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The COVID-19 pandemic shone a light upon the issue of food insecurity in families, with school closures (for most children) drawing concern not simply because of the impact upon pupils' education, but also due to the lack of free school meals available for children in families with low incomes (Lalli, 2021). Since the pandemic, families in the United Kingdom (UK) have been hit by the cost-of-living crisis, with increased energy bills and high inflation meaning that they are faced with higher food costs and increased costs to cook foods. Overall, the pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis have meant that more children are living in food insecure households, and increasingly, schools are responding by establishing food banks. Therefore, this research seeks to explore what impact food banks in schools have upon children, families, staff and settings. The research questions this report aims to answer are: (1) how do food banks in schools operate? (2) what are the motivations for schools to operate food banks? and (3) what are the impacts of schools offering food banks on children, families, and school staff? The report also includes a review of the existing literature on hunger, family stress, impacts on learning, and the wider use of food banks. [Funding for this report was provided by the British Educational Research Association (BERA).]

The educational outcomes of youth in foster care are far worse than those of other students, in part because transitions into or out of the foster care system and placement changes can lead to frequent school transfers, which are associated with a host of problems. Since the early 2000s, policymakers at the state and federal levels have passed legislation to promote collaboration between the education and child welfare systems, with the goal of improving educational stability for youth in foster care and, in turn, their educational outcomes. But two features of public-sector systems in the United States might pose barriers to cross-system collaboration: (1) fragmentation?within?systems; and (2) jurisdictional misalignment?across?systems. In this report, the authors explore the implications of fragmentation and misalignment for cross-system collaboration between public education and child welfare systems. They draw on interviews with education and welfare system representatives and adults who have experience in foster care, as well as case studies of four states' efforts to implement cross-system collaboration. The authors find common challenges to collaboration, including high staff turnover, limited preservice training on educational stability, and geographical dispersion. The authors offer suggestions for how policymakers at the local, state, and federal levels could encourage better cross-system collaboration.

Among the inequities that have been exposed and amplified by the COVID-19 pandemic, access to affordable and healthy food is increasingly a crisis for many students and their families. To explore food security from the perspective of teachers, the British Columbia Teachers' Federation (BCTF) held a virtual Think Tank in Fall 2020. As a social justice union, the BCTF has prioritized healthy food for all students as a key equity issue that necessitates concrete action to benefit all students and families. The impetus for the Think Tank came from a BCTF Executive Committee motion that recommended "investigating holding a Summit on Healthy Food for All Students or other teacher research process that investigates issues and solutions related to food insecurity, access to healthy food for students, and culturally relevant and place-based food." The virtual Think Tank was made up of three activities: (1) a province-wide webinar in which the union president, Teri Mooring, discussed key issues with experts in food security research, teaching, and advocacy; (2) a day-long workshop with teachers across the province engaging in food security work through teaching and advocacy; and (3) a "town hall" format webinar to share stories and recommendations from the Think Tank. This report (1) foregrounds key themes from the Think Tank related to principles that can guide the union's action and advocacy on food security in BC; and (2) proposes paths for the union to amplify, extend and advocate based on the rich diversity of work already occurring within the province. [This report was produced by the Information, Research and International Solidarity Division of the British Columbia Teachers' Federation.]

A new look at children from the world's richest countries offers a mixed picture of their health, skills and happiness. For far too many, issues such as poverty, exclusion and pollution threaten their mental well-being, physical health and opportunities to develop skills. Even countries with good social, economic and environmental conditions are a long way from meeting the targets set in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Focused and accelerated action is needed if these goals are to be met. The evidence from 41 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and European Union (EU) countries tells its own story: from children's chances of survival, growth and protection, to whether they are learning and feel listened to, to whether their parents have the support and resources to give their children the best chance for a healthy, happy childhood. This report reveals children's experiences against the backdrop of their country's policies and social, educational, economic and environmental contexts. [This report was written with contributions from Dominic Richardson, Céline Little, and David Anthony.]

Several systemic factors contribute to the lack of stability and educational opportunities for students in foster care, including lack of transportation to the school of origin (or the schools they enrolled in when they first entered foster care), difficulty enrolling in new schools and transferring credits between school districts, gaps in attendance as a result of disruptions in their lives, and trouble accessing services for both the students and their parents/guardians. States have taken various approaches to addressing these challenges, including policies that directly address barriers for students in foster care and those that indirectly affect this population. This Policy Brief includes examples of federal and state policies intended to support students in foster care and improve their K-12 educational stability and success, as well as opportunities to encourage postsecondary engagement and persistence.

