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The Changing Child Population of the United States: First Data from the 2020 Census

April 3, 2023

The United States is a wonderfully diverse nation, and its child population represents a kaleidoscope of races and nationalities. For all children to thrive, the basic needs of every young person — from every demographic group — must be met.This report compares 2020 census results to historical data. It explores how the U.S. child population is decreasing in size, increasing in diversity and changing substantially at the state and city levels.Among the changes highlighted in the publication:The nation's child population count fell from 74.2 million in 2010 to 73.1 million in 2020. During this same time-frame, 27 states plus Puerto Rico saw their total child count fall.Children of color are taking up an increasingly larger share of the total child population. These children grew from representing just 26% of all kids in 1980 to 53% in 2020.The total headcount for children of color grew in 46 states plus the District of Columbia, and this statistic grew fastest in three states — Texas, Florida and Washington.

Preventing and Ending Youth Homelessness in America

March 8, 2023

Not all young people have the benefit of growing up in a safe and stable home. In fact: Across America, 1 in 30 youth between the ages of 13 to 24 and 1 in 10 young adults between the ages of 18 to 25 will experience homelessness over the course of a year. This scenario — which occurs during an important developmental period — can inject trauma into a young person's life, limit their growth and carry costly community consequences.In recognition of these challenges, the Annie E. Casey Foundation is joining partners in the field, such as Funders Together to End Homelessness, to ensure that young people have safe, stable housing access to meaningful educational and economic opportunities.This brief, released by the Foundation, shares facts about youth homelessness in America. It also reviews the nation's current response to youth homelessness, the risks that young people face when homeless, and what leaders can be doing to prevent and end housing instability among young people today.

Juvenile Justice: Young People and Restorative Justice

November 14, 2022

Restorative justice models present an alternative way for communities and lawmakers to understand and respond to crime. These models give people who have been harmed the opportunity to be heard, ask questions, seek restoration and gain closure. At the same time, individuals responsible for the crime gain an opportunity to apologize and make amends.This report, produced by the National Conference of State Legislatures, examines restorative justice as a promising approach to juvenile justice reform. The document describes various restorative justice models and how they work to repair harm caused by delinquent acts while balancing the needs of the victim, the individual who committed the offense and the community at large.

2022 KIDS COUNT Data Book: 2022 state trends in child well-being

August 8, 2022

The 33rd edition of the Annie E. Casey Foundation's KIDS COUNT® Data Book describes how children in America are in the midst of a mental health crisis, struggling with anxiety and depression at unprecedented levels.This year's publication continues to present national and state data across four domains — economic well-being, education, health and family and community — and ranks states in overall child well-being. The report includes pre-pandemic figures as well as more recent statistics, and shares the latest information of its kind available.

Developing a Theory of Change: Practical Guidance (Part 3)

June 29, 2022

This guide is designed to help funders and those who implement programs realize their ambitious social change efforts. It explores theory of change models, processes and products as well as key theory of change concepts, benefits and limitations.A theory of change is both a conceptual model and a concrete product that reflects the model. A fundamental component of any large-scale social change effort, theory of change can help teams strengthen strategies and maximize results by charting out the work ahead, what success looks like and how to get there.Developing a theory of change model involves making explicit collective assumptions about how a change will unfold. This work can help the funders and leaders of a social change effort clearly articulate their objectives, discuss equity considerations, define roles of decision-making authority and enable useful measurement and learning.A theory of change serves as a good basis for measurement, experimentation and learning. It can help teams test assumptions related to adapting and implementing strategies and clarify complicated pathways to change. For approaches that are complex — where the operating environment is fluid and unpredictable and may influence a strategy or its implementation in an unknown way — a theory of change is an especially important tool. It serves as a compass, illuminating the desired goals, informing adaptations and identifying opportunities for meaningful measurement.The guide is organized into four parts.Part one, covered in this entry, introduces theory of change work including its benefits, considerations and limitations. Part two delivers step-by-step guidance — including considerations, exercises and examples — to aid program leaders in articulating and documenting a useful, equitable theory of change. Part three offers fillable theory of change templates that can help teams record their theory of change components, assumptions and audiences. Part four offers examples of theory of change models.

Developing a Theory of Change: Practical Guidance (Part 4)

June 29, 2022

This guide is designed to help funders and those who implement programs realize their ambitious social change efforts. It explores theory of change models, processes and products as well as key theory of change concepts, benefits and limitations.A theory of change is both a conceptual model and a concrete product that reflects the model. A fundamental component of any large-scale social change effort, theory of change can help teams strengthen strategies and maximize results by charting out the work ahead, what success looks like and how to get there.Developing a theory of change model involves making explicit collective assumptions about how a change will unfold. This work can help the funders and leaders of a social change effort clearly articulate their objectives, discuss equity considerations, define roles of decision-making authority and enable useful measurement and learning.A theory of change serves as a good basis for measurement, experimentation and learning. It can help teams test assumptions related to adapting and implementing strategies and clarify complicated pathways to change. For approaches that are complex — where the operating environment is fluid and unpredictable and may influence a strategy or its implementation in an unknown way — a theory of change is an especially important tool. It serves as a compass, illuminating the desired goals, informing adaptations and identifying opportunities for meaningful measurement.The guide is organized into four parts.Part one, covered in this entry, introduces theory of change work including its benefits, considerations and limitations. Part two delivers step-by-step guidance — including considerations, exercises and examples — to aid program leaders in articulating and documenting a useful, equitable theory of change. Part three offers fillable theory of change templates that can help teams record their theory of change components, assumptions and audiences. Part four offers examples of theory of change models.

