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Policy Update: August 2017

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SRCD News Related to Child and Family Policy

Register Now: Upcoming Webinar on the Early Development Instrument

The University-Based Child and Family Policy Consortium, in collaboration with the Society for Research in Child Development, will kick off its 2017-2018 webinar series with “The Early Development Instrument-The Village that Raises a Child” on September 20.
 
Date: Wednesday, September 20
Time: 3:00-4:00 pm Eastern
About the Webinar: The Early Development Instrument (EDI) pilot project is a community needs assessment that provides precise data in the form of maps and tables to community collaborations in Illinois organized around young children’s well-being. These collaborations use data obtained with the EDI to inform existing and new strategic initiatives, including addressing local, state, and federal policy issues that affect these local efforts. The project provides technical assistance to community groups on issues like data literacy, community engagement, and strategic action planning. 

The EDI is a teacher-completed, neighborhood based measure of "school readiness" used to learn about how kindergartners in a community are developing within their neighborhood contexts. While it focuses on commonly accepted domains of child development: 1) social competence; 2) emotional maturity; 3) physical well-being; 4) language and cognitive skills; and 5) communication skills and general knowledge, it was specifically designed and validated to consider children's development and school readiness at a community level. 

The perspectives on children's well-being that the EDI offers, particularly through a repeated cross-sectional design, is a way to expand the focus from what early childhood programs and schools are or are not doing to include the analyses of how communities are organized, and resources allocated, to support children and their families. The data obtained from this tool, coupled with community members’ engagement, is a missing piece in efforts to promote data-informed policy making. 

This webinar will feature presentations by Jaclyn Vasquez, Mark Nagasawa, and Cristina Pacione-Zayas of the Erikson Institute. Please visit https://www.erikson.edu/research/edi-2/ for more information about the EDI pilot project.
 
Click here to register for this webinar.

New Social Policy Report and SPR Brief

SRCD has recently released a new Social Policy Report and Social Policy Report Brief by Dr. Vivian Tseng and colleagues entitled “Research-Practice Partnerships: Building Two-Way Streets of Engagement.” The report focuses on the promise of research-practice partnerships in fostering collaborations in the education and human services fields to improve outcomes for children and families. Visit the SRCD website or follow the embedded links to read the full Social Policy Report and the two-page Social Policy Report Brief.

Congratulations to the 2016-2017 SRCD Policy Fellows! 

The 2016-2017 class of SRCD Policy Fellows will complete their fellowship year in Washington D.C. this August. Click here for a listing of the fellows’ Spotlight column reflecting on their experiences in their placements.

Legislative Branch Updates

FY18 Appropriations Update: Senate Advances CJS Bill; House Plans for Multi-Bill Appropriations Package

On July 27, the Senate Appropriations Committee marked up and approved S.1662, the Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2018 (CJS). This bill provides funding for the National Science Foundation (NSF), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), National Institute of Justice (NIJ), the U.S. Census Bureau, and a number of other federal statistical agencies. The Senate CJS bill provides a total of $53.4 billion in funding for FY18, $4.4 billion more than what was requested in the president’s budget, but still $3.2 billion below what was enacted in FY17. This is also slightly less than the House CJS bill, which advanced out of committee on July 13, and provided a total of $54 billion in funding for FY18. Highlights of the Senate CJS bill include:

  • National Science Foundation (NSF): The bill includes $7.3 billion for NSF, a cut of $161 million compared to the FY17 funding level. This is less than one percent below the funding provided in the House CJS bill. While the House bill flat funded the Research and Related Activities account at the FY17 level, the Senate bill proposes a cut to that account of $115.8 million compared to the FY17 funding level.
  • National Institute of Justice (NIJ): The bill includes $39.5 million for the National Institute of Justice, which would flat fund NIJ at the FY17 level. This is $1 million more than proposed in the FY18 House CJS bill.
  • Census Bureau: The bill includes $1.521 billion for the Census Bureau, an increase of $51 million compared to the FY17 funding level. It is also slightly higher than the $1.507 billion proposed in the House CJS bill.

Additional details are available here in the committee report.

