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Policy Update: November 2018

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SRCD News Related to Child and Family Policy

SRCD Policy Fellowship Program: Apply Now

We are seeking applicants for the SRCD Policy Fellowship Program for the 2019-2020 academic year. There are two fellowship programs: federal and state. The purpose of the fellowships is to provide researchers with immersive opportunities to learn firsthand about policy development, implementation, and evaluation, and to use their research skills in child development to inform public policy at either the federal or state level. All fellowships will be from September 1, 2019 to August 31, 2020.
 
Federal Policy Fellowship 
There are two types of federal fellowships: congressional and executive branch. Both fellowships are full-time immersion experiences in Washington, D.C. where fellows will work as resident scholars within congressional or federal executive branch agency offices. Application Requirements: Applicants must have a doctoral-level degree in a relevant discipline (e.g., Ph.D., M.D., Ed.D.), must demonstrate exceptional competence in an area of child development research, must be U.S. citizens, and must be members of SRCD. We welcome applications from early, mid-career, and advanced professionals. This fellowship will help developmental scientists at all career stages understand policy development, implementation, and evaluation; the potential for linkages between research and policy; how to communicate more effectively with policymakers; and how to formulate more informed and useful questions for policy-related research. Applications are due online by December 14, 2018, 11:59pm Eastern. For more information about the SRCD Federal Policy Fellowship Program, click here or email policyfellowships@srcd.org. To apply to the fellowship, click here.  
 
State Policy Fellowship 
There are two types of state fellowships: pre-doctoral and post-doctoral. SRCD will be awarding up to four part-time pre-doctoral state fellowships, and two full-time post-doctoral state fellowships. Fellows are placed in state executive branch agency offices for immersion experiences. In addition to a placement supervisor within the executive branch agency, fellows will receive support from an academic mentor. SRCD expects the state fellowships to provide fellows with opportunities for exposure to policy development, implementation, and evaluation; to develop skills in mutual communication between researchers and policymakers; and to learn about ways research can be used to inform policy at the state level. Submit letters of intent by December 21, 2018, 11:59pm Eastern. For more information about the SRCD State Policy Fellowship Program, including requirements and procedures for submission of letters of intent, click here or email policyfellowships@srcd.org.

Register Now: Upcoming Webinar on Immigration Enforcement Threat and Children

Title: The Impact of Immigration Enforcement Threat on Latino Children and Communities 

Date: Thursday, December 6 

Time: 2:00-3:00 PM Eastern 

Description: Feeling safe is fundamental for healthy child development. Yet rapid and far‐reaching transformations in immigration policy and anti-immigrant rhetoric in the United States are fueling a sense of fear and uncertainty in many households across the nation. Drs. R. Gabriela Barajas-Gonzalez (NYU Langone School of Medicine) and Cecilia Ayón (University of California, Riverside) will present an overview of their Social Policy Report, “Applying a Community Violence Framework to Understand the Impact of Immigration Enforcement Threat on Latino Children” to better understand how uncertainty and threat regarding familial safety adversely impact the lives of Latino children in immigrant households. Drs. Ayón and Barajas-Gonzalez will also discuss implications for working with immigrant communities, informed by their own experiences conducting qualitative and quantitative research in California and New York City. 

Click here to register for this webinar.  

Spotlight on the SRCD Policy Fellow

Erin Cannon, Ph.D.,  is a second year SRCD Executive Branch Fellow whose placement is in the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation (OPRE) in the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Click here to learn more about her work, including her role in understanding the potential for using human-centered design to improve child and family outcomes in ACF programs. 

Legislative Branch Updates

FY19 Appropriations: Continuing Resolution Expires Next Week

As reported in the October 2018 edition of Policy Update, the large appropriations package signed into law at the end of September includes full Fiscal Year 2019 funding for the Departments of Defense, Labor, Education, and Health and Human Services, as well as a continuing resolution (CR) to temporarily fund other government agencies through December 7. Seven of the twelve FY19 appropriations bills have not yet been signed into law. These seven bills or another CR need to be enacted by December 7 in order to avoid a partial government shutdown. Numerous federal agencies would be impacted by a partial government shutdown, including, among others, those funded by the Commerce, Justice, Science (CJS), Agriculture, and Homeland Security appropriations bills.  

