Providence Mayor Angel Taveras, Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee and other city and state leaders have partnered with the Annie E. Casey Foundation to launch Evidence2Success, a new approach to investing in evidence-based programs that promote healthy child development. Evidence2Success will guide schools, public agencies and communities in Providence, Rhode Island, to collaborate on using data to match children’s strengths and needs to proven programs. City and state partners will also work together to shift resources to increase funding for prevention and early intervention.
 
The Casey Foundation chose Providence as the first site for Evidence2Success because of the city and state's commitment to investing in children and youth and their existing collaborative efforts to improve outcomes of children in low-income neighborhoods.

The Annie E. Casey Foundation’s latest KIDS COUNT® Data Book shows both promising progress and discouraging setbacks for the nation’s children: While their academic achievement and health improved in most states, their economic well-being continued to decline.

“This year’s findings reveal signs of hope in the midst of tough economic times for millions of families across the country,” said Patrick McCarthy, the Casey Foundation’s president and CEO. “While we’ve made progress in some important areas, we must work together to make sure every child, not just a select few, has the opportunity to succeed. We can help children reach their full potential by ensuring they stay on track in school and grow up healthy in strong financially stable families surrounded by supportive communities.”

The Casey Foundation updated the Data Book this year with a broader index of 16 indicators of child well-being, organized into four categories. The new index reflects the tremendous advances in child development research since the first KIDS COUNT Data Book in 1990. The report also ranks states in each of the four categories.

• View the 2012 KIDS COUNT Data Book and its related resources on the KIDS COUNT Data Center.
  
• View the national news release on the publication of the 2012 KIDS COUNT Data Book.

The Annie E. Casey Foundation announced today that it will discontinue providing direct services through Casey Family Services in order to shift to a grantmaking strategy that will help hundreds of foster care and other nonprofit human services agencies adopt innovative, proven approaches to improve child welfare practices. By redeploying these resources to invest in improving the practice of a diverse set of nonprofit providers instead of its own agency, the Foundation will have the potential to impact thousands of children and families, far beyond those currently served, and help to advance stronger practices across the field in general.

Founded in 1976, Casey Family Services (CFS), headquartered in New Haven, Conn., provides high quality foster care services to children under state contracts in Maryland, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. CFS currently provides therapeutic foster care services to approximately 400 children. Several offices also offer other services to support permanency for kids and families including family preservation, reunification and post-adoption supports.

Throughout this transition, the Foundation is committed to working with states to meet their service needs and ensure the stability of the children and families in its care. We will transition the majority of these children and their foster families to other providers with capacity by December 31, 2012, but the agency will remain open until June 30, 2013 with a small staff to support any cases that need additional time to transition. We are providing the 280 employees affected by this decision with resources and support as they pursue new employment, further education or retirement.

The Foundation plans to execute its new strategy through partnerships with premier free-standing provider agencies, with the goal of helping them to develop and/or scale up proven models. We will also help increase adoption of effective practice by building awareness, providing education and technical assistance, and supporting efforts to ensure public funding supports these practices at the federal and state level. Additional grants will go toward developing hands-on, user friendly materials and tools that leverage the accumulated knowledge of direct service providers and the expertise of Foundation staff. While these partnerships will begin with child welfare providers, the Foundation plans to expand to providers in other human service fields such as juvenile justice, mental health, community change, substance abuse and workforce development.

The National Civic League has named 14 communities All-America Cities for 2012. The cities, counties and regions were recognized for their ambitious plans to ensure that more children are proficient readers by the end of third grade.

The award is given to each year to recognize outstanding examples of community problem solving, civic engagement and collaboration between the public, profit and nonprofit sectors. This year the award had a special focus: applicants were asked to develop comprehensive plans to bridge the reading gap between at-risk students and other learners.

The award emerged from a partnership between the Campaign for Grade-Level Reading, the National Civic League, the National League of Cities, U.S. Conference of Mayors and United Way Worldwide. The Annie E. Casey Foundation is a supporter of the Campaign for Grade-Level Reading, and its senior vice president serves as the campaign's managing director.

The 2012 All-America Cities were named on July 2. They are: Baltimore, Md.; Dubuque, Iowa; Louisville, Ky.; Marshalltown, Iowa; Pittsfield, Mass.; Providence, R.I.; Quad Cities, Iowa and Ill.; Roanoke, Va.; San Antonio, Texas; San Francisco, Calif.; Seattle and the South King County Cities, Wash.; Southern Pines, N.C.; Springfield, Mass.; and Tahoe/Truckee, Calif.

Children at the Dunbar Learning Complex in Atlanta have shown significant gains in reading proficiency and early childhood development, and more are starting school prepared to learn, according to a new report from the Annie E. Casey Foundation.

The report, Climbing the Ladder of Reading Proficiency: The First Two Years of Atlanta’s Dunbar Learning Complex, describes the strides the Foundation and community partners have made in one of the city’s most vulnerable communities.

“The learning complex represents the joint commitment of the Casey Foundation, Atlanta Public Schools and Sheltering Arms to support children and families who are living in poverty,” said Gail Hayes, director of the Foundation’s Atlanta Civic Site, which has been working to improve conditions in a several southwest Atlanta neighborhoods for a decade. “We’re thrilled it’s already making a difference and setting kids on a path to academic and lifelong success — and this is only the beginning.”

The complex is the only one of its kind in Atlanta and part of the Casey Foundation’s broader effort to transform several city communities by providing high-quality education to children from low-income families while also helping their parents find employment and achieve financial stability.