Additionally, on August 7, the House Rules Committee announced plans to bundle the eight remaining appropriations bills into a single large appropriations package to be considered by the full House of Representatives when lawmakers return from recess in early September. Bundling the remaining appropriations bills is likely an attempt to speed up the appropriations process to avoid a partial government shutdown, which could occur when funding runs out on September 30 if FY18 appropriations have not yet been passed. The eight bills that the House plans to include in this package are: Agriculture, Commerce-Justice-Science, Financial Services, Homeland Security, Interior-Environment, Labor-HHS-Education, State-Foreign Operations, and Transportation-HUD. The House passed the other four FY18 bills in July as a “minibus” package. Congressional Quarterly reports that although the House is looking to move this appropriations package quickly, it is unlikely to make it through the Senate and “many lawmakers and aides expect a continuing resolution will need to be passed by Congress to avoid a partial government shutdown.” Please see the July edition of Policy Update for a complete summary of the House CJS and Labor-HHS-ED bills.

Congressional Briefing on Preventing Opioid Use Disorders

On July 25, the Friends of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) sponsored a congressional briefing entitled “Preventing Opioid Use Disorders: Community Based Approaches that Work.” SRCD is a member of Friends of NIDA and co-sponsored the briefing, which was held in cooperation with the Congressional Addiction, Treatment and Recovery Caucus, the Prescription Drug Abuse Caucus, and the Bipartisan Heroin Task Force. The briefing explored the role of prevention research in addressing the opioid crisis. Presenters from a range of fields including government, research, and practice spoke about the important role of prevention research, with one expert noting that “prevention is the neglected key to stopping the opioid epidemic.” Speakers provided important research background, including information about: genetic and environmental influences on addiction, the evidence on how adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) affect illicit drug use, and NIDA-funded research that has found that young adult opiate users also tend to use other illicit drugs more frequently. All speakers emphasized the importance of reducing risk factors and enhancing protective factors in prevention approaches, but noted that this can be a challenge given that different communities have different levels of risk and protective factors.
 
Presenters discussed a variety of topics related to using prevention research to address the opioid crisis, including: the fact that prevention starts very early and people are not typically thinking about substance use disorders when their children are very young; research that found when adolescents participate in prevention interventions, there are benefits for both the participants and youth in their friendship networks; the public health and economic benefits of primary prevention programs; the role of community coalitions as partners in scaling effective prevention programs; and the need for more investment in evidence-based prevention programs. A theme throughout the presentations was that it is never too early or too late for effective prevention programs. Speakers included: Wilson Compton, M.D., M.P.E., Deputy Director, National Institute on Drug Abuse; Richard F. Catalano, Jr., Ph.D., Bartley Dobb Professor for the Study of Prevention of Violence, University of Washington School of Social Work; Richard Spoth, Ph.D., Wendell Miller Senior Prevention Scientist and the Director of the Partnerships in Prevention Science Institute at Iowa State University; and Kathy Collier, Prevention Supervisor, Chester County Drug and Alcohol Programs and Chair of the Pennsylvania Prevention Coalition Advisory Workgroup.

Congressional Briefing on Addressing Childhood Trauma

On July 26, Building Community Resilience, the Redstone Center at the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health, and the Campaign for Trauma-Informed Policy and Practice hosted a congressional briefing entitled “The Need to Address Childhood Trauma: Implications for Child Welfare and Education.” Wendy Ellis, DrPH, Director of Building Community Resilience (BCR) at the Redstone Global Center for Prevention and Wellness in the George Washington University School of Public Health, opened the briefing by pointing to the link between children’s exposure to trauma and adverse childhood experiences, or ACEs, (such as poverty, violence, homelessness, and parental substance abuse) and the effect on brain development and long-term health and societal outcomes. Dr. Ellis highlighted how ACEs lead to toxic stress and therefore changes in brain chemistry.
 
