Policy Update: May 2018

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Spotlight on the SRCD Policy Fellow
Anne Leong, Ph.D., MSW is an Executive Branch Fellow whose placement is in the Office of Science Policy, Reporting, and Program Analysis and the Office of Legislation and Public Policy at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). Click here to learn more about her work, including her role in NICHD’s strategic planning.

Legislative Branch Updates

FY19 Appropriations: House Advances Commerce, Justice, Science Bill
On May 17, the House Appropriations Committee marked up and approved the Fiscal Year 2019 Commerce-Justice-Science (CJS) spending bill. 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 House CJS bill provides a total of $62.5 billion in funding for FY19, an increase of $2.9 billion above the FY18 funding level. The measure advanced out of committee on a 32-19 vote, and primarily prioritizes funding for immigration enforcement, federal prosecutors, space exploration, and preparations for the 2020 census. Highlights of the House CJS bill that may be of interest to SRCD members include:

  • National Science Foundation (NSF): The bill includes $8.175 billion for NSF, an increase of $408 million compared to the FY18 funding level.
  • National Institute of Justice (NIJ): The bill includes $44 million for the National Institute of Justice, an increase of $2 million compared to the FY18 funding level.
  • Census Bureau: The bill includes $4.799 billion for the Census Bureau, an increase of $1.986 billion compared to the FY18 funding level.

Additional details are available in the committee report. The bill now goes to the full House for consideration.

House and Senate Committees Advance Opioid Legislation

On April 24, the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee unanimously advanced S.2680, The Opioid Crisis Response Act of 2018. This bill includes over 40 proposals to combat the opioid crisis, such as safe opioid disposal, prevention of future overdoses through information sharing, efforts to stem illegal drug importation through coordination between federal agencies, and support of prescription drug monitoring programs. Five amendments were also adopted, which included proposals to support training in medication-assisted treatment for students, expansion of alternative treatments, resources for states to provide recovery services, and increasing access to evidence-based treatments. During the markup, HELP Committee Chairman and Sponsor of the bill, Lamar Alexander (R-TN) expressed his desire for the full Senate to take up the bill by summer, and to merge the bill with proposals from other relevant committees. S.2680 now awaits consideration by the full Senate.
 
The House Energy and Commerce Committee also advanced a variety of bills related to combating the opioid crisis through two different markups. The committee approved 25 bills on May 9 and 32 more on May 17. The 57 total bills include proposals to increase physicians’ knowledge of a consenting patient’s history of addiction, to help stop illicit drugs from entering the country, and to require state CHIP programs to cover mental health benefits. During the first markup, House Democrats expressed concern over the lack of debate on several proposed bills, with Ranking Member Frank Pallone Jr. (D-NJ) stating, “many of the proposals that most meaningfully improve or expand treatment for opioid use disorders will not be discussed today.” The May 17 markup was more contentious, with debate on several issues. One point of debate was a proposal related to an existing provision that prevents substance use treatment facilities with more than 16 beds from receiving federal Medicaid funding. The Committee advanced a bill that partially removed the exclusion for those suffering from opioid use disorders, prompting Democratic members to disagree that this was the best way to remove the exclusion, as it only applies to opioid use and no other substances. A comprehensive list of the advanced bills is posted on the House Energy and Commerce website. The Energy and Commerce opioid bills now await consideration by the full House, for which Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has announced he will reserve floor time in June.
 
In addition, the House Ways and Means Committee advanced four bill packages related to opioids (H.R. 5773H.R. 5774H.R. 5775, and H.R. 5776) in a May 16 markup. The bipartisan packages focused on establishing drug management programs, guidance for providers on treating pain and opioid use disorders, educational resources for beneficiaries, and funding for treatment programs. Several other bills related to illegal drug trafficking, procedures for investigation of pharmacy fraud, and a Medicare reporting requirement were also advanced by voice vote. The bills await consideration by the full House. Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady (R-TX) did not provide specifics on when these bills would be considered.

Congressional Briefing on Criminal Justice

On April 24, George Mason University’s Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy and the Harry F. Guggenheim Foundation hosted a congressional briefing entitled “Lessons from the Past, Prospects for a New Crime Commission.” The purpose of the briefing was to provide an update on developments in multiple areas of criminal justice research and practice since the 1967 Lyndon B. Johnson Crime Commission, in light of introduced legislation to create a new crime commission. Of relevance to SRCD members:

  • Alfred Blumstein of Carnegie Mellon University spoke about recommendations from the original crime commission and advancements in science and technology since then. These included the creation of the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), the research arm of the Department of Justice, along with practical innovations such as online criminal records and license plate readers. He pointed to future directions for the proposed new crime commission including a focus on drug abuse, mental illness, incarceration rates, and police accountability.
  • Jodi Lane of the University of Florida spoke on future directions for juvenile justice based on research, including increased focus on treatment as opposed to punishment; better procedural protections for children, which can be addressed through reauthorizing the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA) for the first time in 15 years; addressing disparities in policing in minority communities; using our understanding of how poverty and toxic stress affect the brain to create interventions for at-risk children; and building better evidence-based data systems.
  • Joanne Belknap of the University of Colorado at Boulder spoke on domestic violence (excluding policing of domestic violence). She discussed promising interventions for victims and their children, such as coordinated community responses that connect victim advocacy services, which have shown evidence of effectiveness, with the legal system. She then pointed to the need for increased funding to expand such programs that have evidence of effectiveness.

