Reducing Poverty IS Economic Development | October 6, 2016

It is beyond dispute that economic development can be an effective way to fight poverty. So, too, longstanding anti-poverty programs have been proven to stimulate local economies. Yet, New York State has drawn a sharp demarcation between economic development and poverty reduction efforts, investing exponentially fewer resources into poverty reduction than into economic development, not including poverty reduction as a measureable economic development goal, and demanding much better and quicker returns on its poverty reduction investments.

Read Kate Breslin’s President’s Message here.

Schuyler Center and United Hospital Fund release new report proposing value-based payment models for children in Medicaid

Hot off the press!  The Schuyler Center, together with United Hospital Fund, is pleased to release Value-Based Payment Models for Medicaid Child Health Services, a report that proposes value-based payment models for children in Medicaid.  The report notes that, “Given the increased recognition of how profoundly social determinants of health (including Adverse Childhood Experiences) affect childhood development and adulthood health and social productivity, payment models need to consider how to motivate and support attention in this area.”

New Data Snapshots Show the Need to Expand Home Visiting in Every County in New York State

Schuyler Center has created county data snapshots, Numbers Tell a Story: New York State Home Visiting County Data Snapshots, that highlight New York State’s failure to make a serious investment in home visiting despite its many proven benefits, including reducing rates of child maltreatment, and improving children’s health and educational outcomes. The snapshots show that there are funded home visiting slots for less than 5% of young New Yorkers living in poverty.

New Report Urges Expansion of Home Visiting as a Tool to Fight Child Poverty

Schuyler Center has issued a new report, Home Is Where the Start Is: Expanding Home Visiting to Strengthen All of New York’s Families, to highlight maternal, infant and early childhood home visiting’s effectiveness as a tool to diminish child poverty and improve health, child welfare and education outcomes.  The report makes the case that evidence-based home visiting— currently funded to serve less than 5% of New York’s 278,000 young children living in poverty—should be dramatically expanded to reach all of the New York families who could benefit.

Hunger Doesn’t Take a Vacation

Over 1.5 million low-income students in New York rely on free and reduced-priced school lunches and almost 650,000 on school breakfasts for a portion of their daily nutritional intake during the school year.  When school lets out for the summer next month, more than 68% of those children will not receive summer meals.  Read Kate Breslin’s President’s Message about the importance of the Summer Nutrition Program, and ways we can work together to ensure New York children do not go hungry any time of the year.