National Center for Children in Poverty

The National Center for Children in Poverty (NCCP) aims to improve the lives of low-income children and their families by delivering research and policy analysis to advocates and policymakers seeking to craft effective policies that promote healthy child development and strong, nurturing families that are economically secure.

Two key areas of work are early childhood policy and family economic security. NCCP partners with a wide range of stakeholders to provide information to inform effective policies and policy implementation that can strengthen early intervention, early care and education, infant-early childhood mental health, parenting and family supports, immigration, and public benefits,

State allies can call on NCCP to:

Provide expertise on expanding infant-early childhood mental health supports and services and workforce development in multiple systems (e.g., Early Intervention, Child Welfare, home-visiting, pediatric health care) and effective expulsion prevention policy for early care and education programs.

NCCP has done extensive research on states’ design, financing, and implementation of policies and programs that support infant-early childhood mental health in the full range of settings that touch the lives of young children and families. NCCP works with partners in multiple states to support effective IECMH supports for young children.

Assist in designing and implementing two-generation policies that benefit young children and families in deep poverty and poverty.

NCCP can offer state-specific data on young children and families in deep poverty, racial-ethnic disparities in deep poverty, and recommendations for policies that can help families facing severe economic hardship support their young children’s healthy development while moving toward greater financial security.

Assist in monitoring the impacts of new policies and investments (especially in the areas of early care and education, Part C Early Intervention, and Child Welfare) to help ensure that policies have intended impacts on the workforce, services and families, and young children.

NCCP has extensive experience in helping states and communities plan and carry out activities to learn about policy implementation through surveys, use of public data, interviews, and focus groups, including quick turnaround efforts to help strengthen policy impacts.

Additional Alliance-funded support for state advocacy includes:

Development and maintenance of state-by-state early childhood policy profiles. This resource, posted online and maintained yearly, provides a two-generation view of current policies affecting children birth through age eight. The profiles give crucial visibility into each state’s progress in early care and education, health, and parenting and family economic supports.
Development and maintenance of the state-by-state Young Child Risk Calculator. The interactive calculator allows users to see the percentage and number of young children in a state, within a specified income group (deep poverty, poverty, low-income) and age range, who are experiencing selected risk factors. This information can be used to see the risk factors that should be targeted by policies for families in different income and child age bands.

National Center for Children in Poverty

Provide expertise on expanding infant-early childhood mental health supports and services and workforce development in multiple systems (e.g., Early Intervention, Child Welfare, home-visiting, pediatric health care) and effective expulsion prevention policy for early care and education programs.

Assist in designing and implementing two-generation policies that benefit young children and families in deep poverty and poverty.

Assist in monitoring the impacts of new policies and investments (especially in the areas of early care and education, Part C Early Intervention, and Child Welfare) to help ensure that policies have intended impacts on the workforce, services and families, and young children.

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