“All of our programs combine firearm risk education for young people with social media skill building, so we’re effectively teaching young people how to use social media as a way to make positive change in their communities.”

The education jobs that will likely see the most growth across the coming years are not traditional classroom teaching positions, but supporting roles like substitute teachers, physical therapists, speech language pathologists and technology experts.

“A detention center is not a placement option for a child in foster care. It is the most restrictive, least developmentally appropriate setting we have, and it can cause real harm — especially for adolescents and for youth with mental health needs or disabilities.”

A record-setting 40% of Massachusetts households are experiencing food insecurity.

Youth apprenticeship programs like CareerReady ATL aim to support vulnerable and underserved teens and young adults by connecting them with paid, on-the-job learning opportunities as well as mentorship and other resources to help with career readiness.

“Families are facing child care prices that are higher than the price of rent or mortgage. So this is a huge problem. It’s one of the biggest expenses in a family’s budgets.”

Minnesota’s Fostering Independence Grants program was created to help youth and young adults with foster care experience afford college by providing state funds for them to use however they need — whether for college expenses like tuition or books, or basic needs like rent, food, and transportation.

In conversations about how to resolve the child care crisis, it’s unfortunately common for policymakers and advocates to overlook the child care needs of the growing number of parents across the country who work nontraditional hours, such as early morning or overnight shifts.

In 2024, 30% of children in foster care in the U.S. were in kinship care placements, an arrangement where a child lives with and is cared for by relatives or family friends, keeping them connected to their culture and community.

“On average, a homeless child goes to two to three schools a year. The school they'll start in, the school where the shelter is, and then the school where their permanent home is. That also creates absenteeism.”

The job description for a school counselor typically involves providing students with academic planning support, giving college and career advice and doing outreach to parents and caregivers.

“Pover­ty pos­es a seri­ous threat to children’s devel­op­ment and long-term well-being, with far-reach­ing con­se­quences for our econ­o­my.” — Leslie Boissiere, vice pres­i­dent of exter­nal affairs at the Foun­da­tion

Los Angeles County’s new Office of Transition Age Youth aims to help youth and young adults experiencing mental health challenges — especially those with a background in foster care or juvenile justice — access not just therapeutic services, but also resources on housing, education and career.

“In a world in which we know that grades are inflated, and in a world in which we know that on average, test scores are highly valuable predictors of future outcomes, then we’re trying to get to the parents who are just missing the signal.”

As climate change pushes temperatures to new highs, schools across the U.S. are trying to adapt by updating their student health practices to better protect their students from experiencing dehydration and heat stroke amidst extreme heat.

“Regardless of mental health symptoms, substance use, how many hours a day they're watching TV or they're on social media, we saw widespread increases in insufficient sleep across the population [of teens].”

A new pilot program in Detroit called Ride and Rise is working to address the high rates of chronic absenteeism in Detroit schools by letting K–12 students across the city ride city buses for free.

“You see more than 28,000 kids entering foster care [while in mental health crises]... Using one of the costliest systems we have to solve problems — that could often be addressed earlier and more effectively in the community — is backwards.”

We’re proud to be a part of the network of partners supporting the Baltimore Summer Funding Collaborative! This year, the collaborative is providing grant funding to 54 youth-serving organizations in support of a wide variety of programs that will serve 8,500 youth and young adults.

It’s recommended that children have at least 15-30 minutes of uninterrupted reading time each day, but on average, middle and high school students are only getting about eight minutes a day — and sometimes even less.

“The very foundation of creating children’s media is you are creating something that a child, in their core developmental years, is going to be consuming. So what is the level of intention that you’re bringing to that?”

The @annieecaseyfdn.bsky.social's Generation Work Initiative partnered with local partnerships to integrate positive youth development (PYD) approaches in workforce training settings for youth. We produced case studies about five of these local partnerships. www.childtrends.org/project/gene...

Despite growing public interest in alternatives to a traditional college degree, both four-year universities and community colleges have seen enrollment increases over the past few years.

”We talk so much about keeping students emotionally regulated, but teachers are not taught this for themselves. It is a huge part of classroom management… It is one of the reasons why teachers often quit within the first five years. This needs to change if we are going to retain teachers.”

Although college students with a foster care background face a myriad of challenges on the path to earning their degree, efforts like college aid initiatives, mentorship programs and tuition waivers can help support foster youth’s college success.

“When you look at a child who’s innocent and vulnerable — and a simple [medical] intervention that’s been done since 1961 is refused — knowing that baby’s going out into the world is super worrisome to me.”

