Leveraging Economic and Health Policies to Prevent Infant and Toddler Maltreatment: A State Policy Toolkit
This toolkit aims to facilitate collaboration among state-level policymakers, agency leaders, administrators, and other partners to pinpoint the connections between policies that promote family well-being and those that prevent child maltreatment. The resources in this toolkit are intended to inform and encourage dialogue, collaboration, and action among state leaders responsible for promoting positive outcomes among children, families, and communities in their states.
These resources were developed by the Measuring Up project, which works to identify family and community circumstances as well as policies and programs that help children develop optimally and equitably. The project focuses on identifying these factors for the prenatal period (before birth) through age 2. We also identify risk factors that may hinder very young children’s optimal development.
The goal of the Measuring Up project is to help policymakers, researchers, and other individuals and organizations with an interest in early childhood development assess strengths and areas for improvement for key policies, programs, and practices that affect the well-being of children in the prenatal, infant, and toddler stages of human development. Resources in this toolkit focus on state-level policies associated with the following four topics (see Figure 1): (1) Child Tax Credits (CTC), (2) Minimum Wage, (3) Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Programs (SNAP), and (4) Family Planning (Contraceptive Access).
Figure 1. Economic and health policies identified as promising for infant and toddler maltreatment prevention
These four policy areas were chosen based on Measuring Up’s original analysis of state and national data on maltreatment rates among infants and toddlers and how those rates vary in states with and without various policies in place.[1] These four areas emerged as particularly promising in terms of potential to meaningfully contribute to efforts to prevent maltreatment among children under age 3.
What resources are in the toolkit?
Primers and Action Guides
For each of the four key policy areas, the corresponding “Primer and Action Guide” consists of:
- Executive Summary Cover Page (1 page): A high-level overview of promising policy actions
- Overview/Facts (1-2 pages): An overview of facts and statistics related to:
- Child maltreatment among infants and toddlers
- The “context” for the maltreatment that is relevant to the focal policy (for instance, the SNAP document context is food insecurity)
- The potential links between the focal policy and child maltreatment reduction
- Policy Options Summary (2-3 pages): A summary of nonpartisan research evidence connecting various state-level policy options and child maltreatment reductions
- Discussion Guide (2-3 pages): A resource to support discussions among key partners at the state level on topics related to the intersections between each focal policy and child maltreatment reduction efforts
Annotated Resource Compilation
To supplement the four Primers and Action Guides, the annotated resource compilation lists pre-existing resources related to the topics covered in this toolkit, including child maltreatment and prevention; policymaker engagement; equitable policymaking; and policies related to family planning, CTCs, minimum wages, and SNAP. A table of contents at the beginning of the document can help you find the sections most relevant for your needs.
Learn More
For more information on our work, project partners, and original analyses of selected policies and child welfare system data, see: https://www.childtrends.org/project/measuring-up
Footnote
[1] Piña, G., Moore, K., Mihalec-Adkins, B., Darling, K., Abdi, F. & Liehr, A. (2024). Preventing child maltreatment in infants and toddlers: Gaps and evidence from state-level policies. Child Maltreatment, 10775595241267236. https://doi.org/10.1177/10775595241267236
Suggested Citation
Mihalec-Adkins, B. P., Mukhopadhyay, S., & Darling, K. (2024). Leveraging economic and health policies to prevent infant and toddler maltreatment: a state policy toolkit. Child Trends. DOI: 10.56417/9036c3877i
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