The foster care system was already overburdened before the coronavirus pandemic hit. Now, it faces even more challenges. AIR early childhood expert and licensed foster mom Ann-Marie Faria discusses these challenges and potential ways to address them in the latest podcast episode.
Child welfare systems in the United States are intended to ensure that children are safe, cared for within stable and loving forever families, and able to thrive in childhood and beyond. This work is both complex and critical, and these systems face a number of ongoing challenges. This blog provides ...
This spotlight takes a look at the history of Title I, how the program has changed over time, and how it affects children, schools, families and education policy. Experts weigh in on the program's past and future in interviews, briefs, and blogs.
Contributing and working alongside Native Nations, AIR has a deep commitment to engaging communities, fostering shared vision and values, building capacity, and developing strategic alliances to achieve sustainable systems change in Indian Country.
Under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, CMS awarded 20 states planning grants to increase their capacity to provide community-based mobile crisis intervention services for Medicaid individuals. Building on work that started as part of the ARP National Evaluation, AIR summarized awardee state use of planning grants through a ...
Zero-tolerance school policies that remove youth from the classroom are resulting in an increasing number of students failing to complete high school, and in unnecessary involvement in the juvenile justice system. AIR has developed an evidence-based framework to address the issue across educational settings. ...
Quality rating and improvement systems (QRISs) constitute an ambitious policy approach to improving early care and education practices and child outcomes. A QRIS is a uniform set of ratings, graduated by level of quality, used to assess and improve early learning and care programs. The purpose of this study, conducted ...
Through home visiting, child development specialists, speech therapists, and other professionals work with families and their children in their homes to assess children’s development and health, as well as bolster parenting skills. Consistent, correct use of evidence-based practices by practitioners such as home visitors can help improve children’s outcomes. AIR ...
Exclusionary school discipline policies once instituted to prevent serious infractions have crept into discipline practices for minor issues. Youth who participated in a roundtable on the subject contend that it limits opportunities to learn and compromises academic achievement; is applied disproportionately and subjectively; and deprives students of the ...
Recent federal efforts to expand access to early childhood education for six million children by 2020 have also increased attention about quality programming. In this video interview, Ann-Marie Faria, principal researcher, explains the role that Quality Rating and Improvement Systems have in communicating about quality to parents, programs, and policy ...