Other participants provided updates on areas such as prosecution, policing, issues related to race and criminal justice, narcotics, and criminal justice statistics. The briefing closed with a statement by Senator Gary Peters (D-MI), who introduced the bill proposing a new crime commission. Ted Gest of Criminal Justice Journalists provided legislative context for passing such a bill, suggesting that it would be possible to create a private commission if the bill isn’t passed in Congress. Click here for a full list of presenters and videos of each presentation.

Congressional Briefing on Ending Child Maltreatment Fatalities

On April 26, the National Coalition to End Child Abuse Deaths hosted a congressional briefing entitled “Innovations and Opportunities to End Child Maltreatment Fatalities.” This briefing was hosted in partnership with the Senate Caucus on Foster Youth, the Congressional Caucus on Foster Youth, and the Office of Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA). The briefing opened with a discussion of the fact that it has been over two years since the Commission to Eliminate Child Abuse and Neglect Fatalities issued its final report, yet rates of child maltreatment fatalities remain high, with 4-8 children in the United States dying each day as a result of child abuse or neglect. Furthermore, panelists noted that the data on child maltreatment fatalities is not always reliable and many experts believe this is an undercount, as data collection and reporting standards vary from state to state.
 
Panelists discussed a wide range of issues, including: the importance of primary prevention and the need to expand investments in evidence-based primary prevention, such as home visiting; the need to improve communication between health care providers and child welfare agencies; the high turnover in the child welfare workforce and opportunities for innovation around workforce needs, such as by treating child welfare workers more like other first responders and providing them with the same resources to deal with trauma; and the importance of identifying patterns in the data in order to prevent fatalities. All panelists discussed the need for more and better data, noting that they cannot fully address the problem if they don’t fully understand its nature and scope. Speakers included: Teri Covington, Executive Director, Within Our Reach, and Commissioner of the National Commission to Eliminate Child Abuse and Neglect Fatalities; Dr. Allison Jackson, Division Chief, American Academy of Pediatrics' Child and Adolescent Protection Center; Carl Ayers, Director of the Division of Family Services, Virginia Department of Social Services; Laura Radel, Senior Social Science Analyst, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, U.S. Department of Health & Human Services; and Denise Edwards, Director of Government Affairs, National Children's Alliance.

Congressional Briefing on School Safety and Climate

On May 2, the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP) and the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP) hosted a congressional briefing entitled “Beyond Metal Detectors: Strategies to Enhance School Climate and Safety.” The Executive Director of NASP, Susan Gorin, opened the briefing by noting that “the bottom line is that school safety is a day in and day out endeavor” and “hardening our schools is not the answer.” She also discussed the need to balance prioritizing students’ physical and psychological safety with implementing reasonable security measures and district and building-level commitments to improving school climate and fostering supportive learning environments. The briefing focused on comprehensive school safety, including: the importance of positive relationships between students, staff, and families; the need for mental and behavioral health services to be better integrated into schools; and the importance of leadership at the district and school level supporting and advocating for comprehensive school safety initiatives.
 
The panelists addressed several issues related to school climate and safety, including: the need to take a holistic view of school safety, as psychological safety impacts a child’s ability to learn and schools are currently playing multiple roles in providing for the basic needs of their students; a discussion of universal screening to help identify the students that need the most support and get them the necessary services earlier; the need to improve threat assessment for both self-harm and harm towards others; the importance of making sure schools are appropriately staffed so that psychologists and counselors are focused on their core duties, rather than being responsible for testing, cafeteria  duty, or other additional tasks; and the effectiveness of restorative justice programs. Multiple panelists emphasized the importance and cost effectiveness of prevention programs, with one stating that “the more money we spend on prevention, the less money we are spending on crisis.” Speakers included: Michael O'Neil, School Committee Member, Boston Public Schools; Melissa Pearrow, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Counseling and School Psychology, University of Massachusetts Boston; Frank Zenere, School Psychologist and District Coordinator of Student Services/Crisis Program, Miami Dade Public Schools; and Tommy Welch, Principal, Meadowcreek High School, and NASSP Principal of the Year Finalist. An archived recording of the briefing is available here.