Congressional Briefing on Budgeting for the Next Generation

On October 23, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget held a congressional briefing entitled “Budgeting for the Next Generation.” Marc Goldwein, Senior Vice President and Senior Policy Director for the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget opened the event by emphasizing, “the budget process itself is stacked against children.” He noted that funding for children is more likely than funding for adults and seniors to be temporary and require reauthorization, to be capped, lack dedicated funding sources, and lack built-in growth. He gave examples such as the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), which must be reauthorized, is capped, and does not have built-in growth, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) which must also be reauthorized and only grows with inflation. He noted, “programs for children are disadvantaged relative to adults and seniors.”

Experts on a panel then discussed topics related to the federal budget for children. Topics included: the projected decrease in federal spending for children over the next decade; the rising increase of interest spending on the federal debt, which is projected to surpass spending for children in 2020; the role of state and locality funding in relation to federal funding of child and family programs; the need for structural solutions (e.g., create an Independent Commission for Children or a Children’s Budget); the importance of examining successful federal programs for senior citizens that could be adapted for children; and the need for greater transparency in federal spending on children. Panelists included: Romina Boccia, Director, Grover M. Hermann Center for the Federal Budget, Heritage Foundation; Heather Hahn, Senior Fellow, Center for Labor, Human Services, and Population, Urban Institute; and Bruce Lesley, President, First Focus. Click here to watch the full briefing.

Executive Branch Updates

NIH Behavioral and Social Sciences Research Festival

On November 27, the Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR) and the NIH Behavioral and Social Sciences Research Coordinating Committee (BSSR-CC) hosted the annual NIH Behavioral and Social Sciences Research Festival. The agenda for the research festival and additional information are available here. A feature of this conference has become an annual “state of behavioral and social sciences at NIH” address given by Dr. William Riley, Director of OBSSR. According to this presentation, funding for research with a behavioral and social sciences (BSSR) focus at NIH has increased annually between 2015 and 2018. Each institute or center at NIH now has some research with a BSSR focus. Funding is fairly evenly distributed across content areas including: addictive behaviors; attention, learning, and memory; developmental processes and family health; food intake and physical activity; healthcare and disease management; language and communication disorders; mental health; pain, injury, and disability; sensation and perception; sexual behaviors; sleep; social processes and determinants; and stress, trauma, and resilience. Dr. Riley provided a number of examples focusing on children’s development in various content areas. For example, in the sensation and perception content area, funded research includes a study of early language and literacy acquisition in children with hearing loss. OBSSR is both leading funding announcements (e.g., in the area of methodology and measurement in BSSR) and is co-funding announcements with other institutes (e.g., contributing to funding opportunities focusing on neuroscience as part of the BRAIN initiative on which the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke has the lead role).

Dr. Riley also provided a summary of initiatives and meetings in which OBSSR has played a leading role. As one example, he noted that much of the focus at NIH on the opioid and pain crises has been on biomedical issues, such as developing new painkillers that are less addictive. However, OBSSR worked with NIH leadership to convene a meeting on BSSR contributions to addressing the opioid crisis, such as understanding the sociocultural and socioeconomic status (SES) underpinnings of the crisis; behavioral and social factors that play a preventative or mitigating role; and nonpharmacological approaches to treatment of opioid abuse and chronic pain. This meeting underscored that there are multiple tested and effective behavioral approaches to prevention and treatment, yet very little of this work is being widely implemented. There is a need to focus on dissemination and implementation of effective BSSR interventions for pain management as well as the prevention and treatment of opioid addiction.
 
