Children’s emotional and behavioral health was a concern even before the pandemic, but the ongoing public health emergency has made a bad situation worse. Congress must act to ensure children and families have access to the supports they need to address this crisis.
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The compromise bill includes important generational investments to boost families’ economic stability and reduce racial inequities in income, housing, education, and health care that disproportionately harm Black, Latino, and Indigenous children. However, it leaves out important investments to ensure children and families have what they need to thrive.
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Youth are still growing and learning at such a young age. They should not be subjected to such a harsh punishment because that affects them long-term. Placing them in juvenile detention centers does more damage especially when these centers are not equipped to truly help them on their educational journey.
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CDF urges Congress to prioritize robust investments within the Build Back Better Act for housing vouchers, public housing, and the national Housing Trust Fund (HTF) because these vital housing programs most directly meet the needs of the poorest and most marginalized children and youth in our country.
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Continued reliance on institutional placements puts our nation’s children—especially Black children—at risk of lasting harm to their health, development, and well-being. Congress must prioritize effective community-led, family-focused, youth-centered programs to ensure young people have the resources and supports they need to thrive within their families and communities.
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Criminal convictions create life-long barriers to employment, housing, and education that directly impact the conditions for children and families. Clean Slate is a crucial step toward racial and economic justice, addressing some of the deep racial disparities that are evident at every stage of the criminal legal system, and providing pathways to more full participation in our neighborhoods and communities, which is essential to the well-being of children, youth, and families.
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Too often, Black children are treated as adults and their normal adolescent behaviors treated as delinquent. The criminal justice system furthers this adultification by disregarding children’s age and pushing them—especially Black children and other children of color—into a punitive system that was not designed with their needs in mind. Children deserve trauma-informed and age-appropriate responses to their needs.
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We know that more than half of Black and Latino children were previously excluded from the CTC because their families did not make enough money to qualify, and re-imposing this racist policy could exclude millions of children of color and reverse the gains our nation has made thus far. As Congress works through the Build Back Better reconciliation package, the CTC should be strengthened to reach every child, not weakened by cuts or undermined with work requirements.
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The cradle-to-prison pipeline targets Black children and other children with marginalized identities. We must end school policing and exclusionary discipline and invest in student supports instead so students aren’t pushed out of school and into harmful systems.
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Foster youth are on the cusp of a crisis in the middle of a pandemic. If our representatives in Washington D.C. don’t act fast, thousands of foster youth will age out of foster care on October 1st, and many more will lose a lifeline to flexible cash assistance that young people like me fought for. We need Congress to pass legislation that extends the protections included in the Supporting Foster Youth and Families Through the Pandemic Act immediately.
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