Dr. Ellis noted that toxic stress is especially prevalent in children in foster care, who experience post-traumatic stress at twice the rate of war veterans. She called for support of H.R.1757 (and companion bill S.774), the Trauma Informed Care for Children & Families Act of 2017, introduced by Representative Danny K. Davis (D-IL). This bill would support a trauma-informed workforce through providing training to educators and mental health professionals in schools, improve collaboration and coordination between federal programs and communities, support innovation in trauma-informed prevention and care, and leverage existing resources to achieve these goals. Representative Davis gave a statement expressing the urgent need to address trauma in youth and calling for widespread support of the bill.
 
A panel discussion followed Representative Davis’ statement. Panelists addressed a variety of issues, including: the fact that one out of every four children attending school has been exposed to a traumatic event that can affect learning and/or behavior; that only 25% of children in need of mental health care are getting these needs met; how to address trauma in foster care through state regulations such as keeping siblings together and minimizing school transitions; the role of federal agencies in supporting state efforts to promote stable foster environments and to monitor psychotropic medications in foster youth; the need for expanded mental health services in schools and creating “trauma sensitive schools”; holistic school approaches to creating a safe space for children who have experienced trauma; the importance of focusing on early identification of symptoms and prevention; personal stories of how trauma had influenced panelists’ experiences as a school administrator and former foster youth; and evidence of improved outcomes after implementing trauma sensitive programing in schools. Panelists included: Olga Price, Associate Professor, Director, National Center for Health and Health Care in Schools GWU School of Public Health; Monica Battle, Principal, College Hill Fundamental Academy, Cincinnati Public Schools; Kathryn Larin, Director, Education, Workforce, and Income Security Team, Government Accountability Office (GAO); and Whitney Gilliard, Former Foster Youth. Click here for a webcast of the full briefing.

House Holds Committee Hearing on Every Student Succeeds Act Implementation

On July 18, the House Education and the Workforce Committee held a hearing entitled “ESSA Implementation: Exploring State and Local Reform Efforts.” In her opening remarks, Chairwoman Virginia Foxx (R-NC) noted that the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) “sought to achieve two specific goals for K-12 education: autonomy and accountability” and that it represents a “monumental shift in the role states and schools districts would have in the future of education.” She stated that given this substantial shift, it is important for the committee to hear how implementation is progressing. Ranking Member Bobby Scott (D-VA) used his opening statement to express his frustration that no one from the Department of Education would be testifying and “urging Secretary DeVos and other agency heads to appear before the committee to discuss the administration’s priorities” and “engage in an open dialogue with this committee.” He also warned of too much flexibility, noting that “while [ESSA] afforded states and districts much flexibility, that flexibility must occur within the law.”

Witnesses provided testimony on a variety of issues, but focused largely on issues related to state accountability systems. Stakeholders from state and local education entities testified about the changes and challenges they have seen in the early implementation phases of ESSA. Other topics witnesses addressed included: next steps for the U.S. Department of Education in implementing ESSA; concerns about state plans falling short of the equity goals outlined in ESSA; the need for sufficient funding in order to continue implementing the law properly; and the importance of involving a variety of stakeholders in goal setting and the development of state plans. Witnesses included: Jacqueline Nowicki, Director, K-12 Education, U.S. Government Accountability Office; Dr. Gail Pletnick, Superintendent, Dysart Unified School District (Surprise, AZ); Phillip Lovell, Vice President of Policy Development and Government Relations, Alliance for Excellent Education; and Dr. Carey Wright, State Superintendent, Mississippi Department of Education. To watch the full hearing and read witness testimonies, click here.

Executive Branch Updates

Update on the Environmental Influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) Program

On July 28, the National Institutes of Health hosted an informational session on the Environmental Influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) program for representatives of research and practice organizations with a focus on children’s health and development. The meeting provided an opportunity to assure that stakeholder organizations were aware of a forthcoming Request for Information regarding the common data collection protocol to be used across the individual longitudinal studies that are coordinating efforts through the ECHO program.

