Reports, Research & Policy

In October 2021, the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) and ZERO TO THREE convened a group of state leaders and national experts to discuss strategies to promote the economic security of families with infants and toddlers. Four policy areas were addressed: cash assistance and tax credits, paid family and medical leave, housing, and education and training. Together, panelists and participants discussed the history of support in each of these areas, recent laws and legislative proposals,...

By Anton C. Bizzell, Photo: Unsplash, Psychology Today, January 26, 2022 The COVID-19 pandemic continues to take a toll on individuals and groups around the world, from frontline health care professionals to service workers to the elderly to entire families decimated by the virus. However, there is a large, traumatized cohort that requires more attention : our youth. How do we help young people cope with the upheaval in their lives due to the coronavirus , on top of the many other traumas...

By Reema Amin, Photo: José A. Alvarado Jr./Chalkbeat, Chalkbeat, February 1, 2022 When New York City school officials introduced a new COVID policy during winter break, panic spread among many Bangladeshi parents in parts of central Brooklyn. In a letter to families, officials said students could now stay in school if exposed to COVID, as long as they tested negative on at-home tests. The letter also said officials “ strongly encourage ” children to get a test before returning to school —...

By Clive Belfield and Julie Kashen, The Century Foundation, February 2, 2022 Families with young children have been hit especially hard during the COVID-19 pandemic: they have had to face not only all the labor market disruptions but also all the child care and schooling disruptions. In no prior downturn have families had to endure two disruptions of this magnitude hitting at the same time, with the same rapidity. Understanding the scope and size of these twin disruptions is important, not...

By Asher Lehrer-Small, Photo: Asher Lehrer-Small, The 74 Million, January 27, 2022 P aullette Healy can tick off the ways her family’s life has been plunged into uncertainty and fear over the last three months: Her younger child’s repeated nightmares and increased anxiety, the hours she’s poured into collecting forms from her kids’ doctor and psychiatrist to prove she’s a fit parent and an arduous and probably costly legal process that still looms to clear her name. From early November...

By Jason DeParle, Photo: Olga Koric/Alamy, The New York Times, January 24, 2022 A study that provided poor mothers with cash stipends for the first year of their children’s lives appears to have changed the babies’ brain activity in ways associated with stronger cognitive development, a finding with potential implications for safety net policy. The differences were modest — researchers likened them in statistical magnitude to moving to the 75th position in a line of 100 from the 81st — and...

Fathers, children, and their families benefit from healthy coparenting and romantic relationships. Healthy relationships can improve fathers’ mental health and the quality of their involvement with their children, and can support positive health and developmental outcomes for children. In accordance with legislation authorizing Responsible Fatherhood (RF) programming, the Office of Family Assistance (OFA) within the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) requires relationship...

By Elissa Strauss, Photo: Getty Images, January 14, 2022 The fight for universal paid parental leave has been dominated by women. It's mostly women who birth and feed babies, and therefore it is mostly women who are too often left to choose between healing from birth and adequately caring for their newborn, or a paycheck. It's a choice few would want to make, and yet the vast majority of new moms are put in that position and suffer. As a result, women are more likely to get angry, and then...

By Emily Henderson, Photo: Unsplash, Medical News, January 19, 2021 Researchers know that experiencing a high number of adverse events in childhood correlates with worse health outcomes in adulthood. These studies have led to an emphasis on trauma-informed practice in schools and workplaces in an attempt to mitigate the harm of early adversity. At the other end of the spectrum, focusing on wellness, Darcia Narvaez, emerita professor of psychology at the University of Notre Dame, has helped...

By Pooja Lakshmin, Photo: Csilla Klenyánszki, The New York Times, February 4, 2021 As a psychiatrist specializing in women’s mental health, nearly every mother I have treated during the pandemic fights through decision fatigue, rage and a feeling of powerlessness every day. This isn’t breaking news. Burnout among parents, in particular moms, has been a defining principle of this global disaster. Clinical-level burnout is defined by a triad of symptoms: exhaustion, a sense of futility and...

By Ellie Kaverman, Center for the Study of Social Policy (CSSP), December 9, 2021 “There’s nothing like waking up and worrying if today they’re going to turn a utility off or wondering how much time you have to come up with the money to prevent that from happening,” Patricia, a mother of four in Michigan told us. For her, economic security would mean “not having to beg and borrow if you don’t have it or try to come up with last resort tactics to make sure you have groceries.” The Center for...

By John Woodrow Cox, Mark Berman, and Steven Rich, Photo: Oakland County Sheriff's Office/AP, The Washington Post, December 9, 2021 She had seen her grandson’s red, spiral-bound notebook before that night, but now, as Catherine O’Connor sifted through its pages for the first time, what she read astonished her. “School Shootings,” Joshua O’Connor had titled the first page, above a reconstruction of the Columbine High School massacre that left 13 people dead. In the pages that followed,...