Posted on October 1, 2002

Funding for Children & Youth: Advocacy and Research Resources

AdvoCasey
http://www.aecf.org/publications/advocasey/summer2002/
AdvoCasey is a policy magazine published by the Annie E. Casey Foundation to highlight issues and policies that affect the lives of children and families in the United States. AdvoCasey seeks to document programs and strategies that work for kids and families through in-depth feature stories and essays that combine hard data and human insight.

American Legion Child Welfare Foundation
http://www.cwf-inc.org/
The American Legion Child Welfare Foundation works to provide other nonprofit organizations with a means to educate the public about the needs of children by providing grants to nonprofit, youth-serving organizations throughout the United States. The foundation's Web site posts information on grants, including guidelines, limitations, and application procedures, as well as news and details on the Foundation's publications.

Catholic Charities USA
http://www.catholiccharitiesusa.org/
The mission of Catholic Charities USA is to reduce poverty, help families become self-sufficient, build communities, and to advocate for justice in social structures. Some of the youth-related services Catholic Charities provides include after-school programs, youth centers, parenting classes, job training, and technical assistance. The Web site has programs and advocacy information, news releases, conference information, a media page, and a disaster response section. Their monthly newsletter is available to members.

Child Trends Facts at a Glance
http://www.childtrends.org
Child Trends is a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization that studies children, youth, and families through research, data collection, and data analysis. Facts At A Glance is Child Trends' annual statistical portrait of teen childbearing in the United States. The 2001 Facts at a Glance includes the latest teen birth data for every state and the 150 largest U.S. cities; comparisons of teen childbearing in the United States with teen birth rates in other developed nations; and survey data indicating that adults and teens perceive teens to be far more sexually active than they actually are.

Child Welfare League of America
http://www.cwla.org/
The Child Welfare League of America is devoted to the well-being of America's children and their families. In addition to an advocacy section, statistics, and information about work the organization is doing, the CWLA Web site offers links to over 1,100 member agencies, listed by region.

Children Now
http://www.childrennow.org/
Children Now is a colorful, well-organized Web site devoted to the nurturing, safety, and rights of children and offers news, job listings, volunteer opportunities, and a wealth of related links, many of which lead to funding opportunities in children's issues.

Children's Charities of America
http://www.childrenscharities.org/
Children's Charities of America is a coalition of national nonprofit organizations dedicated to meeting the needs of children, through heightened public awareness of children's issues and the solutions to their problems, and by helping raise funds mainly through participation in workplace campaigns. CCA pre-screens and certifies national charities working to protect and assist children in the U.S. and internationally, and then presents this information to potential donors. The Web site provides contact information, mission statements, e-mail, and Web site links for each member organization, with the option of making an online donation.

Children's Defense Fund
http://www.childrensdefense.org/
A leader in child advocacy, CDF provides a wealth of information and news about children's issues at its Web site. The Web site also offers state-by-state statistics, and the Parents Resource Network, a collection of links to Web sites that offer parents information on caring for their own children and on getting involved in group efforts to help children in their communities or states.

Connect For Kids
http://www.connectforkids.org/
Connect For Kids, a project of the Benton Foundation, was developed for parents, educators, and policymakers, and provides solutions-oriented coverage of critical issues for children and families covering more than thirty topics, including arts and youth development, out-of-school time, foster care, welfare reform, and oral health. The Web site has a free weekly e-mail newsletter, a news archive, and a features section that contains highlights of CFK programs. The site's "Reference Room" has information and resources related to children that can be searched by scope of work, and includes reports, public opinion data, and book reviews.

KIDS COUNT
http://www.aecf.org/kidscount/
Since 1990 KIDS COUNT has been the cornerstone of the Annie E. Casey Foundation's efforts to increase public awareness of the condition of children and to foster greater public accountability from improving child outcomes. A national and state-by-state effort to track the educational, economic, social, and physical well-being of children in the United States, KIDS COUNT seeks to enrich public discussions about the most promising ways to help children grow up to be healthy, productive adults.

Mediascope
http://www.mediascope.org/
The aim of Mediascope is to sensitize researchers, the government sector, and the producers and consumers of film, television, the Internet, video games, and music to social and health issues, particularly as they relate to children and adolescents, and to promote the production of constructive and responsible work without compromising creative freedom. The organization's Web site features sections for parents and educators, journalists, entertainment industry professionals, and public policymakers, researchers, and activists. The Media Research Library has more than 6,000 titles on a diverse range of media-related topics, and is a good resource for researchers, screenwriters, journalists, teachers, legislators, and public policy analysts.

National Center for Youth Law
http://www.youthlaw.org/
NCYL is a California-based private, nonprofit law office serving the legal needs of children and their families. The organization focuses particularly on children living in poverty, advocating for their protection from abuse, for their access to housing, health care, and public benefits, and for improved methods of collecting child support. NCYL works towards these goals by publishing articles, manuals, books, and its bimonthly journal, Youth Law News; providing technical assistance and training; assisting legal advocates who represent poor children; and conducting administrative and legislative advocacy. The Center's Web site includes pertinent news, an overview of the organization, online articles, analyses, and publications as well as links to related resources.

National Center for Children in Poverty
http://cpmcnet.columbia.edu/dept/nccp/index.html
The National Center for Children in Poverty works to identify and promote strategies that prevent child poverty in the United States and that improve the lives of low-income children and their families. The Center's Web site provides access to numerous articles on issues including welfare reform, family support, and state and local information. A research forum, online newsletters, and other publications can be downloaded from the Web site.

National Parent Information Network
http://npin.org/
NPIN, a project of the federal Department of Education's ERIC system, provides access to research-based information for parents and those who work with parents, with a focus on family involvement in education. The "virtual library" includes a search engine to full-text resources, book summaries, descriptions of newsletters and magazines, and a collection of full-text resources for urban/minority families. NPIN features AskERIC, a question and answering service for educators, librarians, and parents. In addition, the site has an Internet discussion group and publishes a bimonthly magazine.

Save the Children
http://www.savethechildren.org/
Save the Children works in nineteen states across the U.S., and in over forty-five developing countries around the world to provide education and aid to communities in need. Areas of focus include health and nutrition, education, economic opportunity, and emergencies.

United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF)
http://www.unicef.org/
UNICEF advocates and works for the protection of children's rights by collaborating with other United Nations bodies, governments, and non-governmental organizations to offer community-based services in primary health care, basic education, and sanitation in developing countries. In addition to organizational information, UNICEF's excellent Web site provides program highlights, statistics, and job postings, among many other features.

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services — Children & Youth Policy
http://aspe.os.dhhs.gov/hsp/cyphome.htm
The United States Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Human Services Policy, has compiled a summary of research currently being conducted in the area of child and youth policy.