Further sessions at the research festival involved presentations of NIH-funded behavioral and social science research. A keynote by Adriana Lleras-Muney, a Professor at UCLA, focused on long-term effects of cash transfers and other anti-poverty programs in the U.S. Panels focused on basic research on behavioral processes, population and epidemiological research, and intervention research in BSSR. Of particular interest to developmental scientists was a presentation by Jennifer Buher-Kane, a Professor at UC Irvine, on intergenerational pathways linking maternal early-life adversity to offspring birthweight. A roundtable provided the opportunity to discuss such questions as how to increase the perceived relevance of BSSR to NIH institutes and centers, gaps in BSSR at NIH, training needs of behavioral and social science researchers, and how to foster movement from intervention research to practice implementation in the behavioral and social sciences.

NAS Board on Children, Youth, and Families Celebrates 25 Years

On November 14, the Board on Children, Youth, and Families (BCYF) of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NAS) held an event to mark its 25th anniversary, both to take stock of accomplishments and look to the future. The BCYF is a joint activity of the Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education (DBASSE) and the Health and Medicine Division (formerly the Institute of Medicine). It convenes groups of experts to review the strongest available evidence on key issues facing children, youth, and families using a range of approaches, including consensus reports by committees, workshops, and forums. The agenda and background materials from the celebration are available here.

At the event, welcoming comments were provided by the Board Director, Dr. Natacha Blain, and Dr. Monica Feit, Deputy Executive Director of DBASSE. Keynote addresses were provided by Dr. Jack Shonkoff, a former BCYF chair who led the committee that produced From Neurons to Neighborhoods: The Science of Early Childhood Development, and Ralph Smith, who served on the Committee on Youth Development, a predecessor of the BCYF, and who organized a planning meeting focusing on youth in high risk environments. Dr. Shonkoff underscored the need to face “brutal facts” regarding children in our current reality (such as unacceptably high rates of infant mortality and gaps by income in key areas of development) and the need for persistent efforts to address these. He underscored the central role of science in leading to innovative approaches that can provide the basis for breakthrough progress in children’s health and development. Smith focused on the importance of addressing child poverty and supporting parents as their children’s teachers and advocates.

Panel discussions focusing on the current state of children, youth, and families and their future included researchers, federal agency and foundation leadership, as well as program and personal perspectives. Videos highlighting key conclusions from BCYF reports were interspersed as well.  The formal program opened and concluded with artistic presentations, beginning with a spoken word presentation and closing with a musical performance. A  reception provided an opportunity for roundtable discussions with key members of committees and forums convened by the BCYF, including From Neurons to Neighborhoods; Parenting Matters; Preventing Mental, Emotional and Behavioral Disorders Among Young People; Promoting the Educational Success of Children and Youth Learning English; Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8; and Forum for Children’s Well-Being.  Next steps for the BCYF include a committee on addressing childhood poverty and a committee on the neurobiological and socio-behavioral science of adolescent development.

Upcoming COSSA Webinar on NIH Clinical Trials Policy

The Consortium of Social Science Associations (COSSA) recently launched a new webinar series: Headlines – A monthly look at what’s new and noteworthy in social science policy. The next Headlines webinar will be held on Thursday, December 13 at 2:00 PM Eastern and will focus on the NIH clinical trials policy and its implications for basic behavioral and social science research. Dr. William Riley, Director of the NIH Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR) will discuss the latest policy developments affecting behavioral and social science research as well as the implications of NIH’s clinical trials policy for the social and behavioral sciences. Participation is limited to COSSA members; since SRCD is a member of COSSA, all SRCD members are eligible to attend these webinars. Click here to register.  

Reminder: Request for Comment on Proposed Change to Rule on "Inadmissability on Public Charge Grounds" 

As discussed in the October edition of Policy Update, the Department of Homeland Security recently released a request for public comment on a proposed rule on “Inadmissibility on Public Charge Grounds” that would change the criteria used by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to determine the basis on which those seeking to immigrate to the U.S., or seeking adjustment of status or a visa, would be considered inadmissible to the U.S. because they would be likely to become a public charge, or financial burden to the U.S. SRCD members are encouraged to review the criteria for what would constitute a public charge in the proposed rulemaking and to submit comments with a particular focus on implications for children and families. The deadline to submit a comment is December 10. Additional details and links to several outside analyses of the proposed change are available in the October edition of Policy Update, linked above.  

