On September 12, 2023 the Senate Judiciary Committee held "Book Bans: Examining How Censorship Limits Liberty and Literature," to discuss the constitutional right to knowledge through literature. Charman Dick Durbin (D-IL) introduced the debate with extensive history of book banning in the United States. He asserts that banning books does not come from the effort
On September 15, 2023, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights announced a new Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) that would add new provisions that clarify existing requirements under section 504 prohibiting recipients of financial assistance from the Department (recipients) from discriminating on the basis of disability in their programs
The Capacity Building Center for States hosted a webinar on September 13th entitled “Keeping Youth at the Center of Kinship Care Practice: Prioritizing Relationships, Community, and Culture”. They brought together three different presenting groups from California, Connecticut, and Alaska to talk about the benefits of kinship care and the different navigator programs that they have
On July 13th, 2023, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) designed to improve affordability and access to care options for families and promote financial stability of child care providers participating in the federal child care subsidy program under the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG). This
On September 12th, 2023 the U.S. Department of Education released a “Dear Colleague Letter” to Chief State School Officers asking States to modify their administrative procedures to expedite spending American Rescue Plan Homeless Children and Youth (ARP-HCY) funds. These funds, that must be obligated by September of 2024, provide supports for students experiencing homelessness who
The Food Research Action Center (FRAC) hosted a webinar on September 11, 2023, about the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) entitled “Foster Youth, Unhoused, and Veterans Now Temporarily Exempt from Time Limits”. The four panelists discussed the three groups that will no longer be affected by SNAP time limits starting this month, and the best
The Senate returned from recess last Monday, September 4, 2023, and the House will return to Washington, D.C. this week to resume work on the numerous legislative priorities before them, the most pressing of which is finding a way to fund the government past September 30th, the end of the fiscal year. With just about
On August 30, 2023, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) sent a letter to all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands requiring them to determine whether they have an eligibility systems issue that could cause people, especially children, to be disenrolled from Medicaid or the Children’s
The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy released a new report, Expanding the Child Tax Credit Would Advance Racial Equity in the Tax Code, on August 29, 2023, examining the Child Tax Credit under current law and the House expansion proposal, introduced by Representative Rosa DeLauro (D-CT). The report makes the following key findings: “Expanding
On August 23, 2023, First Focus on Children and ZERO TO THREE released Babies in the Budget, a new report that examines federal investment in the nation’s youngest children across more than 120 programs. Their analysis finds that the federal government invests very little in babies and toddlers – the federal share of spending on