Nebraska ranked in the top 10 for children's well-being on the 2024 Annie E. Casey Foundation Kids Count Data Book.

Josh Shirk, research coordinator at Voices for Children in Nebraska, said although the state's No. 9 ranking is good news, the fact the state declined on seven of 15 measures between 2019 and 2022 is concerning.

Nebraska ranked fifth for children's economic well-being, which Shirk noted is driven largely by the state's low unemployment rate. However, the percentage of Nebraska children living in poverty, which decreased at the national level, rose from 11% to 14% in the past year.

"These child poverty rates increasing at a time when many states saw declines can be traced directly to the loss of federal child tax credits and other economic supports," Shirk explained. "Other states are filling in the gap, but Nebraska isn't."

A larger percentage of Nebraska children were also living in households with a high housing-cost burden. Shirk pointed out the worsening of the two measures showed employment is not translating to economic security for many Nebraska families. On the bright side, the state showed improvements in the percentages of children with health insurance and of 3- and 4-year-olds attending preschool.

Pandemic learning loss was a major focus of this year's report.

Leslie Boissiere, vice president of external affairs for the Annie E. Casey Foundation, said they found "significant dips" nationwide from 2019 to 2022. In particular, in fourth grade reading and eighth grade math skills. Boissiere stressed it does not bode well for the students or the country.

"As a country, we're failing to prepare our children to be able to compete in the competitive global workforce," Boissiere contended. "You look at the industries and the jobs where there is significant growth and where the wages are significant, they're largely stem-related fields."

Nebraska students also showed academic declines, with 3% fewer fourth graders proficient in reading and 6% fewer eighth graders proficient in math.

Another focus of this year's report was chronic absenteeism, which increased dramatically during the pandemic and is a known obstacle to school success. Chronic absenteeism at the national level was at 30% in 2022. Shirk acknowledged Nebraska fared a bit better, at 23%, but emphasized it is something in need of continued attention.

"Rather than labeling students or parents as criminals due to attendance challenges -- which happens -- we believe lawmakers should embrace positive approaches to engage families in the community, to set them up better outside of school, so they can arrive at school ready to learn," Shirk outlined.

Before the pandemic, 16% of Nebraska students were chronically absent.

The high cost of child care in Washington can strain family budgets. It can be even harder when families are experiencing homelessness.

A statewide call center is helping people find care and a way to afford it. BrightSpark Early Learning Services operates the Child Care Aware of Washington Family Center, which fields calls from families.

The center also has homeless navigation services. Erika Washington, department manager of family access with BrightSpark, said staff ensure they understand each families' needs.

"Does your little one have any special needs? And we're really able to pinpoint programs that meet each families unique needs," said Washington. "This offers families some stability and just knowing that we're on their side, we have their back and we're also understanding of some of the challenges that they may face."

Washington said the call center is able to connect families with state child care subsidies like Working Connections, or through the homelessness grace period.

The center also provides follow-up services after 30, 60, and 120 days.

Washington talked about one family BrightSpark was able to help that moved to Washington and ended up needing housing. The family had one school-age child and two kids under the age of five.

Washington said they connected the family with a child care program that understood how to support families experiencing homelessness.

"So when transportation became an issue, or when hours of operation became an issue," said Washington, "this child care provider was able to really support this family's needs and really become more of like a family or support system for that parent."

Washington said the center wants to uplift families' voices and let them know how they can take action. She said they support enough families experiencing homelessness to understand their needs.

"A lot of times those families who are experiencing homelessness are working the evening hours or weekend hours," said Washington, "and that's a big challenge across our state, of being able to find child care programs that is available during those hours. And so, it's something that we hear time and time again, and we often are providing support but that need continues to be there."

Utah parents can expect to pay between $800 and $1,200 dollars a month for child care but a new program is expanding its reach into Summit County to help with affordability.

The nationwide child care network Upwards will offer need-based child care scholarships of up to $1,700 for preschoolers. The group is partnering with Summit County and Park City Municipal.

Starr Mastrodonato, program manager for Upwards, said to qualify, at least one parent must reside or work in Summit County, and the total family income cannot exceed 100% of the county's area median income. She pointed out removing barriers to child care also means parents can stay in the workforce.

"It really allowed them to make life decisions on, 'We both can continue to work and to contribute to our family,'" Mastrodonato explained. "And that obviously is just monumental in just overall well-being, not only for their household, their children. And it continues to help the economic workforce."

While cost is one factor, availability is another. Research shows no one county in Utah has the sufficient number of licensed care providers to meet demand. Summit County has the highest percentage of child care needs being met at 54%, according to Voices for Utah Children. Statewide, the number drops to 36%.

Mastrodonato explained expanding assistance to Summit County comes after their Park City pilot program was able to assist 34 working families and helped support 17 child care providers. For every child enrolled at a provider location, the provider receives an additional $300 per month. She added Upwards is excited to build on the program's success.

"We're hoping they take this model, to see how successful it has been," Mastrodonato noted. "And within six months, be able to identify that we can expand to reach more families."

Summit County scholarships and child care provider incentives became available earlier this month. They will be available on a first-come, first-served basis each month.


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More employers are offering benefits to adoptive parents, according to a new survey by the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption. The amount of paid leave offered to foster parents is now nearly 10 weeks, up 3% from last year.

Jeremy Madden, a resident of Liberty Township, Ohio, and his wife relied on workplace adoption benefits through his employer, Fifth Third Bank, to adopt their baby daughter. He said the process was easy and the financial reimbursement was a game changer, as adoption can cost thousands of dollars. Now, they've settled into life as a family.

"She's fantastic, we wouldn't change anything," he said. "She's brought so much joy and happiness into our life. She's developing her own personality. She is super smart."

Companies that offer new adoption benefits include Harley-Davidson Motor Co. Inc. and Ziff Davis Inc. Highly ranked companies include Ferring Pharmaceuticals and Liberty Media Corp., American Express and MongoDB Inc. Ferring Pharmaceuticals topped the list for providing unlimited financial reimbursement for adoption costs and 26 weeks of paid leave to adoptive parents.

Rita Soronen, the foundation's CEO, cited a 10% increase on average in financial reimbursement for adoption.

"It tells the employees that we're a family-friendly organization, that there's equity if we're offering benefits for families that are formed through birth, we also want to give benefits to families that are formed through adoption," she said, "and it creates a sense of loyalty and retention and goodwill."

She said it's important for employers to consider foster and adoption benefits, not only for its employees, but the good of the community.

"It says to the community that we understand that there are lots of ways that our families are formed," she said, "and we can provide the kind of supports that a family might need to move to that next phase of being a unified and thriving family."

According to the National Council for Adoption, 2022 saw the fewest number of adoptions from foster care since 2015, around 53,000 children nationwide.


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