WE SOLVE COMPLEX PROBLEMS OF CHILD POVERTY
Appleseed's 2021 Impact
EVIDENCE-BASED POLICYMAKING CHILD HUNGER CHILD & FAMILY HOMELESSNESS FAMILY ECONOMIC STABILITY
EVIDENCE-BASED POLICYMAKING
CHILD HUNGER
FAMILY SUCCESS LAB AT THE NEW MEXICO DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH Addressing the policy challenge (and solution) to multi-system-involved children and families. The vast majority of New Mexico’s social services system is based on triage with no ability to predict and prevent problems. A hospital social worker cannot know that a baby is at higher risk for being abused, for example, if he does not know that the baby’s family is homeless. A school counselor cannot know that a fourth grade child is at high risk for mental health problems, if she does not know that the child’s father is in prison. The lack of coordination of data that tells a child’s whole set of circumstances means that funding, policymaking and service provision is rarely (and randomly) effective.
HUNGER & COVID-19 In the last year-and-a-half, the COVID–19 pandemic has been driving-up food insecurity among children throughout New Mexico. In a year with so many children not attending school full-time and parents still out of work, Appleseed has been helping to fight for children and their families every step of the way. Appleseed ensures the availability of school meals, reminds the public, government institutions, and our communities that we are watching a humanitarian disaster slowly unfold before our eyes—and that we have the ability to prevent and mitigate the dangers to New Mexico's children and families.
Appleseed created the Family Success Lab (FSL) at the NM Department of Health (DOH) to use linked administrative data to discover and deploy evidencebased, data-informed and scalable solutions to common challenges facing vulnerable children and families. Linked data offers significantly more granularity in understanding key risk factors for poor outcomes and evaluating programs. It helps identify risk and protective factors to better assess family strengths and challenges, target evidence-based programs to high-risk groups, and evaluate programs, policies, and interventions for efficacy and cost. In 2020-21 Appleseed secured legislative funding for a full-time position for the FSL at the DOH. We spearheaded the creation of a research agenda to study cross-agency and cross-generation correlations at DOH and the NM Early Childhood Education and Care Department (ECECD). The FSL is currently looking at questions regarding the impact of home visitation programs on: 1) preventing abuse and neglect referrals 2) enrollment in high quality pre-K 3) maternal depression 4) improve outcomes for other children in the household
COORDINATED 15 LARGE COMMUNITY EVENTS THAT HELPED MORE THAN 7,932 STUDENTS, 2,500 PARENTS, AND SERVED 1,800 FOOD BOXES AND 8,500 SCHOOL MEALS Appleseed partnered with over 60 different nonprofits, schools, and government agencies for our multi-pronged 1,2,3 Eyes On Me statewide events—and became first-in-the-nation to combine health screenings, oral and eye health services, food boxes, flu shots, mental health services, and COVID-19 vaccinations in a single location. DIRECTED STATEWIDE EFFORTS TO EXPAND SUMMER MEAL AND AFTER SCHOOL MEAL SITES DURING THE PANDEMIC As communities' feeding sites closed and Tribal communities remained under strict access, Appleseed got creative and created innovative feeding sites: meals were delivered on school buses to communities without feeding sites, pop-up-sites and after school meals were established to increase access to meals during the evenings. Throughout the pandemic, Appleseed spearheaded feeding efforts together with school districts and state agencies to promote summer and after school meals.
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