After six months in a COVID-19 world, with the continued uncertainty of when things will return to normal, this brief, "Preparing for Back to School and Navigating Summer in the Time of COVID-19," combines findings from a survey of parents along with the second in a series of surveys of afterschool and summer providers to monitor the state of the afterschool field. The Wave 2 provider survey of 1,047 afterschool and summer program providers, conducted between July 20 and August 31, finds that providers are growing increasingly worried about their program's long-term sustainability, but despite these struggles, programs continue to provide supports to the children and families in their communities, with strong majorities of parents believing in the value of afterschool and summer programs, as well as supporting public funding for these opportunities. [For the Wave 1 brief, "Afterschool in the Time of COVID-19," see ED610208.]

The document are the appendixes for the full report, "Using Data from Schools and Child Welfare Agencies to Predict Near-Term Academic Risks." The study team collected and linked five academic years of student-level administrative data from Pittsburgh Public Schools (PPS), Propel Schools, and the Allegheny County Department of Human Services (DHS). The sample included the full population of students enrolled in each local education agency in 2015/16 or 2016/17, and each entity provided any data available on those students for 2012/13-2016/17. The descriptive analyses used data from the two most recent years--considered the "outcome years" for which academic problems are predicted-- and the predictive analyses included data from the full five-year period. [For the full report, see ED606230; for the study snapshot, see ED6062323.]

This report provides information for administrators, researchers, and student support staff in local education agencies who are interested in identifying students who are likely to have near-term academic problems such as absenteeism, suspensions, poor grades, and low performance on state tests. The report describes an approach for developing a predictive model and assesses how well the model identifies at-risk students using data from two local education agencies in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania: a large local education agency and a smaller charter school network. It also examines which types of predictors--in-school variables (performance, behavior, and consequences) and out-of-school variables (human services involvement and public benefit receipt)--are individually related to each type of near-term academic problem to better understand why the model might flag students as at risk and how best to support these students. The study finds that predictive models using machine learning algorithms identify at-risk students with moderate to high accuracy. In-school variables drawing on school data are the strongest predictors across all outcomes, and predictive performance is not reduced much when out-of-school variables drawing on human services data are excluded and only school data are used. However, some out-of-school events and services--including child welfare involvement, emergency homeless services, and juvenile justice system involvement--are individually related to near-term academic problems. The models are more accurate for the large local education agency than for the smaller charter school network. The models are better at predicting low grade point average, course failure, and scores below the basic level on state tests in grades 3-8 than at predicting chronic absenteeism, suspensions, and scores below the basic level on high school end-of-course standardized tests. The findings suggest that many local education agencies could apply machine learning algorithms to existing school data to identify students who are at risk of near-term academic problems that are known to be precursors to school dropout. [For the appendixes, see ED606232; for the study snapshot, see ED606233.]

School choice was intended to expand options and equity, and it holds promise for many students with unique needs. But it is clear that no choice system can be equitable until all students have real access to those choices. More than 400,000 youth are currently in foster care in the United States, many of whom experience significant obstacles in their lives, ranging from frequent transitions between homecare placements and schools to unmet physical and mental health needs. Youth in foster care experience a number of common obstacles in accessing school choice: lack of transportation to remain in their school of origin, narrow definitions of sibling preference that leave out children in foster care, and insufficient information available to adults in their lives. As a result, children in foster care are less likely to participate in their city's school choice opportunities, including charter schools, magnet schools, online schools, private schools, and in-boundary schools. Many states, cities, and districts have adopted strategies to more equitably provide access to school choice options for youth in foster care. To shed light on what these policies look like in practice, this report takes a close look at Washington, D.C., Denver, New York City, and Los Angeles, detailing their school choice landscapes and lessons in improving access to school choice for youth in foster care. Based on these city studies, it provides recommendations for states as well as cities and local education agencies.