The director of ECHO, Matthew W. Gillman, M.D., provided an overview of the mission and goals of this program. He noted that the ECHO program is a seven year research initiative focusing on the developmental origins of health and disease, considering how exposure to a range of factors at the earliest stages of life (from conception to age five) can function as risk factors, what factors promote resilience, and how early perturbations sometimes have irreversible implications for health and wellbeing. The program considers a wide range of factors, including exposure to air pollution and chemicals in the environment, societal factors such as stress, and individual behaviors such as sleep and diet. The study will examine mechanisms that shape outcomes, including biological processes such as gene expression, as well as considering health outcomes throughout childhood and adolescence, with a particular focus on upper and lower airway health, obesity, neurodevelopment, positive health outcomes, and life satisfaction.

The research involves expanding existing cohort studies (including both observational and intervention research) so that multiple longitudinal studies of mothers and children collect common data elements (as well as data specific to each longitudinal study).  A working group has developed an ECHO-wide data collection protocol, and policies have been developed regarding publication, data sharing, bio-specimens, and use of a central IRB. The aim is to eventually have data for more than 50,000 children that will become a resource for national research.

A question and answer period focused on a variety of issues, including: whether lead poisoning will be considered, the extent to which participant recruitment will take issues of health literacy into account, efforts to assure cultural competence in data collection, efforts at community participation and input into the research, whether there will be prospective or only retrospective data on pregnancy, and how genetic and epigenetic questions can be addressed through the data that are being collected. Additional questions addressed whether social factors such as psychosocial stress and the quality of early care and education will be assessed through parent report only or whether any observational data will be included in the data collection, the extent of focus on opioid exposure, and the demographic diversity of the ECHO sample (which is diverse but not nationally representative).  
 
The Request for Information providing an opportunity for feedback on the ECHO-wide data collection protocol is available here. Comments are due August 30.

America's Children: Key Indicators of Well-Being, 2017 Report Released

On July 26, the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics released America’s Children: Key National Indicators of Well-Being, 2017, a report that provides up to date statistics on children and families in the United States across a range of domains, including: family and social environment, economic circumstances, health care, physical environment and safety, behavior, education, and health. America’s Children, 2017 also includes a special section on peer victimization among third graders. Key findings in this year’s report include:

  • Poverty rates for all children (ages 0-17) have been steadily decreasing since 2010. Most recently, the poverty rate for all children dropped from 21 percent in 2014 to 20 percent in 2015. Younger children were more likely to be living in families with incomes below the federal poverty level, with 21 percent of children ages 0-5 living in poverty, compared to 19 percent of children ages 6-17.
  • The percentage of children ages 0-17 living in households classified by the USDA as food insecure also decreased, from 21 percent in 2014 to 18 percent in 2015.
  • >The national rate of substantiated child maltreatment increased slightly from between 2014 and 2015, from 9.1 per 1,000 children to 9.2. Children under age 1 were substantially more likely to be the victims of child maltreatment, with a maltreatment rate of 24.2 per 1,000, more than twice the rate of any other age group.
  • The percentage of children ages 0-17 without health insurance coverage declined from 5.4 percent in 2014 to 4.5 percent in 2015. In 2015, adolescents were the age group most likely to be uninsured, while children ages 0-5 were much less likely to be uninsured and more likely to have public coverage than children in the older age groups.
  • There was no significant change in high school completion or college enrollment from 2014 to 2015, however, there has been an overall increase in both of these indicators over the last 20 years.

Additional information on America’s Children and other initiatives of the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics is available here.

Federal Reports and Requests

Reports

New Reports and Briefs from the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation

Several new publications are available from the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation (OPRE), Administration for Children and Families (ACF), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services:

(1) Health Profession Opportunity Grants 2.0: Year One Annual Report (2015–16) This report describes the first year of the second round of the Health Profession Opportunity Grants Program (“HPOG 2.0”), which provide healthcare occupational education and training for TANF recipients and other low-income individuals.

(2) Child Care Subsidies under the CCDF Program: An Overview of Policy Differences across States and Territories as of October 1, 2015 This brief provides multiple graphics explaining CCDF policy differences across States and Territories.

(3) Evaluation of Domestic Victims of Human Trafficking Demonstration Projects: Final Report from the First Cohort of Projects This report is the first in a cross-site evaluation of the first cohort of three Domestic Victims of Human Trafficking (DVHT) demonstration projects.

