While current vaccination rates are increasing, they have yet to reach a level that makes up for the large dip over the spring and summer months. Flu shots and other vaccines are safe, effective, and necessary now more than ever to keep our children and families healthy and keep our healthcare infrastructure from being overwhelmed.
Read MoreCOVID is hurting our children—and so is Congress. New research from the Center on Poverty and Social Policy at Columbia shows an additional 8 million Americans—including 2.5 million children—have fallen into poverty since May as a result of our leaders’ failure to extend and expand the income support families need to keep their children fed, clothed, and housed. Looking at changes in monthly poverty rates, Columbia found that monthly poverty has risen beyond pre-COVID levels since Congress allowed COVID relief to expire and failed to provide additional assistance.
Read MoreWhen children are not attending school in person, they are not only missing out on vital education that is hard to deliver virtually; they are also abruptly without services they rely on and support from educators and professionals trained to connect them with resources and ensure their most urgent needs are met. As many schools returned to virtual instruction this fall, students are approaching almost a full year without those supports and services—which include access to healthy food, care for their physical and mental health, caring adults tasked with ensuring their safety, and federally mandated supports for marginalized students.
Read MoreIn the fall of 1962, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) assigned me to the town of Selma, Alabama to help register Black people to vote. I had previously been engaged in the Nashville sit-in movement and in the Freedom Rides, helping to fully desegregate a South that was still very resistant, and extending voting rights became the next great struggle I would embark on.
Read MoreThe Child Thrive Action Network today released a toolkit for protecting immigrant families facing deportation. The toolkit includes sections to help service providers and community members speak out and advocate against enforcement that harms children in immigrant families, as well as guidance for parents, service providers, and community members working to protect families at risk of being torn apart.
Read MoreWhile proposed regulations often have a significant impact on children, that impact is rarely made explicit as part of the formal regulatory process. Currently, federal agencies are not required to analyze or share how regulatory changes could impact or harm children. To address this issue, House Oversight Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney and Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley introduced the Children’s Protection Act to better ensure our regulatory process prioritizes the health and wellbeing of our children.
Read MoreOver the last 7 weeks, I have been lucky to take a second stint of parental leave in addition to the 5 weeks I had at the start of our child’s life. This experience has given practical meaning to what I have intellectually known for some time: parental leave is tremendously important to bond with a new child, to develop as a parent, and for fathers, to pursue a fatherhood that works to meet motherhood as an equal.
Read More“We need to take away children,” then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions told prosecutors in May 2018, according to a draft Department of Justice report obtained by the New York Times. The prosecutors in the room reportedly recoiled, but this is what followed: thousands of immigrant children ripped from their parents, a global outcry, and our ongoing national and moral disgrace.
Read MoreA new bill, the Family Crisis Cash Assistance Act (H.R. 8387/S. 4770), introduced last week in the Senate by Senator Brian Schatz and in the House by Congresswoman Gwen Moore would make sure that every household in need would receive cash to help meet their needs in the case of a sudden economic downturn or natural disaster.
Read MoreAt the Presidential debate this week, President Donald Trump refused to condemn white supremacist groups, instead telling them to “stand back and stand by.” It was a terrifying moment in a time when violence motivated by racism is on the rise in America, and it was hailed as a victory by violent white supremacist groups across the country.
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