When the British Government ordered all schools to close to the majority of pupils on March 20th, 2020, they were asked to provide on-site education for vulnerable pupils and the children of keyworkers (such as those working in public health, transport and supplying food). Since then, the level of school attendance for both vulnerable pupils and the children of keyworkers has been low, with only 15 per cent of vulnerable pupils attending school (DfE, 2020a). This report focuses on the engagement of vulnerable pupils and the children of keyworkers in-school; remote provision and welfare support for vulnerable pupils; and the challenges involved in continuing to offer this provision as schools begin to open more fully. The report is based on findings from a national survey of 1,233 senior leaders and 1,821 teachers in publicly-funded, mainstream primary and secondary schools in England. Responses between May 7th and 17th have been weighted by phase and free school meal (FSM) eligibility to provide a nationally representative picture. [For a summary report, "Schools' Responses to COVID-19: Key Findings from the Wave 1 Survey," see ED608586.]

Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation's (OPRE's) Division of Child and Family Development (DCFD) is responsible for research and evaluation related to Head Start programs, early childhood development, childcare, child maltreatment, and child welfare services. OPRE's research in the area of child and family development focuses on young children, parents and caregivers, families, and youth. Examples of recent focal areas include dual language learners, classroom quality, family engagement, and building workforce capacity. This report describes the research and evaluation activities undertaken by the Division of Child and Family Development in 2019. Brief project descriptions provide an overview of the range of projects conducted by the Division during the year in early childhood research, child care, Head Start and Early Head Start, child welfare, human trafficking, and cultural diversity.

This brief identifies the steps necessary to realize an integrated system of care, reviews two current approaches, and makes recommendations--including specifying policy reforms that would promote interagency collaboration, integration, service delivery, and improved outcomes for California's children, both with and without disabilities. As a full commitment from the state administration is necessary to realize the proposed solutions at scale, this brief recommends the formation of a statewide interagency leadership council that has legitimacy, decision-making authority, and accountability across state and local policy and administrative levels. We also present recommendations for integrating California's many child-serving agencies and organizations that simultaneously serve children and families into a "Whole System" approach.

The 2020 Pro-Kid Policy Agenda for California is the comprehensive roadmap at the state level to ensure that all children have the necessary supports to reach their full potential. California has an obligation to tear down the structural barriers to all kids, especially kids of color, from growing up healthy, safe, and ready for college, career, and civic life. The Agenda was compiled by Children Now, the only research, policy development, and advocacy organization covering the full-range of key children's issues, from prenatal through age 26, including children's health, education, child welfare, and family supports, and for adolescents and transition age youth. Children Now coordinates The Children's Movement of California®--a member-based constituency supporting kids that now includes more than 3,570 business, parent, labor, civil rights, faith, and community organizations. The organization also leads, co-leads or participates in more than 90 statewide and local coalitions around the state. The Agenda reflects the top priorities of each of those various coalitions and their members.

California has long been on the cutting edge of social and political change. This trendsetting continues today on issues from addressing climate change to supporting immigrant communities to ensuring equal rights for all. But, when reviewing the grades of this year's California Children's Report Card, it is difficult not to ask the question: why is California failing to be a leader when it comes to kids? The "California Children's Report Card" grades the state on its ability to support better outcomes for kids, from prenatal to age 26. Each grade is based on the state's progress (or lack thereof) on passing and implementing state-level policies and making investments in the supports and services needed for all kids to reach their full potential. The Pro-Kid Agenda provides recommendations to the state's leaders on how to improve outcomes for kids in each section. Today's kids face too many barriers to accessing the quality supports and services they need to reach their full potential. California must take swift action to break down these barriers, first and foremost for children of color, and then by addressing the intersectional impacts of poverty, immigration status, gender, sexual orientation, and foster care system involvement. The report card is organized into the following sections: (1) Health; (2) Education; (3) Family Supports; (4) Child Welfare; and (5) Adolescents & Transition Age Youth.

Foster care provides round-the-clock substitute care for nearly 700,000 U.S. children who are temporarily or permanently separated from their family of origin each year. Each state manages its own foster care system according to federal regulations. Despite numerous large-scale federal policy reforms over the past several decades, substantial concerns remain about the experiences and outcomes of children in the foster care system. The most recent effort to reform foster care, the Family First Prevention Services Act of 2018, attempts to both reduce the use of foster care and increase the quality of care. In this report, we review how policy has shaped the experiences and outcomes of children in foster care, where policy has succeeded, and where it falls short of achieving its goals. We then identify opportunities for federal and state policy to better support the safety, health, and well-being of children in foster care.

