Below you will find links to organizations that provide resources on children’s issues. The following organizations inform policy makers and support systems and policies that positively impact child development.

Academy for Educational Development

AED, founded in 1961 as an independent, nonprofit organization, is committed to solving critical social problems in the U.S. and throughout the world through education, social marketing, research, training, policy analysis and innovative program design and management.

• Center for Youth Development and Policy Research
  This center works to create and strengthen the infrastructures that support positive youth development in America. The Center provides public education, research, policy formulation, and technical assistance to communities seeking to expand support systems for disadvantaged young people.
• Evaluation Consultation Center
  The Evaluation Consultation Center conducts qualitative and quantitative research to systematically evaluate the quality of school health programs. The center also provides technical assistance and training to state and local education agencies, local health departments, national organizations, and communities.
• Ready to Learn International Center On Care and Education of Children
  RTL focuses attention on the problem of inadequate care and education for children between 0 and 8 in developing countries. The center provides support to service providers, child advocates, policy makers and donors, and works with government, nongovernmental organizations, individuals, and communities to carry out needs assessment, policy analysis, research, strategic planning, programs design, technical assistance, and training.

• KIDSCOUNT
  KIDS COUNT, a project of the Annie E. Casey Foundation, is a national and state-by-state effort to track the status of children in the US By providing policymakers and citizens with benchmarks of child well-being, KIDS COUNT seeks to enrich local, state, and national discussions concerning ways to secure better futures for all children.
• Transforming Neighborhoods
  The basic premise behind this work is that children do well when their families do well, and families do better when they live in supportive communities. This initiative works with neighborhoods in cities to connect families with the opportunities and supports they need to raise happy, healthy, and successful children. Their work will also support a wide range of local, state, and national-scale activities that contribute to strong families and neighborhoods.
• Education Reform
  To encourage public education that works better for all kids, the Foundation concentrates its education grant making in two areas: (1) state and communities where there is potential for comprehensive reform; (2) in developing and publicizing specific components of comprehensive education reform.
• Assessing the New Federalism
  This project is to help policymakers, program administrators, the news media, and other audiences distinguish promising state innovations from those less likely to improve outcomes for children and families. The New Federalism project will produce a database on the Internet to assess social policies in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Researchers will visit 13 states for detailed analyses of state spending on welfare and children's programs, changes in policy, and innovations in service delivery.
• Casey Journalism Center for Children and Families
  To encourage print and broadcast reporting that digs deeply into the factors that contributes to better outcomes for children, the Foundation helped establish the Casey Journalism Center for Children and Families in 1993. An independent, nonpartisan resource for journalists, the center has three main activities: (1) a week-long conference on specific children's issues; (2) an awards program honoring distinguished coverage of disadvantaged children and families; (3) and a resource center for journalists.
• Developing Leaders and Leadership Skills
  An 11-month leadership development program for mid-career professionals.

Board on Children, Youth, and Families

Center for the Study of Social Policy

• Child Welfare Class Action Litigation
  A set of class action lawsuits on behalf of abused and neglected children, using a less adversarial approach that seeks to solve long-standing problems in agency functioning.
• Child Protection Clearinghouse
  An online resource focusing on community-based systems of child protection, offering legislation, state-specific documents, program descriptions and evaluations, as well as tools and materials from technical assistance providers.
• Community Partnerships for Protecting Children
  A foundation-funded initiative in which four cities were given grants to change the way the address the problems of child abuse and neglect. The Center provides technical assistance to the four sites, monitors their progress, and serves as a liaison between the sites and the foundation.
• Financing Reform of Children and Family Services
  Provides assistance to several states and communities in the development of financing strategies that contribute to improved results for children and families.
• Governance Partnerships
  Partnerships that help specific states and localities form new governance partnerships to restructure the organization, financing, and delivery of human services.
• Local Governance Clearinghouse
  An online resource of abstracts and some full-text documents relating to topics in local governance, such as theory and concepts, state documents and papers, finance, legislation, and others.
• Peer Technical Assistance Network
  A network of public and private sector administrators, policymakers, and practitioners working to help states and communities replace agency-dominated, highly categorical services with a system that is developed in partnership with local communities.

Children Now

• Children and the Media
• Children Are Watching Now
  An action campaign to alert lawmakers, the media, and the public about legislation that can improve the lives of children in California.
• The 100% Campaign
• Supporting Working Families Program
  This program enters into the debate over government's responsibility to help struggling families. The program promotes an essential support network-quality child care, health care, child support, fair tax policies-all for working families.
• Health Initiative
  Long-term goals of universal health insurance for children, helping managed care plans establish policies that promote children's health, and raising the immunization rate.