Congressional Briefing on Connecting Children with their Incarcerated Parents

On May 17, Partners for Our Children and the National Prevention Science Coalition to Improve Lives hosted a congressional briefing in collaboration with Congressman Danny Davis’ office, entitled “Connecting Children with Their Incarcerated Parents.” A panel of stakeholders working across policy, research, and practice discussed the complicated issues at stake when developing programs to connect children with their parents in jails or prisons. Congressman Davis (D-IL) discussed how he has seen this issue at play in his district and that mass incarceration means that a large number of children continue to grow up with incarcerated parents. He concluded by noting that we must “make sure that families don’t lose that connectivity” that is central to parent-child relationships. The panelists discussed a diverse range of issues, including: the need to use trauma-informed practices in all aspects of this work, since incarcerated parents and their children have all been exposed to trauma; the positive outcomes seen from evidence-based programs for criminal justice-involved parents, such as the Parenting Inside Out program, which showed large reductions in recidivism for parents in the program; the increasing number of programs that allow incarcerated mothers who meet certain requirements to keep their babies with them until the child is 2 years old; efforts to make visiting spaces in all facilities more child-friendly; the need for corrections agencies and child and families services agencies at the state level to collaborate in order to support incarcerated parents in maintaining relationships with their children; and making evidence-based parenting programs universally available to all incarcerated parents. Multiple speakers also addressed the bigger picture issues underlying this conversation, including mass incarceration, and that often in the United States, people with medically diagnosable issues such a mental illness or substance use disorder are incarcerated rather than provided treatment. Panelists included: Jennifer Cearley, Ph.D., Researcher, Oregon Social Learning Center; Joseph Tietz, Ph.D., Executive Director, Pathfinders of Oregon; Mary Helen Roberts, Retired State Legislator, Washington State; Kimberly Mays, Social Worker, Washington State Office of Public Defense; and Kristen Harrod, Director, Division of Reentry Services; Kentucky Department of Corrections. A livestream of the event is available here, and a summary of the briefing from the Congressional Research Institute for Social Work & Policy is available here.

Child and Family Policy Research Meetings in DC

COSSA Holds Annual Meeting

The Consortium of Social Science Associations, of which SRCD is a Governing Board Member, held its Annual Meeting on April 30. An in-depth summary of the panels is available on COSSA’s website. Brief highlights from each of the sessions follow:

  • Reestablishing Trust in Social Science & Data This plenary panel emphasized the need to show Congress and the country as a whole that “science is not for scientists,” rather, it is something available to everyone to better understand how the world works. This panel featured Rush Holt, American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS); Arthur Lupia, University of Michigan; Brian Nosek, Center for Open Science; and was moderated by Nancy Kidd, American Sociological Association.
  • Me Too, Sexual Harassment in Science and in the Academy This plenary panel focused on a discussion of organizational and culture change needed to address sexual harassment and the limited research currently available on sexual misconduct. This panel included Elizabeth Armstrong, University of Michigan; Rhonda Davis, National Science Foundation (NSF); Shirley Malcom, American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS); and was moderated by Felice Levine, American Educational Research Association.
  • Improving the Criminal Justice System This breakout session featured a panel discussion on how social science research can strengthen the criminal justice system by challenging conventional wisdom and in understanding the impacts of policy change. The panel included Nancy La Vigne, Vice President of Justice Policy at the Urban Institute; Olugbenga Ajilore, Professor of Economics at the University of Toledo; David Yokum, Director of the Lab @ DC; and moderator Richard Lempert of the University of Michigan.
  • Responding to Natural Disasters This breakout session featured a discussion on how social science research can help us learn from the past to better respond to future natural disasters and increase resilience. This panel included Brandi Gilbert, Urban Institute; William Hooke, American Meteorological Society; and moderator Edward Liebow, American Anthropological Association.
  • Combating the Opioid Epidemic This breakout session featured a panel discussion on the social determinants of opioid use, and how research on behavioral health and social networks can help to combat the opioid crisis. Panelists included Ahlishia J’Nae Shipley, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA); Leo Beletsky, Northeastern University; Lee Hoffer, Case Western Reserve University, and moderator Howard Kurtzman, American Psychological Association.  
  • Enhancing National Security This breakout session featured a discussion on how social science can be better utilized in the intelligence community and how it has already been used in military decision making. The panel featured Claudia Brugman of the Center for Advanced Study of Language at the University of Maryland, David Honey of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and David Segal of the Center for Research on Military Organization at the University of Maryland.
  • Post Truth: Communicating Facts, Not Fiction The final plenary panel discussed the persistence of misinformation and how scientists can communicate facts to a public that is increasingly distrustful of institutions. This panel included Cary Funk, Pew Research Center; Melanie Green, University at Buffalo, SUNY; William K. Hallman, Rutgers University; and was moderated by Trevor Parry-Giles, National Communication Association.