Federal Reports

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) Madison Area Technical College Patient Care Pathway Program: Implementation and Early Impact Report This report documents the implementation and early impacts of the Patient Care Pathway program, operated by Madison College, a program aimed to help low-skilled adults remediate their basic skills and quickly access occupational training in the healthcare sector.

(2) Implementation of a Goal-Oriented Approach to Providing Employment Services to Cash Assistance Recipients: The Lifelong Learning Initiative in Ramsey County, Minnesota This report describes the early implementation of the Ramsey County, Minnesota Lifelong Learning Initiative (LLI), a program that uses a goal-oriented approach to help Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program recipients develop skills as they work towards positive employment outcomes. 

(3) Causal Validity Considerations for Including High Quality Non-Experimental Evidence in Systematic Reviews This brief identifies key considerations for systematically and reliably assessing the causal validity of non-experimental studies.

(4) Des Moines Area Community College Workforce Training Academy Connect Program: Implementation and Early Impact Report This report documents the implementation and early impacts of the Workforce Training Academy Connect (WTA Connect) program, operated by Des Moines Area Community College, a program aimed to help low-income, low-skilled adults access and complete occupational training that can lead to increased employment and higher earnings.

(5) Participation in Responsible Fatherhood Programs in the PACT Evaluation: Associations with Father and Program Characteristics This brief presents new findings on the factors that are associated with fathers’ participation in Responsible Fatherhood (RF) programs.

(6) Five Tips for Teaching Healthy Marriage and Relationship Education in Schools This brief provides five practical tips for healthy marriage and relationship education (HMRE) practitioners interested in teaching HMRE in high schools, while also helping to address a current need for research and information on HMRE programs for youth.

(7) Analysis Plan for the PACE Intermediate (Three-Year) Follow-up Study This Analysis Plan is the second round of reporting of the Pathways for Advancing Careers and Education (PACE) evaluation, a study of nine promising programs that use a “career pathways” framework for increasing education, employment, and self-sufficiency among low-income individuals and families.

(8) Implementation of Evidence-Based Early Childhood Home Visiting: Results from the Mother and Infant Home Visiting Program Evaluation This implementation research report describes the local programs, home visiting staff, and families who participated in the Mother and Infant Home Visiting Program Evaluation (MIHOPE), a national evaluation of the federal Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV) program launched in 2011.

(9) Region XI American Indian and Alaska Native Head Start: A Portrait of Children and Families This research brief provides a national portrait of the characteristics, development, and well-being of children and families in Region XI Head Start at the beginning of the program year, using data from American Indian and Alaska Native Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (AI/AN FACES 2015).

(10) A Year in Region XI Head Start: Children’s Growth and Development from the American Indian and Alaska Native Family and Child Experiences Survey 2015 (AI/AN FACES 2015) This research brief describes the developmental progress of Region XI Head Start children as they complete a program year (from fall 2015 to spring 2016), using recent data from the American Indian and Alaska Native Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (AI/AN FACES 2015).

(11) The CCDF Policies Database Book of Tables: Key Cross-State Variations in CCDF Policies as of October 1, 2017 This report describes the ways in which Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) policies vary within the context of the federal program requirements, and includes dozens of detailed tables showing each state’s/territory’s policy choices.

(12) Predicting Repeated and Persistent Family Homelessness: Do Families’ Characteristics and Experiences Matter? This brief explores how demographic characteristics and past experiences of families relate to repeated or persistent homelessness.

(13) Evaluating a Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program in Rural Kentucky This brief summarizes findings from a random assignment impact study of an adapted version of the Reducing the Risk teen pregnancy prevention curriculum in rural Kentucky.

