Working Parents, Child Care, and Paid Family Leave in Rhode Island includes data and research on low-income working families as well as a deeper analysis of three key policies - child care assistance, paid family leave, and earned sick leave - that promote family economic security and children's development and school readiness.

The Issue Brief also provides recommendations on how to improve these policies to best support low-income working parents and their young children in Rhode Island. The publication was released at a Policy Round Table on June 4, 2018.

For more, please see the media release, release event Twitter activity, release event pictures, and Providence Journal coverage.

The 2018 KIDS COUNT Data Book, a national and state-by-state report on child well-being, issued by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, finds that Rhode Island ranks 19th in the nation for overall child well-being. This is an increase of 10 spots, from 29th in the nation (in 2017) to the current ranking of 19th. However, Rhode Island ranks last in New England.

The annual report uses 16 indicators to rank each state across four domains - health, education, economic well-being and family and community - which represent what children need most to thrive. The report examines trends over a five-year period, as well as annual changes. 

For more information, please see the media release, the Rhode Island State Profile, or visit the national KIDS COUNT Data Center. Please also see coverage in the Providence Journal  and the Newport Daily News.

Decades of research show that when children participate in high-quality programs designed to improve early learning and development, they do better in school and in life. In every state, there is a diverse array of programs designed to support the healthy development of young children. These include family home visiting, child care, Early Head Start/Head Start, State Pre-K, Early Intervention, and preschool special education. Programs vary in quality and intensity of services, training and qualifications of staff, and focus of services to improve individual child outcomes and/or family outcomes.

Focus on Integrated Early Care and Education Data provides an overview of a demonstration project conducted by Rhode Island KIDS COUNT that sought to create an integrated data set from early care and education programs and to use this data set to better understand a population of children with high needs (young children who were maltreated in 2015) and their participation in high-quality early learning programs. This Policy Brief was released on June 26, 2018 at the quarterly meeting of the Rhode Island Early Learning Council.

Are you interested in specific areas of child well-being? Rhode Island KIDS COUNT publishes E-Newsletters on specific areas related to child well-being: 

• Children's Health and Health Insurance 
• Child Welfare/Juvenile Justice 
• Early Childhood/Early Learning 
• Student-Centered Learning
• RI Campaign for Grade-Level Reading 
• Rhode Island KIDS COUNT also publishes a general interest E-Newsletter. 

Please click here to start receiving these updates today!