SRCD President's Update May 2026
Dear SRCD Members,
This month, I’d like to update you on conversations the Governing Council (GC) has been having about SRCD’s policy efforts. The mission of SRCD is to advance the developmental sciences and promote the use of developmental research to improve human lives. Our policy efforts are a key way we apply developmental science to improve people’s lives.
In 2017, the GC made a commitment to expand the policy work of SRCD by moving from Ann Arbor, MI to Washington, DC. Since that time, the Policy Committee (SRCD members) and the Policy Team (SRCD staff) have indeed expanded our policy efforts in several important ways. Guided by member input, SRCD is bringing member voices and expertise to live policy debates in AI and social media, mental health, and immigration, to name a few, while actively defending federal funding for social and behavioral science.
First, the Child Policy Hub helps members learn new policy skills, network with policymakers directly, and answer policy questions rapidly. One way this process works is that a policymaker reaches out to SRCD staff with a specific question related to pending legislation. A message then goes to SRCD members of the Child Policy Connect Community who have indicated their expertise in that general topic area, with a request to provide any input in a relatively short time period, typically one week. The responses are then shared with the policymaker who made the inquiry.
Here’s a recent example: SRCD's Policy Team met with a staffer from the office of a Representative who has been working on issues related to children’s online safety, including legislation such as the Kids Online Safety Act and the Kids Internet and Digital Safety (KIDS) Act. The Representative was seeking the latest research, including both causal and longitudinal studies, focused on the impact of social media use on children's mental health, asking:
- What does recent research reveal about the relation between social media use and mental health outcomes (i.e., anxiety, depression, self-esteem) among children and adolescents?
- How do different patterns of social media use (such as frequency, type of engagement, or platform features/design) influence short- and long-term mental health trajectories in youth?
Through the Child Policy Connect Community, SRCD members were able to provide input on those questions to share with the Representative’s office.
Rather than taking findings from a journal article and trying to disseminate them to policymakers who might not be working on related issues, this approach is driven by the questions currently facing policymakers that we, as developmental scientists, can expertly inform. I highly encourage you to join the Child Policy Connect Community if you’d like to engage more deeply with policy.
Second, SRCD’s publication Child Policy Nexus provides a forum for scholarly reviews and discussions of policy considerations stemming from child development research findings. You are welcome to propose a topic for consideration to the Editor if you have ideas for timely and relevant child development research findings for policymakers and affiliated audiences to consider in their decision-making.
Third, we have a large repository of Child Policy Briefs available on our website. It is possible to search by policy area to find brief summaries of the scientific literature on a range of policy issues that impact children and families. Many members have found these Briefs to be helpful in communicating not only at a national level but also at state and local levels.
Fourth, SRCD has now organized Hill Days in Washington, DC, that have provided brief training and support for members regarding how to engage productively with policymakers. SRCD members have then met directly with legislators and their staff on issues related to how best to support children and families.
Fifth, for over 30 years, a signature program of SRCD has been the Policy Fellowship, which has placed postdoctoral child development experts in U.S. state agencies or Congress to work full time on child and family policy for one to two years. In the current federal climate, the Fellowship has recently lost much of its funding. We have constituted a Task Force that will focus on the future of the Policy Fellowship.
We recognize the tension members sometimes feel regarding SRCD as a scientific society and SRCD as an advocate on policy issues. We remain nonpartisan and do not lobby for specific policies or specific candidates. Instead, we continue to advocate for evidence-based policymaking grounded in developmental science to improve the lives of children and families.
Please feel free to reach out to me with questions or suggestions. Thank you for your engagement with SRCD!
Warm regards,
Jen
Jennifer E. Lansford, Ph.D.
SRCD President
Read April's GC Update
Read March's GC Update
Read February's GC Update