Developing a Theory of Change: Practical Guidance (Part I)

June 29, 2022

This guide is designed to help funders and those who implement programs realize their ambitious social change efforts. It explores theory of change models, processes and products as well as key theory of change concepts, benefits and limitations.A theory of change is both a conceptual model and a concrete product that reflects the model. A fundamental component of any large-scale social change effort, theory of change can help teams strengthen strategies and maximize results by charting out the work ahead, what success looks like and how to get there.Developing a theory of change model involves making explicit collective assumptions about how a change will unfold. This work can help the funders and leaders of a social change effort clearly articulate their objectives, discuss equity considerations, define roles of decision-making authority and enable useful measurement and learning.A theory of change serves as a good basis for measurement, experimentation and learning. It can help teams test assumptions related to adapting and implementing strategies and clarify complicated pathways to change. For approaches that are complex — where the operating environment is fluid and unpredictable and may influence a strategy or its implementation in an unknown way — a theory of change is an especially important tool. It serves as a compass, illuminating the desired goals, informing adaptations and identifying opportunities for meaningful measurement.The guide is organized into four parts.Part one, covered in this entry, introduces theory of change work including its benefits, considerations and limitations. Part two delivers step-by-step guidance — including considerations, exercises and examples — to aid program leaders in articulating and documenting a useful, equitable theory of change. Part three offers fillable theory of change templates that can help teams record their theory of change components, assumptions and audiences. Part four offers examples of theory of change models.

Developing a Theory of Change: Practical Guidance (Part 2)

June 29, 2022

This guide is designed to help funders and those who implement programs realize their ambitious social change efforts. It explores theory of change models, processes and products as well as key theory of change concepts, benefits and limitations.A theory of change is both a conceptual model and a concrete product that reflects the model. A fundamental component of any large-scale social change effort, theory of change can help teams strengthen strategies and maximize results by charting out the work ahead, what success looks like and how to get there.Developing a theory of change model involves making explicit collective assumptions about how a change will unfold. This work can help the funders and leaders of a social change effort clearly articulate their objectives, discuss equity considerations, define roles of decision-making authority and enable useful measurement and learning.A theory of change serves as a good basis for measurement, experimentation and learning. It can help teams test assumptions related to adapting and implementing strategies and clarify complicated pathways to change. For approaches that are complex — where the operating environment is fluid and unpredictable and may influence a strategy or its implementation in an unknown way — a theory of change is an especially important tool. It serves as a compass, illuminating the desired goals, informing adaptations and identifying opportunities for meaningful measurement.The guide is organized into four parts.Part one, covered in this entry, introduces theory of change work including its benefits, considerations and limitations. Part two delivers step-by-step guidance — including considerations, exercises and examples — to aid program leaders in articulating and documenting a useful, equitable theory of change. Part three offers fillable theory of change templates that can help teams record their theory of change components, assumptions and audiences. Part four offers examples of theory of change models.

Community-driven Development at Pittsburgh Yards

March 21, 2022

For nearly two decades, the Annie E. Casey Foundation has been a key partner in the redevelopment of a 31-acre former industrial site in Atlanta's Pittsburgh neighborhood. Though the project — now known as Pittsburgh Yards — has evolved since UPS first sold the land to AECF Atlanta Realty (a subsidiary of the Casey Foundation) in 2006, the mission has remained the same: spur more equitable career, entrepreneurship and wealth-building opportunities for Black residents in the surrounding communities of Neighborhood Planning Unit V (NPU-V).To realize that vision, staff in Casey's Atlanta Civic Site, which serves as primary investor and advisor on the project, used the Foundation's Race Equity and Inclusion Action Guide as a blueprint. In doing so, Casey and the Pittsburgh Yards development team have prioritized community engagement from the start, maximizing community-based strengths and assets and creating pathways for residents to participate in key decisionmaking processes.This brief describes those community engagement efforts and identifies lessons and recommendations that may be useful to other organizations interested in undertaking similar redevelopment efforts.

Six Strategies for Keeping Families Supported, Connected and Safe

February 14, 2022

In recent years, two concurrent factors have led to an increased focus on how child welfare leaders can work with partners to support families to stay together: the 2018 passage of the Family First Prevention Services Act, which created new approaches to a child welfare funding stream to prevent the need for foster care, and a heightened awareness of how discriminatory policies and practices within child welfare lead to unnecessary disruption and separation of families of color.Many states are expanding their efforts to support families and creating new partnerships to fund those efforts. The Annie E. Casey Foundation profiled six innovative efforts across the country. While the focus and stage of development of these partnerships vary, six strategies emerged as important to successful and effective coordination of resources to prevent system involvement and keep families supported, connected and safe.

Key Funding Streams to Keep Families Supported, Connected and Safe

February 14, 2022

The Family First Prevention Services Act provides an important opportunity for child welfare leaders to support families with Title IV-E funding. However, Family First is just one piece of the puzzle.Developing an array of services to meet family needs requires child welfare leaders to understand funding that is administered by other agencies and to work across sectors to support a broad range of services.This quick, four-page brief highlights federal funding streams that can support a continuum of services to prevent children from entering the child welfare system and foster care. It also shares examples of how communities are leveraging such funding streams at the local level. 

Mecklenburg County: Remaking a Child Welfare System

October 17, 2021

In 2013, child welfare leaders in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, needed new approaches to keeping families together safely and improving the well-being of children and young people. For situations in which foster care was the only option, they wanted placements to be temporary, with fewer disruptions and less trauma for children and families.Four years later, with better data systems for analyzing trends, new ways of working with families and communities and a partnership with a national experts, the county's Youth and Family Services (YFS) is seeing significant, positive results. These include reduced entries into foster care, fewer young people in the system living in group settings, less staff turnover with improved morale, more support for kinship care and increased efforts to end racial disparities.