(4) Delivering Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Services to High-Risk Youth: Implementing Teen Choice in New York This report summarizes key findings from the implementation of Teen Choice, a sex education program covering abstinence and contraception, in New York.

(5) Health Profession Opportunity Grants (HPOG) 2.0 Tribal Evaluation: Evaluation Plan This report provides implementation and outcome evaluation information from five Tribal HPOG 2.0 grantees. Tribal HPOG 2.0 is an ACF program which provides healthcare occupational education and training for TANF recipients and other low-income individuals.

(6) An Introduction to the Tribal Health Profession Opportunity Grants (HPOG) 2.0 Program and Evaluation This brief is the first in a series summarizing implementation and evaluation findings from Tribal HPOG 2.0 grants, an ACF program which provides healthcare occupational education and training for TANF recipients and other low-income individuals.

New Reports from the National Institute of Justice
New reports are available from the Comprehensive School Safety Initiative, an initiative by the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), Department of Justice:

(1) Summary of School Safety Statistics This report includes data collected by federal agencies and researchers on violence, bullying, and crime in schools.

(2) States' Roles in Keeping Schools Safe: Opportunities and Challenges for State School Safety Centers and Other Actors This report describes the efforts, priorities, and challenges of state school safety centers.

New Publications from the Institute of Education Sciences
Several new publications are available from the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), U.S. Department of Education:

(1) Postsecondary Institutions and Cost of Attendance in 2016-17; Degrees and Other Awards Conferred: 2015-16; and 12-Month Enrollment: 2015-16: First Look (Preliminary Data) This report provides preliminary data from The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) fall 2016 three data collection survey components.

(2) Crime, Violence, Discipline, and Safety in U.S. Public Schools: Findings From the School Survey on Crime and Safety: 2015-16 This report presents findings from the 2015-16 School Survey on Crime and Safety.

(3) IPEDS Enrollment Brochure This brochure provides data users with information about The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS).

(4) Characteristics of Public Elementary and Secondary School Principals in the United States: Results From the 2015–16 National Teacher and Principal Survey This report describes results from the 2015–16 National Teacher and Principal Survey Public School Principal Data File.

Resources

Invitation for Public Comment on IES-Funded Efficacy, Replication, and Effectiveness Studies
The Institute of Education Sciences (IES), the research branch of the U.S. Department of Education, is soliciting public comments regarding research goals of the institute. Specifically, the call is for comments on the focus on the goals of Efficacy and Replication (Goal 3) and Effectiveness (Goal 4) studies: whether the goals are meeting the needs of the field, or if IES needs to make changes to support more replication and effectiveness studies. The full invitation for public comment is available here. Comments should be sent to Research@ed.gov by October 2, 2017.

Call for Nominations for Members of SACHRP Committee
The Office for Human Research Protections (OHRP), a program office in the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health, Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), is soliciting nominations for membership on the Secretary's Advisory Committee on Human Research Protections (SACHRP). SACHRP provides advice to the HHS Secretary on protections for human subjects in research, specifically focusing on populations such as neonates and children. Additional information on the nomination is available in this Federal Register notice. Nominations are due on September 18, 2017.
 
National Science Board Seeks Nominations for New Members
The National Science Board (NSB), the policymaking body for the National Science Foundation (NSF), is currently accepting nominations for new members for the 2018-2024 term. Specific topics for which representation is sought that are of relevance to SRCD members include: promotion of diversity and minority serving institutions, STEM education and the science of learning, and integrative social sciences. Additional information on the nomination and appointment process is available here, or see this Dear Colleague letter from the current NSB Chair for additional details. Nominations are due September 8, 2017.

Federal Funding Opportunities

This month’s FFO highlights two National Institutes of Health funding opportunities that invite proposals to inform our understanding of the typical and atypical patterns of language and literacy development of dual language learners (DLLs) in the United States. Applicants are encouraged to take advantage of advances in the language sciences and related fields to identify and clarify specific cognitive, linguistic, neurobiological, and sociocultural factors associated with normal and impaired language and literacy acquisition in young DLL populations. Completed applications are due by October 5, 2017 (R01) and October 21, 2017 (R21). Click here to read about these and other federal funding opportunities.