A year ago, Urban Matters introduced its readers to Transilient, a traveling photojournalism project that, in the words of its founders, wants to show the world that “trans people are more than our gender identities.” We asked them for an update on their work; here’s their report, including photos from trans profiles done during the 2017 Southern and Southwestern tour described below.
Policy update | Budget WATCH
By James A. Parrott, PhD
New York City's property tax system imposes a deeply unfair burden on low-income households.
new report | CHILDREN, YOUTH & FAMILIES | REPORTS
Small Children, Big Opportunities
The Department of Education Will Soon Take Charge of Child Care for Babies and Toddlers. What Can They Do to Build Capacity and Improve Quality?
The last in a series of briefs looking at child care for babies and toddlers in New York City's subsidized early education centers, this report presents our key findings. It also provides recommendations for building the centers’ capacity to provide quality infant and toddler care. With the City preparing to move its subsidized child care system from its current home at the Administration for Children’s Services to the City’s Department of Education, our advisory board of early education stakeholders, argues that now is the time to dream big when it comes to babies and toddlers, and to build a rich continuum of early education from infancy onward that will prevent the need for more costly interventions down the line.
NEW REPORT | CHILDREN, YOUTH & FAMILIES | REPORTS
Making Room for Babies?: Lessons for the Field
By Kendra Hurley
Many child care centers have seen their enrollment of 4-year-olds decline due to New York City's pre-K expansion, which has dramatically grown the number of early education options available to kids this age. In response, some centers have become interested in “aging down” to serve younger children. This would be a tremendous boon in New York City, where quality affordable and subsidized infant and toddler care is in high demand and short supply. However, "aging down" is difficult. This report looks at ways that affordable and subsidized centers who do provide infant care make it work.
New Report | Child Welfare Watch
Keeping Teenagers out of Foster Care: Do Teen-Specialized Services Make a Difference?
By Abigail Kramer
In 2013, New York City launched an array of programs designed to keep teenagers out of the City’s foster care system.
The programs—known collectively as “teen-specialized preventive services”—represent a pivotal piece of the City’s ongoing child welfare reform agenda: to keep whittling down the number of kids who enter foster care by providing intensive, evidence-based therapy to families in crisis.
Data & Statistics | Child WelFare Watch
Watching the Numbers
Our six years of key indicators spotlight trends in New York City’s foster care and preventive services systems.
Full Survey
New Release
Monitoring the Minimum Wage: Brief 3 on Lessons From Other Cities
By James Parrott
CNYCA partners with the Workforce Field Building Hub, an initiative of the NYC-based Workforce Professionals Training Institute (WPTI) on the Monitoring the Minimum Wage issue brief series. The briefs are intended to track the implementation of the $15 minimum wage in New York City by engaging businesses, workers and workforce practitioners, and by assessing the impacts in other jurisdictions around the country.
Monitoring the Minimum Wage: Brief 3 on lessons from other cities is available here.
Previous issues in the series are available here.
By Kendra Hurley
Growing interest in early education has led to more infant classrooms in child care centers—but they’re mostly for wealthy families.
After a series of widely publicized child deaths in 2016, New York City's child welfare system continues to struggle under a glut of new cases.
In response to a surge in child abuse and neglect reports, the Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) has drastically increased the number of families it brings into the system, filing more cases in Family Court and placing more children in foster care.
But the resulting system-overload, they say, increases the risk of breaking up families unnecessarily, and may make children less safe.
NEW BRIEF
No Heavy Lifting Required: New York City's Unambitious School 'Diversity Plan
Earlier this month, the New York City Department of Education (DOE) released a long-awaited plan designed to increase diversity in the city's public schools. The Center for New York City Affairs has crunched the numbers on these goals and found that they would not reflect meaningful, systemic change.
NEW INITIATIVE
Across the city, social service agencies are increasingly employing staff who’ve themselves had run-ins with the law as “Credible Messengers” to other court-involved youth. It’s a recognition of the powerful positive impact mentors who’ve had similar life experiences can have in changing young lives.
To foster this important work, the Center for New York City Affairs is pleased to announce the launch of the Institute for Transformative Mentoring (ITM). ITM is a training program focused on the professional and personal development of such Credible Messengers. It’s a semester-long course, developed with Credible Messengers and the help of training and education experts and foundation and non-profit leaders, that’s designed to enhance the practical skills of Credible Messengers and also further the healing of their own lives. ITM will support the work of this unique and growing workforce.
For more information, click here.
Teenagers are hungry – all the time. That’s universally true, even in the most secure, economically well-off families.
By Mindy Fullilove, Darrick Hamilton with Chris Famighetti, and Maya Wiley
Fifty years ago today, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated in Memphis. Just months before his death he authored his final book, Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? From three different perspectives, three of The New School’s leading scholars tackle that question, and current challenges to creating a more just and humane society.
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Telling Humanizing Stories That Are #MoreThanTrans Transilient wants to show the world that “trans people are more… https://t.co/QLZveQuHoz
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