Closing in on 'Close to Home':
NYC to Open New Juvenile Justice Homes
After more than two years of delays and postponements, New York City officials say they will move forward this month with a long-promised reform of the biggest municipal juvenile justice system in the nation.
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A six-year statistical survey monitoring New York City's child welfare system
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NEW REPORT
In a sea change in social welfare policy, there’s a sudden surge of policies and programs aimed at addressing behavioral and emotional problems among the city’s youngest children.
The budget for Fiscal Year 2016, which was adopted in June, earmarks at least $15 million for new efforts that are intended to support the social and emotional health of children ages 0-3. This report describes, for the first time, the scope and depth of this fast-growing trend.
Of the over 20,000 children in homeless shelters, nearly half are under 6 years old. We know from research how crucial the early years are to lifelong development. Yet families now stay an average of over 400 days in city shelters—an eternity for a small child.
The new Child Welfare Watch report describes the stresses that homelessness puts on families with young children, and explores the discontinuity between the large number of young children in the shelter system and the dearth of services available to them. It reveals that currently the most common way for a family in a shelter to receive support for young children is to become known to child welfare authorities—a help that often goes hand-in-hand with the fear that children will be removed to foster care.
CWW REPORTS
One Step Back:
The delayed dream of community partnerships »
In Transition:
A better future for youth leaving foster care »
A six-year statistical survey monitoring NYC's child welfare system.
EVENT
The de Blasio administration has made reducing family homelessness a key priority. Nevertheless, homeless families spend on average over 400 days in city shelters, and the number of families is near a record high. Young children are overrepresented; the number of kids under the age of 6 in shelters has grown nearly 60 percent since 2006. How can we keep children in city-subsidized shelters safe? How can we use the time they spend in shelter to foster rather than derail their development? How can we support parents who are leaving shelters that may be the only homes their children have known? A conversation with experts in the field, and the release of the latest edition of Child Welfare Watch.
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Sponsored by the Center for New York City Affairs at the Milano School of International Affairs, Management and Urban Policy. New York is one of just two states in the country that automatically treats 16- and 17-year-olds as adults in the criminal justice system. In recent years, advocates and legislators—including the state’s chief judge—have pushed to raise the age of criminal responsibility to 18. Now, in the midst of a national scandal over the treatment of adolescents at the Rikers Island Jail, we convene the experts for a discussion of the movement to Raise the Age: How will the influx of adolescents impact the city’s newly reformed juvenile justice programs? How can the system ensure that 16- and 17-year-olds get their best shot at success?
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Big Dreams for New York's Youngest Children: The future of early care and education
TUESDAY, JUNE 17, 2014
With the creation of EarlyLearnNYC in 2012, New York City reinvented its system for subsidized early care and education for children from low-income families. Now, as the city launches an expanded Pre-K network for 4-year-olds, what will happen to subsidized child care for younger kids? Can the reform vision of EarlyLearn be put fully into action and sustained? A conversation with experts in the field and the release of findings from a new Center for New York City Affairs report on early care and education.
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REPORT
Big Dreams for New York City's Youngest Children: The future of early care and education
In October 2012, New York City launched EarlyLearnNYC, a plan that would upend its system for providing subsidized child care to working class and low-income families Two years in, the results are mixed. This report provides an analysis of the plan and recommendations for reform.
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Children, youth and Families news
CHILD WELFARE WATCH NEWS
MORE LOW-LEVEL ARRESTS UNDER DE BLASIO THAN BLOOMBERG
In the first seven months of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration, the NYPD made more arrests for petty crimes than it did last year under former mayor Michael Bloomberg—and the racial breakdown of those arrests remains the same, according to numbers released yesterday by the Police Reform Organizing Project (PROP).