Working together over the past year, we have created a constant drumbeat that has driven public dialogue and influenced decisions made by city and state leaders.

At the city level, we successfully advocated to increase the value of rent subsidies, expand 3-K in every district, bring additional child care seats to communities most in need, and dramatically expand access to summer enrichment programming.

Our advocacy with leaders in Albany helped to ensure that federal stimulus dollars and state investments were leveraged to protect and expand resources for behavioral health, housing supports, education, child care, cash aid, child welfare, and more.

We also ended the calendar year with several historic pieces of state legislation being enacted, including legislation that would:

• Raise the lower age of juvenile delinquency from seven to twelve, establish multiple services and programs for children, and provide New Yorkers who have been denied youthful offender status a chance to reapply.
• Alleviate the financial stress experienced by child care providers by streamlining the system for payments and requiring local districts to offer them a direct deposit option.
• Extend the term and expand the scope of the Child Care Availability Task Force charged with identifying opportunities to expand child care statewide.
• Create a Covered Lives assessment that would assess an annual fee from insurance providers who routinely reject Early Intervention claims. This will help increase supports available for young children with disabilities and their families.
• Establish a Child Poverty Reduction Advisory Council that would develop a plan to cut poverty in half in 10 years by evaluating, monitoring and expanding on statewide poverty reduction programs and initiatives.
• Continue the ability of Licensed Mental Health Practitioners to diagnose for behavioral health services, eliminate restrictions on telehealth services, and ensure credentialed and certified peers are reimbursed for telehealth services.

These are just some highlights of what our advocacy helped make possible in 2021 as we worked in partnership with service providers, advocates, parents, youth, and supporters like you.

As we approach crucial budget and legislative decisions to be made at the state and local level in the months ahead, we remain committed to leveraging our research, civic engagement and advocacy to advance justice and recovery for all New Yorkers. As always, we will rely on your continued partnership and advocacy as we work to ensure that the needs of children, youth and families are front and center.

Thank you for supporting CCC and the work we must do together to achieve our mission of ensuring that all of New York’s children are healthy, housed, educated and safe.