Children’s Defense Fund

• Black Community Crusade for Children (BCCC)
  BCCC is a partnership with well-established and effective regional child-serving organizations. BCCC works to mobilize African Americans on behalf of Black children who face disproportionate problems.
• Child Watch Visitation Program
  This program focuses on the faces and stories of real children. The Child Watch Visitation Program brings executives, clergy, legislators, and other community leaders out of their offices and into the lives of children and families who are affected by their decisions.
• Children in the States
  Up-to-date state and national data on the condition of children and families in the United States.
• The Issues

Council of State Governments (CSG)

• Suggested State Legislation
  For more than 50 years, The Council of State Governments' Suggested State Legislation program has informed state policy-makers on a broad range of legislative issues. Through this program, volumes of draft legislation on topics of current interest and importance to the states are produced. See how other states are tackling difficult policy issues through legislation.
• State Archives and Research Service (STARS)
  This a fully searchable, easy to use online database that contains thousands of pages of materials on innovative state government programs, including research, analysis and 50-state surveys.
• Innovations Awards Program
  CSG’s Innovations Awards Program was established in 1986 to bring greater visibility to exemplary state programs and policies and to facilitate the transfer of those successful experiences to other states.

Families and Work Institute

• Current Projects

Family Support America

• Family Support America States
  In each state, a coalition of parents, state agency personnel, representatives of community-based organizations, and others concerned about the quality of human services work in partnership with Family Support America to develop strategies for creating caring communities so that all families have access to the resources they need to raise healthy children.
• Policy and Advocacy
• Legislation and Policy Alerts
• Know Your Policy Makers

The Finance Project

• The Child Care Partnership Project
  To promote and nurture innovative practices and partnerships, The US Department of Health and Human Services, through its Child Care Bureau, established The Child Care Partnership Project. This project will provide information and technical assistance to state child care administrators as they work with business, philanthropic organizations, and other groups to build and sustain partnerships.
• Results-based Decision Making
  Many elected officials, public managers, and community and business leaders have proposed new ways of planning, budgeting, and managing that increases the accountability of public officials to help families and communities.
• Governance Group
• Information Resources Group

Milbank Memorial Fund

National Association of Child Advocates (NACA)

• Early Care and Education
  As part of its work during the past three years, NACA's Early Care and Education Project has worked with NACA members to provide them with the policy foundation, research and budget advocacy skills needed to increase public investments in early childhood programs.
• Child Welfare
• Child Health
  NACA and its members work both to protect children's health and to ensure that they have access to health care.
• Income Supports
  In 1996, the National Association of Child Advocates (NACA) launched a major initiative to help state- and local-based child advocacy organizations refocus the debate over welfare reform and devolution onto the needs and well-being of children.
• Child Advocacy Nation Wide
  A complete listing of NACA’s members.

National Conference of State Legislatures

• The Forum for State Health Policy Leadership
  Our mission is to improve decision making and leadership among state legislators with respect to current and emerging critical health policy issues.  The Forum was established in 1995 to respond to the challenges in health policy development facing states with record high turnover among elected officials.
• ASI Children, Families and Health Committee
  The Children, Families and Health (CFH) Committee investigates state policy on a variety of health and human services issues that affect American families. The committee sponsors sessions to educate members on issues and provides a forum for legislators and staff to share information and experiences with their colleagues from other states. It is one of eight standing committees and one task force of the NCSL Assembly on State Issues (ASI). ASI meetings are open to all legislators and staff.

National Governor’s Association

• NGA Center for Best Practices
  The Center provides Governors with tools, information, and ideas to provide innovative, cost-effective services to the people of our states.
• Children and Families
  The National Governors' Association (NGA) has a long history of focusing gubernatorial attention on the needs of young children and the actions both the public and private sector can take to help families meet those needs. From child care to child welfare issues, the NGA Center for Best Practices is supporting Governors in implementing effective policy solutions through technical assistance, policy research, and other activities.
• Early Childhood
  Activities include: Building Public and Political Will for Early Childhood Care and Education, State Early Childhood Policy Leadership Forum, Evaluating Statewide Early Childhood Initiatives, and reports, issue briefs, meeting summaries, and other online documents.
• Extra Learning Opportunities
  Extra Learning Opportunities (ELOs) provide school-age children (ages five to eighteen) with recreational, academic, and development opportunities supplementing the education provided in a typical school day. The National Governors Association Center for Best Practices is examining innovative state practices that expand and enhance ELOs and assisting states in mapping out current resources and creating a baseline for future investments in ELO programs.
• The First Three Years: A Governor’s Guide to Early Childhood
  This guide is intended as a tool to help Governors and their policy advisors convey the importance of investing in a child's first three years to legislators, parents, businesses, and other community members who can become partners in the effort to give children a better start in life.
• First Three Years: Finance Strategies
  The following resources may be helpful to policymakers in developing strategies to finance early childhood initiatives.
• First Three Years: Early Care and Education
  This section includes examples of early care and education research and initiatives.
• Promoting Responsible Fatherhood
  This brief highlights initiatives to promote responsible fatherhood and includes a short descriptions submitted by the nation's Governors of initiatives to promote responsible fatherhood that they admire.
• Maternal and Child Health
  The public programs that address the health and well-being of pregnant women and children cut across multiple agencies and have multiple federal and state funding streams. The Governor has the unique role of directing multiple agencies and programs in the planning, coordination, and evaluation of services for this population. Governors also work closely with the private sector and the business community on initiatives to improve health status and strengthen families.
• State Children’s Health Insurance Program (Title XXI)
  The States Children's Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP) of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 provides states with the opportunity to design comprehensive and meaningful health insurance coverage for uninsured children.

Public Agenda

• Research Studies on Education