CHILDREN NOW
1404 Franklin St Suite 700, Oakland, CA 94612 www.childrennow.org

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Organizations Filed Purposes: Children Now's mission is to find common ground among influential opinion leaders, interest groups and policymakers, who together can develop and drive socially innovative, "win-win" approaches to helping all children achieve their full potential.

Children Now is a nonpartisan whole-child research, policy development, communications, and advocacy organization working on all key kids' issues, and dedicated to promoting children's health, education and well-being in California. Children Now also coordinates The Children's Movement of California - the member-based Pro-Kid constituency, that represents a network of more than 4,000 business, youth, parent, civil rights, and faith- and community-based organizations, and others, as well as thousands of individuals throughout the state, that support children's well-being.

HealthChildren Now's health programs focus on ensuring that children birth to age 26 have meaningful and equitable access to high-quality, culturally responsive, affordable health care, including physical, mental/behavioral, and oral health services, and other key services like home visiting and developmental screenings that are vital for California's youngest children. Through our research, analysis, policy development, outreach and advocacy efforts, we have achieved the following: helped secure over $100 million in increased funds and key policy improvements for the newly-created CalWORKs Home Visiting Program and the California Home Visiting Program; led efforts to improve Medi-Cal access to and quality of care for children and families, including successfully advocated for a legislative audit of the oversight of children's access to Medi-Cal preventive services; continued our leadership efforts to promote developmental screenings and early interventions for California's infants and toddlers by strengthening Medi-Cal compliance; helped expand asthma prevention services by increasing access to trained community health workers; supported local efforts to improve how data about incoming kindergarteners oral health is collected and reported; successfully championed the expansion of full Medi-Cal coverage for young adults aged 19 to 25 regardless of immigration status; highlighted the need for culturally appropriate screening resources and for providers to adopt trauma-informed practices within a clinical setting, and helped secure funding for school-mental health partnerships and mental health services for students.

EducationChildren Now's education program aims to ensure every child has access to high-quality early learning opportunities, a rigorous TK-12 education, including high-quality STEM and quality afterschool and summer programs, and access to affordable higher education. Through research and analysis, policy development, education and outreach, communications, convenings and advocacy, we have worked to dismantle inequitable and racially discriminatory systems and have achieved the following: helped improve access to quality child care and preschool programs; supported significant progress, including the development of a growth measure to better track student progress, towards building a transparent and student-focused education accountability system that helps ensure all children graduate from high school ready for college, career and civic life; continued to engage school district leaders and develop resources to highlight opportunities to expand investments in early childhood programs, such as pregnant and parenting teen programs, dual language immersion in early learning and family resource centers; helped lead successful efforts to reduce suspensions for "defiance/disruption" by extending restrictions to students in grades 4-8; expanded the membership of the California STEM Network and engaged the Network in key STEM issues, including increasing access to STEM education and preparing new STEM teachers, early math instruction and educator professional development, afterschool programs in computer science, and high school to community college pathways in STEM; continued to lead efforts to help ensure the implementation of Next Generation Science Standards, which updated standards and accreditation and testing for teacher preparation and credentialing; continued leadership role around the effective implementation of the Local Control Funding Formula, working to ensure dollars intended for English Learners, students in deep poverty and foster youth actually reach those students; led efforts to ensure implementation of the English Learner Roadmap, to provide professional development for educators to learn how to address the unique needs of students who are English Learners; continued to secure transparent and accessible data in the state's longitudinal integrated data system, including working to ensure clearer references to early learning data and the creation of a stakeholder engagement process; and promoted substantial improvements to K-12 course access and instructional quality around math and science to increase access to higher education for all students.

Child WelfareChildren Now's child welfare program works to address the comprehensive health, education, and social service needs of children in the child welfare system. Through our research, policy development, and communication efforts, we have achieved the following: led efforts to establish the Family Urgent Response System (FURS), a statewide, 24/7 hotline to support foster youth and their caregivers in times of crisis; helped secure increased funding and implementation for the Emergency Child Care Bridge Program, which provides emergency vouchers for foster families to access child care at the time of placement; helped ensure funding remains available to children and caregivers from time of placement to approval as a resource family; defeated efforts to eliminate the Foster Parent Recruitment, Retention, and Support program, thereby continuing critical efforts to retain, recruit, and support foster parents and relative caregivers; secured funding for dependency counsel, who are a voice for abused and neglected children in legal proceedings; provided technical assistance to #HealthcareFFY, a national campaign to educate youth, providers and other stakeholders about the Affordable Care Act's provision providing coverage to former foster youth; monitored implementation of the Child and Adolescent Needs and Strengths tool, to ensure collaboration and integration across systems, thereby increasing youth access to much needed care; successfully advocated for housing navigators to help 18- to 21-year-olds secure and maintain housing, with priority given to former foster youth; supported efforts to expand the Transitional Housing Placement Plus Program for former foster youth ages 18 to 25 to increase funding for rapid rehousing of homeless and housing insecure students in the California State University, the University of California, and the California Community College systems; worked to establish a Child Welfare Emergency Fund ensuring children and their caregivers can access essential resources and services immediately following a disaster; conducted research, analyzed guidance, and collaborated with partners nationally and statewide to identify best practices and generate recommendations for implementing the Family First Prevention Services Act in California; and analyzed disparities in K-12 educational attainment of students in foster care, to highlight barriers and develop solutions to address these challenges.

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