This report is prepared in compliance with HB 1661, which requires the Washington State Department of Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF or the Department) to report to the legislature on development of and progress toward achieving outcome goals for children, youth and families. In addition, this report provides an update on other supportive…

Providing health care services for foster children, who frequently have significant health care needs, can be challenging. The Administration for Children and Families (ACF) oversees foster care, but state child welfare agencies are responsible for ensuring that these children receive health care services, which are often financed by Medicaid. In…

After 10 years of development, the California Statewide Automated Child Support System, run by the Department of Social Services (DSS), has been scrapped and the state has begun developing a new child support collection computer. This report evaluates the performance of publicly-funded child support collection programs in California, examining the…

The focus of this hearing is on State efforts to comply with Federal child welfare review requirements related to safety, permanency, and child and family well-being. This document commences with the Advisory of May 6, 2004, announcing the hearing. This is followed by witness testimonies from: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services,…

In March 1995, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Personal Responsibility Act (H.R. 4), part of the House Republican Contract with America. The bill would move primary responsibility for child and family programs to states and communities, reduce federal spending, and consolidate programs into block grants for child care, child…

To ensure that all young children enter school in good health, ready and able to learn, and are socially and emotionally well developed, states are challenged by the State Early Childhood Comprehensive System (SECCS) Initiative to assure that services are coordinated, integrated and well managed. States must not only plan the delivery of services,…

The purpose of this report is to provide the Center for Excellence (CfE) in Early Childhood Development with a set of recommendations regarding how to measure school readiness in Ventura County. This report defines school readiness according to the National Education Goals Panel (NEGP) which identified the following three important components of…

The UCLA Center for Healthier Children, Families and Communities (CHCFC) has developed the School Readiness Critical Pathways (SRCPs) as an evidence-based conceptual model that links related outcomes and strategies. This helps to organize an array of broad and diffuse evidence regarding the strategies that produce school readiness outcomes for…

This report outlines the national and state environmental context for the SECCS Initiative in supporting MCH strategic planning in early childhood systems building. This strategic context has implications for roles, relationships, and activities within a planning process and ultimately an implementation process. It summarizes the opportunities and…

This report is designed to support the planning and implementation of the Maternal and Child Health Bureau (MCHB) State Early Childhood Comprehensive Systems (SECCS) Initiative. It addresses a set of principles that these agencies can use to advance their planning process, reach out to new partners, develop collaborative strategies, and build a…

In 2003, the Maternal and Child Health Bureau (MCHB) released a "Strategic Plan for Early Childhood Health." In recognition of the critical role states play in the development of early childhood initiatives and of the unique contributions that state Title V programs can make to these initiatives, the Bureau operationalized their…