In recent years, there has been unprecedented awareness within policy and research of the disadvantageous trajectories that looked-after children and young people (LACYP) often face; particularly in relation to their education, health and wellbeing. Despite the perceived capacity of sport, physical activity and physical education to contribute to…

The skills and abilities children develop in their earliest years lay the foundation for their future well-being. Likewise, early negative experiences can undermine them in later life. Parents play a central role in shaping their children's development, so helping them overcome their own sources of stress is a powerful way to improve how families…

Wraparound is a care coordination model that has shown effectiveness for serving children and youth with significant emotional and behavioral health needs and their families. The current study evaluates a statewide wraparound demonstration with the goals of reducing the use of residential care and increasing access to outpatient mental health…

This article describes an infant and early childhood mental health-informed therapeutic visitation program that offers clinical support, systems-level advocacy, and developmentally appropriate guidance to families navigating the child welfare and family court systems. The program offers treatment, permanency, and placement planning for infants,…

The Baby Leadership Learning Collaborative (Baby LLC) initiative is a leadership group committed to bridging relationships across service sectors to promote infant-early childhood mental health and to break the multigenerational cycle of risk often associated with early adversity and trauma. Baby LLC has guided an early relational health focus…

Recent workforce trends in healthcare point to a growing need to prepare social workers capable of providing integrated behavioral health care in multidisciplinary settings serving at-risk youth. This article reports on a project that involved the development and implementation of a graduate-level social work specialization focused on integrated…

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…

Children in child welfare protective custody (e.g., foster care) are known to have increased health concerns compared to children not in protective custody. The poor health documented for children in protective custody persists well into adulthood; young adults who emancipate from protective custody report poorer health, lower quality of life, and…

Across the country, placements in foster care are rising. In 2016, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reported that 273,539 children in the U.S. entered foster care. In 34 percent of those cases, parental drug abuse was one of the factors leading to the child's removal from their family. Additionally, the U.S. Substance Abuse and…

When the Annie E. Casey Foundation published its first "KIDS COUNT Data Book" in 1990, there were 64 million children in America. Now, almost three decades later, there are close to 74 million. This 30th edition of the "Data Book" examines how America's child population has changed, demographically and geographically. The…

At the age of 4 years, Joseph came to the Orleans Parish Early Childhood Supports and Services program (ECSS) for mental health services because of serious aggression and anger. His history included physical abuse before age 2, long-term maintenance on an atypical antipsychotic medication, and other biological, psychological, and…

Prevention and intervention programmes for children at risk aim to improve child well-being and resilience. They do so using both direct and indirect strategies, intervening with children but also considering broader contextual factors (such as family dynamics). Children's subjective well-being comprises five main components (physical health,…

Over the past decade, the National Advisory Committee on Rural Health and Human Services (hereinafter referred to as "the Committee") has examined a number of rural issues that touch upon the social determinants of health. The Committee's past work has focused on understanding how conditions and outcomes such as homelessness, childhood…

The 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, child care, child maltreatment, and child welfare services. OPRE's research in the area of child and family development focuses on young…

The Casey Foundation's "2018 KIDS COUNT® Data Book" warns that the 2020 census is mired in challenges that could shortchange the official census count by at least 1 million kids younger than age 5. This discrepancy would put hundreds of millions of federal dollars at risk and, in doing so, underfund programs that are critical for family…