This brief describes the relationship between placement stability and youth engagement in the Youth Transitions Partnership (YTP), a program developed and implemented by the Alameda County Social Services Agency (SSA) for 14- to 20-year-olds in foster care who have multiple risk factors for experiencing homelessness. The authors used program data linked to child welfare administrative data to examine the proportion of YTP participants who experience placement instability while enrolled in the program. How this varies by age at enrollment is explored in particular, when YTP participants are most likely to experience placement instability, whether placement instability is associated with lower overall engagement, whether type of instability matters, and whether engagement is lower after youth experience placement instability.

Over the past three years, the Boston Birth to Eight Collaborative has convened more than 200 individuals and organizations from across the early childhood field--center and family-based providers, pediatricians, public health researchers, hospitals, family engagement organizations, and parents--to ensure all children are ready for sustained success. The inaugural "State of Early Education and Care" report brings together for the first time data from the Boston Public Schools, Boston Public Health Commission, Massachusetts Department of Early Education and Care (EEC), U.S. Census Bureau, City of Boston Census and the United Way DRIVE Initiative. This report focuses on supply, demand and gaps in child-care seats (availability, quality and affordability). It also explores disparities based on child and family characteristics, including child/family demographics, and maternal/adult and child health. This first "State of Early Education and Care in Boston" aims to provide policy makers, philanthropists, and early education and care practitioners with information about gaps and opportunities around supply and demand of early education and care in the city. It will guide the Boston Opportunity Agenda and Birth to Eight Collaborative's citywide plan and will help to identify where additional child-care slots are needed, areas for quality improvement, and what other family supports are necessary. [This report was produced by the Birth to Eight Collaborative.]

For more than a decade, the Foundation for Child Development, through the Young Scholars Program (YSP), funded studies about the early education, health, and well-being of children from low-income, immigrant families. Through YSP, the Foundation aimed to fill a gap in policy and practice-relevant research on young immigrant children. It invested in early-career researchers who investigated the education and health needs of this population. This document provides two timely reports authored by a YSP scholar, commissioned by the Foundation. They provide a systematic review of YSP research and situate findings related to the well-being of children of low-income, immigrants into today's socio-economic and sociopolitical climate. YSP research can help equip decision makers with knowledge about both protective and risk factors that influence the developmental outcomes for young children within immigrant families. It also highlights contextual conditions that may contribute to greater resilience among children of immigrants and present recommendations for action at the public policy, family, school, and neighborhood levels. Recommendations based on research are suggested to promote the overall well-being and academic achievement of children of immigrants with beneficial approaches to address the needs of all children and inform public policy. This collection of findings document a troublesome reality for young citizens of this country. Latino citizen children of immigrants are growing up in a unique historical context in U.S. history-a time marked by aggressive immigration policies and practices. These systematic policies and practices place their parents and families in precarious situations leading to a cascade of short- and long-term risks known to be detrimental to child development. Alarmingly, the data also indicate that immigration policies affect not just those children in mixed-status families when an unauthorized parent is detained or deported. Instead, immigration policies and practices, and an overall anti-immigrant climate, are systemic, and they affect, to varying degrees, all citizen children of immigrants-particularly Latino citizen children, the fastest growing child population in the United States.

The Illinois Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) contracted with three child welfare providers that operate transitional living (TLP) or independent living (ILO) programs (or both) to implement LifeSet, an intensive case management program developed by Youth Villages, for youth in care who are 17.5 to 21 years old. LifeSet helps youth develop the independent living skills necessary for a successful transition from foster care to adulthood. DCFS contracted with Chapin Hall to evaluate LifeSet. During Phase I, the authors conducted a formative evaluation to understand how LifeSet is being implemented in Illinois to learn about the experiences of the three Illinois LifeSet providers, and to describe the characteristics of the youth those providers serve. The formative evaluation included three components: (1) review of LifeSet program materials; (2) interviews with supervisors, program directors, and other administrators; and (3) comparison of the cohort of youth who were enrolled in LifeSet for at least one day between 7/1/2019 and 11/30/2021 (n = 267) to the cohort of youth who were placed in traditional (i.e., non-LifeSet) transitional living or independent living programs during that same period (n = 367). LifeSet supervisors and administrators noted the strengths of LifeSet, but also expressed concerns related to whether some referrals were appropriate, continuity of care, and specialists' workload. Additionally analysis of the administrative data found the LifeSet youth were older and more likely to be Black. They had spent more time in care, were less likely to have experienced detention, and had spent fewer days per years in care in detention or a psychiatric hospital.