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) Behavioral Intervention Materials Compendium This resource provides all printed materials from 15 behavioral interventions that were designed as part of the Behavioral Interventions to Advance Self-Sufficiency (BIAS) project.

(2) Delivering Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Services to High-Risk Youth in Alternative School Settings This brief summarizes key findings from a study of the implementation of Teen Choice, a pregnancy prevention curriculum.

(3) Adapting an Evidence-based Curriculum in a Rural Setting: The Longer-Term Impacts of Reducing the Risk in Kentucky This report presents evidence on the longer-term impacts of an adapted version of the Reducing the Risk teen pregnancy prevention curriculum in rural Kentucky.

(4) Culture of Continuous Learning Project: A Literature Review of the Breakthrough Series Collaborative (BSC) This literature review examines the evidence base of the Breakthrough Series Collaborative (BSC), a structured improvement methodology used to improve quality, outcomes, and efficiency.

(5) Child Separation among Families Experiencing Homelessness This brief uses data collected from the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Family Options Study to look at child separation among families experiencing homelessness.

(6) Focusing on the Boys: The Early Impacts of Wise Guys in Davenport, Iowa This report presents evidence on the early impacts of Wise Guys, a program designed to support adolescent males in and near the city of Davenport, Iowa.

(7) Psychometric Analyses of Child Outcome Measures with American Indian and Alaska Native Preschoolers: Initial Evidence from AI/AN FACES 2015 This report describes the performance of cognitive and social-emotional measures of preschoolers’ development for American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) children from the FACES 2015 study.

(8) Descriptive Data on Region XI Head Start Children and Families: AI/AN FACES Fall 2015–Spring 2016 Data Tables and Study Design This report provides methodological information and descriptive statistics from the AI/AN FACES 2015 study.

(9) PREP Performance Indicators: Youth Participants’ Characteristics and Outcomes This brief summarizes key characteristics of youth participants in programs funded through the Personal Responsibility Education Program (PREP), which aims to reduce teen pregnancies, sexually transmitted infections, and associated risk behaviors.

(10) PREP Performance Indicators: Nationwide Implementation of PREP Programs This brief summarizes key characteristics of programs funded through the Personal Responsibility Education Program (PREP).

(11) Inputs and Outcomes: PREP Programs Serving Youth in Foster Care - PREP Snapshot This brief summarizes key characteristics of programs funded through the Personal Responsibility Education Program (PREP) that reported at least half of the youth they served were in foster care.

(12) Inputs and Outcomes: PREP Programs Serving Runaway and Homeless Youth - PREP Snapshot This brief summarizes key characteristics of programs funded through the Personal Responsibility Education Program (PREP) that reported at least half of the youth they served were homeless or runaway youth.

(13) Inputs and Outcomes: PREP Programs Serving Highly Vulnerable Youth - PREP Snapshot This brief summarizes key characteristics of programs funded through the Personal Responsibility Education Program (PREP) that primarily served highly vulnerable populations.

(14) Inputs and Outcomes: PREP Programs Serving Adjudicated Youth - PREP Snapshot This brief summarizes key characteristics of programs funded through the Personal Responsibility Education Program (PREP) that reported at least half of the youth they served were adjudicated youth.

New Reports from the Institute of Education Sciences
Several new reports are available from the National Center for Education Statistics, Institute of Education Sciences (IES), Department of Education:

(1) Role of Education in Work Experience Programs This data point shows that most work experience programs (such as internships and apprenticeships) are completed as part of a formal education program.

(2) Public School Principals’ Perceptions of Influence by School Level and Community Type This data point compares principals' perceived influence over curriculum and budget decisions by school level and community type.

(3) The Feasibility of Collecting School-Level Finance Data: An Evaluation of Data from the School-Level Finance Survey (SLFS) School Year 2013–14 This report presents school-level finance data on expenditures by function from the School-Level Finance Survey (SLFS).

(4) Services to Support Parent Involvement by Community Type, Sector, and School ClassificationThis data point describes the availability of parent support services by community type, school sector, and school classification.

Federal Funding Opportunities

This month’s FFO highlights two Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health (OASH) funding opportunities. The first opportunity calls for submissions to develop and test new and innovative strategies to prevent teen pregnancy, promote healthy adolescence, and address youth sexual risk holistically to result in healthy decision making. The second opportunity calls for submissions to replicate and scale up programs that include the protective factors shown to be effective in the prevention of risk behaviors, including teen pregnancy. The overall goal is to promote healthy adolescence and to address youth sexual risk holistically or across the interrelated factors that promote optimal health and result in healthy decision-making and teen pregnancy prevention. Completed applications are due by June 29, 2018 for both opportunities. Click here to read about these and other funding opportunities.