New Reports and Briefs from the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation

Several new publications are available from the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services:

(1) Safer Sex Intervention: Final Impact Report from the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Replication Study This research report details the impact findings from the evaluation of three replications of the Safer Sex Intervention, a clinic-based intervention intended to reduce the incidence of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and increase condom use among high-risk sexually active female adolescents.  Click here to read the research brief of this report.

(2) Reducing the Risk: Final Impact Report from the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Replication Study This research report details findings from the evaluation of Reducing the Risk, a sexual health curriculum developed in the early 1990s to help prevent pregnancy and reduce sexually-transmitted infections (STIs) in adolescents. Click here to read the research brief of this report.

(3) Child Support Cooperation Requirements in Child Care Subsidy Programs and SNAP: Key Policy Considerations This issue brief examines the use of child support cooperation requirements in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) program and child care subsidy programs funded under the Child Care Development Fund (CCDF).

New Reports and Briefs from the Institute of Education Sciences

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

(1) Factors That Influence Student College Choice This Data Point is based on data from the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 and a survey of the cohort again in spring 2012, which included questions about characteristics that would influence choosing a school or college after high school.

(2) Presenting School Choice Information to Parents: An Evidence-Based Guide This guide is a resource for those considering how to present school information to parents using evidence-based methods.

(3) Forum Guide to Early Warning Systems This resource provides information and best practices that will help education agencies plan, develop, implement, and use an early warning system in their agency to inform interventions that improve student outcomes.

(4) Reasons High School Students Change Their Educational Setting This Data Point is based on data from the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 and a survey of the cohort again in spring 2012, which included questions about whether students had left their base-year school and asked the reason why.

(5) Military Service and Educational Attainment of High School Sophomores After 9/11: Experiences of 2002 High School Sophomores as of 2012 This Statistics in Brief examines the characteristics of high school sophomores in 2002 who entered the military, the timing of their military service, and compares their postsecondary experiences to that of their contemporaries who did not serve.

(6) Enrollment and Employees in Postsecondary Institutions, Fall 2017; and Financial Statistics and Academic Libraries, Fiscal Year 2017: First Look (Preliminary Data) This report introduces new preliminary Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) data from the spring 2018 collection.

(7) Postsecondary Institutions and Cost of Attendance in 2017-18; Degrees and Other Awards Conferred: 2016-17; and 12-Month Enrollment: 2016-17: First Look (Provisional Data) This First Look is a revised version of the preliminary report released in June 2018 and includes all Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) data collected in fall 2017.

(8) Measuring School Climate Using the 2015 School Crime Supplement: Technical Report This report focuses on the construction, assessment, and analysis of school climate scores using items from the 2015 School Crime Supplement (SCS) to the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS).

(9) Study of Enhanced College Advising in Upward Bound: Impacts on Steps Toward College This report presents the impact of a low-cost advising strategy called, Find the Fit, which was implemented by 194 Upward Bound programs, a program designed to help high school students from disadvantage backgrounds prepare to enroll and complete postsecondary education.

Federal Funding Opportunities

This month’s FFO highlights multiple National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) funding opportunities. RFA-AT-19-001 utilizes a phased R61/R33 funding mechanism to support mechanistic research and to evaluate the clinical relevance of music interventions. The purpose of the FOA is to promote innovative research on music and health with an emphasis on developing music interventions aimed at understanding their mechanisms of action and clinical applications with little or no preliminary data. RFA-NS-19-008 uses a R01 funding mechanism, while RFA-NS-19-009 uses a R21 funding mechanism. Both FOAs are intended to encourage exploratory studies to: (1) increase our understanding of how music affects the brain, body, and behavior and (2) use that knowledge to develop evidence-based music interventions to enhance health or treat specific diseases and disorders. Letters of intent for all three opportunities are due by January 15, 2019. Completed applications are due by 5pm local time of applicant organization on February 28, 2019. Click here to read about these and other funding opportunities.