The Doris Duke Fellowships for the Promotion of Child Well-Being were launched in 2010 to promote interdisciplinary learning and advance research that improves public policy and practice. The Doris Duke Fellowships Equity Study examined the perspectives of multiple key constituencies--academic and policy mentors, staff members, national advisory board members, and Doris Duke Fellows--to explore experiences of diversity, equity, and inclusion within the fellowships program. This research brief describes how diversity, equity, and inclusion were experienced in mentoring relationships between mentors (academic and policy) and fellows. This brief discusses the frequency of mentoring interactions, relationship quality, how similarities in personal identities influenced relationship quality, and how aspects of diversity, equity, and inclusion were encountered in these mentoring relationships.

Roughly 270,000 school-aged youth were in foster care at the end of fiscal year 2017. Youth in foster care may change schools frequently, which can negatively affect their academic achievement. The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), enacted in 2015, reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 and included provisions to improve educational stability for youth in foster care. These included requiring state educational agencies to ensure youth placed into foster care stay in their current school, unless it is not in their best interest to do so. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) was asked to review implementation of these provisions. This report examines: (1) the challenges state educational agencies (SEAs) and selected school districts face implementing the ESSA educational stability provisions for youth in foster care; and (2) how the Department of Education (Education) provides technical assistance and monitors state implementation efforts. GAO surveyed SEA foster care points of contact in the 50 states, District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico and all but one state responded. In addition to interviewing federal officials, GAO interviewed selected state and local educational and child welfare agency officials, and held discussion groups with foster youth and parents, in three states selected by number of youth in foster care, among other factors. GAO also held discussion groups with officials from 14 SEAs and 5 state child welfare agencies, and reviewed relevant federal laws, regulations, guidance, and technical assistance. GAO recommends that Education develop an online clearinghouse of resources. Education agreed with GAO's recommendation.

The Learn and Earn to Achieve Potential (LEAP)™ initiative, a nationwide project of the Annie E. Casey Foundation, aims to improve education and employment outcomes for young people ages 15 to 25 who have been involved in the child welfare and justice systems or who are experiencing homelessness. Young people eligible for LEAP are likely to be disconnected from school and work, and face added challenges that stem directly from their systems involvement or homelessness, including disrupted schooling, housing instability, limited family support, and trauma. LEAP seeks to reduce the inequalities in life chances and outcomes that affect this population, with the goal of helping these young people reach their full potential by connecting them to postsecondary and career pathways. LEAP operationalizes two education- and employment-focused program models to help young people at different stages along their educational and employment pathways. One program, Jobs for America's Graduates, or JAG, targets young people who have not completed high school. JAG's goal is to help these individuals obtain a high school credential and to equip them with the work and life skills they need to land quality jobs or acquire a postsecondary education. The second, JFF's Back on Track program, aims to help young people transition to postsecondary education and persist through their crucial first year of college or advanced training. Ten grantees in eight states are implementing LEAP, each in multiple locations. This report presents implementation, outcomes, and cost research findings from MDRC's evaluation of the grantees' LEAP programs, which focused on the early years of the initiative. Four appendices are included in the report. [Numerous organizations sponsored this work and the full list can be seen in the document.]

Administrative data refers to information about individual children, families, and/or service providers that is collected and maintained as a part of program operations. Research using early care and education (ECE)-related administrative data has often focused on child care subsidy policies, use of ECE programs, access to ECE programs, and other topics. The purpose of this brief is to highlight a range of federal, state, and local administrative data sources that could be used to address policy-relevant ECE questions. It describes data sources across four main areas: (1) early care and education; (2) health; (3) child welfare, public assistance, and human services; and (4) employment. It offers examples of the types of ECE research questions that could be answered when data sources from these areas are linked with other sources (e.g., when various ECE data sources are linked with one another, as well as when ECE data are linked with other data). The brief serves as a starting place for researchers or state agency staff interested in understanding the variety of administrative data that could be linked together to answer policy-relevant questions in early care and education.