Useful Information

General Publications

• Advocacy Manual This comprehensive guide describes advocacy and the Virginia legislative process and gives specific instructions on how to communicate with elected officials. October 2007 (Adobe pdf)
• Annual Report 2008 (Adobe pdf)
  Annual Report 2007 (Adobe pdf)
  
• Newsletter: Fall 2009 (Adobe pdf)
  Newsletter: Spring 2009 (Adobe pdf)
  Newsletter: Fall 2008 (Adobe pdf)
  Newsletter: Summer 2008 (Adobe pdf)
  Newsletter: Fall 2007 (Adobe pdf)
  Newsletter: Spring 2007 (Adobe pdf)
  Newsletter: Winter 2007 (Adobe pdf)
  Newsletter: Fall 2006 (Adobe pdf)
  

Early Care and Education

• “Achieving Excellence in Early Care for Virginia’s Infants and Toddlers,” a new issue brief written by Voices for Virginia's Children for the Virginia Infant & Toddler Specialist Network, is now available. The brief discusses the importance of high quality infant and toddler care, the availability of care in Virginia, and the ITS Network’s efforts to improve quality. July 2009.
• Virginia Head Start Data Brief - A History of Strengthing Families and Communities (pdf) January, 2008
• High School Dropout and Graduation Rates: What Do the Numbers Tell Us? (pdf, November 2006) A paper produced jointly by Voices for Virginia's Children and the JustChildren Program - This paper examines some of the challenges using graduation rate and dropout rate data and proposes solutions to both the data and dropout problems.
• TheSchool Readiness Indicators 2006 (July, 2006) (2 mb version or 5mb version) contains key data indicators that are documented by an impressive body of research as measures of school readiness, and that are currently collected at the state and local levels. The regular reporting of indicators that describe the physical, social, emotional, and cognitive well-being of children enables policymakers and opinion leaders to identify areas most in need of intervention, track the results of their investments, and watch trends over time.

Family Economic Success

1. In May 2009, Voices' executive director, John Morgan, joined thought leaders from a variety of disciplines and backgroundsand participated in the “Rethinking Poverty- Exploring Economic Opportunity for All Virginians” summit in Richmond. Recommendations in the Poverty in Virginia report are a result of this analysis. The primary areas of focus are: children and education, workforce readiness, returns on work, and the public safety net. 

2. Predicting Poverty in the Commonwealth - This report released by Voices for Virginia's Children and the Commonwealth Institute predicts that the recession could push an additional 73,000 children in Virginia into poverty. This would represent up to a 30-percent increase in the number of children in poverty in the state. Evidence indicates that many kids pushed into poverty during a recession will remain poor for years, exposing them to the very harmful consequences of prolonged poverty. (PDF, January 2009)
3. Child Care Development Fund (CCDF): Virginia's Child Care Subsidy Program (PDF, November 2008)

The Self-Sufficiency Standard for Virginia calculates how much money working adults need to meet their basic needs without subsidies of any kind. Unlike the federal poverty standard, the Self-Sufficiency Standard accounts for the costs of living and working as they vary by family size and composition and by geographic location.

• Self-Sufficiency Standard calculations for all family types for Virginia localities (excel, August, 2006). Some of the localities are grouped into Metropolitan Statistical Areas. You may need to conduct a "find" to locate your locality.
• Self-Sufficiency Standard Modeling Tables (Adobe pdf, August, 2006) This document explains the various work supports (for example, food stamps or child care subsidies) and also shows the impacts of different wages on work supports. These modeling tables might be helpful for work on minimum wage issues.
• Self-Sufficiency Standard Appendix (Adobe pdf, August, 2006) This document provides the assumptions used for the calculations as well as the sources for the data.
• Self-Sufficiency Standard for Virginia Description and History (Adobe pdf, July, 2002, 110 pages)
• Budget Exercise – This worksheet enables participants to estimate the costs of basic needs and compare them to actual costs.
• Family Budget Calculator from the Economic Policy Institute. The Family Budget Calculator lets you determine the income needed for particular types of families to make ends meet. Because costs of goods and services vary across the U.S., the calculator customizes the budgets for every U.S. community—over 400 in all. Technical documentation is available on this web site so you can update each budget item.
  

Foster Care

• Voices for Change: The Creative Vision of Virginia's Foster Youth
  Download a copy of the collection of works submitted by youth in foster care for the 2008 "Voices for Change" art contest or watch a slideshow of the artworks now.
• Foster Care in Virginia: A Place to Call Home - This data brief highlights the opportunity for foster care reform in Virginia, provides a snapshot of children in foster care, and summarizes recent findings regarding permanency for youth in care in Virginia. (pdf January 2008)

Health

• 2009 SCHIP Reauthorization (PDF, October 2008)
• Infant Mortality -Understanding the complexities of death among Virginia's youngest children Virginia KIDS COUNT data brief (June, 2007) - Although Virginia ranks well among states on most indicators of child well-being, Virginia ranks poorly on infant mortality.
• Issue brief for Hampton Roads --
  Increasing Access to Prenatal Care through the FAMIS Moms Program February 2006 (Adobe pdf)
• Advocacy Guide for Families of Children with Special Needs February 2006 (Adobe pdf)
  

Immigration and Children

• All Our Children: Ensuring a Bright Future for Virgina The purpose of this brief is to better understand the assets and challenges all immigrant families in Virginia face today and to consider the best ways to meet the needs of children and families who will play a role in Virginia ’s future. (Adobe PDF, March 2008)
• Immigrant Legal Status & Public Benefit (May, 2007)
• Snapshots of Children in Immigrant Families (May, 2007)
• Selected Research on Immigrant Families (May, 2007)
• The Changing Face of Northern Virginia Counties (May, 2007)
• Selected Immigrant Serving Organizations, Northern VA & Metro DC (May, 2007)

KIDS COUNT

• The 2008 KIDS COUNT Data Book reports that Virginia saw improvements in six measures of child well-being: teen birth rate, percent of teens who are high school dropouts, child death rate, teen death rate, percent of teens not attending school and not working (also known as “idle teens”), and percent of children in poverty.  The 2008 KIDS COUNT Data Book’s feature essay highlights juvenile justice issues.
• 2007 National KIDS COUNT Data Book and Online Database
  Data from the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s 2007 KIDS COUNT Data Book are now available in their easy-to-use, powerful online database, "State Level Data Online", that allows you to generate custom graphs, maps, ranked lists, and state-by-state profiles; or, download the entire data set as delimited text files.
• Data Resource List (pdf, March, 2005) This publication provides excellent sources for additional data related to children.

NORTHERN VIRGINIA

• Self-Portrait of Youth in Northern Virginia - This report released by Voices for Virginia's Children shows that, overall, Northern Virginia youth exhibit a relative advantage in general well-being over their peers nationwide. Compared to youth nationally, youth in Northern Virginia  show somewhat lower rates of drug use, violence and other health risk behaviors. The report also cautions that each locale has large numbers of at-risk youth, and urges community leaders to identify sub-groups and neighborhoods with higher rates of health risk behaviors and to promote community initiatives to address these risks. (PDF, July 2009)

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