The Early Childhood Service Corps trains adults aged 50 and older to work as substitute teachers in child care centers, offering much-needed support to the chronically understaffed child care industry.

“We’re seeing that we can tell by a certain point in the school year—early in the school year—who’s going to be chronically absent and that if parents get a personal outreach in the first month of the school year, that they stay more engaged for the entire year, and that cuts down on absences.”

Educators aren’t the only ones worried about how AI use is affecting children’s learning. Increasing numbers of middle and high school students are also expressing concerns that using AI for schoolwork is hurting their critical thinking skills.

“If we are not invest­ing ear­ly in children’s men­tal health, espe­cial­ly when they are in cri­sis and fac­ing juve­nile deten­tion, we are sim­ply push­ing off the prob­lem and poten­tial­ly pay­ing high­er soci­etal and incar­cer­a­tion costs far­ther down the line.”

Rise Early Learning Center is working to help Baltimore kids by creating a space for their parents to find resources and build community. At Rise, parents receive not only free child care, but also the opportunity to rest, socialize, and take classes on topics like financial literacy and cooking.

“For some children, a clean set of clothes, a 30-minute nap, and some breakfast can change the course of the [school] day.”

College Corps is a California state-based program where college students can get paid for doing community service work such as tutoring K–12 students, working at food banks, and helping with their campus gardens.

We kicked off our first Family Matters meeting of 2026! We’re teaming up with @annieecaseyfdn.bsky.social to look at the data and sharpen our goals for the year ahead. It’s all about finding the best ways to support our families and move our mission forward. #FamilyMatters #Maryland

“They used to say the progression in school was you learn to read and then you read to learn. Now people realize it needs to be both for much longer. ‘Reading to learn’ should start earlier, and ‘learning to read’ must continue well past third grade.”

Since New York state passed legislation banning the arrest of children under the age of 12 in 2022, some law enforcement officers have responded to child misbehavior by arresting their parents.

“Cre­at­ing a work­place where young peo­ple can thrive means design­ing work envi­ron­ments that inten­tion­al­ly sup­port growth and pro­duc­tiv­i­ty.” – Rani­ta Jain, Senior Asso­ciate at the Foundation

Last year, CUNY launched a free apprenticeship program to help aspiring child care workers who haven’t completed their degree learn the industry by working as assistant teachers in early childhood programs.

Over half of the youth around the U.S. in extended foster care are living in an apartment or dorm — a less restrictive housing situation than a foster home where these youth can learn to live independently while still receiving services and support from a case manager.

Many Baltimore parents worry that having to depend on public transit with unreliable schedules and long wait times is putting their middle and high-school aged children in unsafe circumstances and harming their academic performance.

The crisis caused by the lack of a child care infrastructure in the U.S. is costing the country $172 billion in lost earnings, productivity and revenue every single year.

“Teachers are spending more time having to teach how to behave in a kindergarten classroom — that would normally be the purview of preschool teachers. This time spent on behavioral management and behavioral regulation, cumulatively, could be affecting achievement.”

“These kids weren't in school when the pandemic happened, but [some] were... in early childhood and preschool. Their opportunities... to have those experiences outside of their home that build literacy skills and to apply them with peers probably were impacted because they were home.”

65% of child care centers and 51% of public school-based child care programs report having to raise tuition prices over the past year in order to cover higher rent costs and increased spending on food and supplies.

Meet the newest members of the Foundation’s Chil­dren and Fam­i­ly Fel­low­ship® program! These sixteen leaders come from a variety of backgrounds and experiences, but all of them are dedicated to working to improve the policies and programs that affect young people in marginalized communities.

A recent Child Trends’ brief—funded by @annieecaseyfdn.bsky.social—explores the services that Family Resource Centers provide across the country, especially to young parents (under age 25). www.childtrends.org/publications...

Five years after the Family First Prevention Services Act went into full effect, half of U.S. states say that the legislation has not yet achieved its goal of reducing the number of foster youth placed in group facilities instead of family homes.

16% of parents surveyed in September 2025 said they had skipped or delayed at least one of their children’s routine vaccinations.

“School breakfast offers a peace of mind to [students who] do not get food at home. They can come into school knowing, ‘I might be hungry right now, but in another 10 minutes, I’m not going to be hungry anymore, because I’m going to have food, and I’m going to be able to make it through my day.’”

About 31% of 13-year-olds say that they never or hardly ever read for fun, while only 14% say they read almost every day.