental Health-to-Incarceration Pipeline

Should children with mental health issues be incarcerated, or should they be given proper access to mental health treatment? In Kentucky specifically, 7 out of 10 youth involved with the juvenile justice system have a mental health condition. The National Juvenile Justice Network (NJJN) recently released a new graphic (below) covering the mental health to incarceration pipeline so let’s take a look at how mental health and incarceration go hand in hand. Currently 1 in [...]

By |2022-07-06T16:34:54-04:00July 6th, 2022|Blog, Education, Race Equity, Youth Justice|
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A Look at the New Early Childhood Education Task Force

The 2022 legislative session has ended, and now Kentucky’s lawmakers are dedicating their time to interim meetings in order to learn more about issues pressing the Commonwealth. This year a new committee has been added specifically to look at Kentucky’s early care and education systems – the Early Childhood Education Task Force is chaired by Senator Danny Carroll from Paducah and Representative Samara Heavrin from Leitchfield. They are joined by Senators Wil Schroder, Reginald Thomas, [...]

By |2022-07-06T16:14:24-04:00July 6th, 2022|Blog, Economic Security, Education, Race Equity|
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Reflections from the 2022 KY Commission on Race & Access to Opportunity

Read about the November 2021 meeting of the Commission on Race and Opportunity here.  Following the 2021 General Assembly, SB 10, co-sponsored by Senator Givens, Senator Whitney Westerfield, and Senate President Robert Stivers, became law and established the Commission on Race and Access to Opportunity. The group is tasked with studying and researching issues where disparities may exist across various sectors to determine areas of improvement and to provide services and opportunities for communities of [...]

By |2022-06-30T12:08:31-04:00June 30th, 2022|Blog, Child Welfare & Safety, Economic Security, Education, Health, Justice, Race Equity, Youth Justice|
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Recognizing Federal Protections for the LGBTQ+ Community

By Jordan Ojile, Intern at Kentucky Youth Advocates June is recognized nationally as Pride Month, a time to celebrate strides made and remaining work in LGBTQ+ health and wellbeing. There have been several unsuccessful drives in recent years to protect Kentucky’s vulnerable LGBTQ+ youth. Since 2017, Ban Conversion Therapy Kentucky has been at the forefront of education, advocacy, and lobbying efforts across the Commonwealth. During the 2022 Kentucky General Assembly, the Youth Mental Health Protection [...]

By |2022-06-23T12:40:58-04:00June 23rd, 2022|Blog, Child Welfare & Safety, Health|
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Young Kids Are Learning to Regulate Their Emotions — They Should Not Be in the Juvenile Justice System

Children as young as six-years-old have been arrested in the U.S., which remains one of the only countries without a nationally mandated standard for juvenile prosecution. As of May 2022, just under half of states in the U.S. still have no minimum age for prosecuting children.  Six-year-olds are still learning how to regulate their emotions. Throwing a tantrum should not lead to the arrest of a child but should instead be a segue to introducing [...]

By |2022-06-17T00:19:10-04:00June 13th, 2022|Blog, Race Equity, Youth Justice|
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