Child Trends

10/19/2026

How can states expand accessible and effective professional development opportunities for early educators? A new brief explores team coaching as a professional development (PD) approach and its potential to strengthen the early childhood workforce through shared learning, collaboration, and continuous improvement practices.

While team coaching is not yet widely used in state PD and quality improvement systems, early research shows promising potential for improving educator practices and outcomes for educators, children, and families. The brief examines the prevalence, level of investment, and reach of team coaching, as well as three examples of how team coaching is being implemented in quality improvement systems.

Read the brief:

This brief is organized into three parts. First, we provide background on the PD of early childhood educators and review literature on team coaching strategies. Next, we examine how team coaching strategies are currently implemented. Finally, we describe three examples of team coaching in QI systems...

10/16/2026

Child Trends has updated its interactive map that shows the variation in how approximately 30,000 Maryland families use the state’s Child Care Scholarship (CSS) program to enroll in highly rated child care. The CSS program assists families with low incomes in accessing quality-regulated child care each month by helping them pay for licensed child care centers, registered home-based care programs, or informal relative care providers. The updated map now includes additional contextual information, such as locations of providers and ZIP urban/rural status, giving readers new ways to explore the data.

Child Trends’ interactive map shows the variation in how approximately 30,000 Maryland families used the state’s Child Care Scholarship (CCS) subsidy program…

10/15/2026

The Healthy and Ready to Learn (HRTL) measure offers a new way to understand young children’s developmental well-being across the United States. This new blog post compiles key findings and insights from our research series on 3-year-olds to explore how children’s everyday experiences, families, neighborhoods, and access to health care are associated with their well-being.

A new national indicator is transforming how researchers, policymakers, and families understand young children’s well-being in the United States. Introduced in the 2022 National Survey of Children's Health (NSCH), the Healthy and Ready to Learn (HRTL) measure provides the first standardized, natio...

10/14/2026

Child Trends analysis of national survey data collected through the AmeriSpeak® panel suggests that parents of middle and high school students view artificial intelligence (AI) as an important issue that schools need to address directly. The authors of our latest blog post found that more than 1 in 4 parents identified academic honesty as their top concern regarding the use of AI in their middle or high school student’s education.

Taken together, our findings indicate that parents expect schools to teach middle and high school students how to use AI responsibly—in a way that supports meaningful learning—yet remain cautious about how they think AI affect students’ learning experiences.
https://www.childtrends.org/publications/parents-schools-teach-responsible-AI-worry-impacts-students-learning

10/13/2026

How can professional development help sustain change in early care and education programs? The Culture of Continuous Learning project found that collaborative learning can help early educators build improvement skills that spread beyond the original participants and into other classrooms. As one participant shared:

“We definitely saw the things that we were doing spread into more classrooms than we had originally intended throughout our school … we started in one and two classrooms and then we added a third and it just kept trickling down.”

The findings also highlight the importance of leadership support, paid planning time, and positive working conditions in sustaining change.

Read more:

Individual coaching is increasingly available to support early educators’ application of knowledge to practice, but its reach remains relatively narrow. Even more rare is the form of PD focused on collaborative learning and improvement, in which teams of early educators within and across programs ...

10/12/2026

Today is Indigenous Peoples’ Day, a time to honor the rich histories, cultures, sovereignty, and ongoing contributions of Indigenous Peoples in the United States.

At Child Trends, we are committed to research that respects Tribal sovereignty and is grounded in the priorities, strengths, and knowledge of Native communities. We work alongside Native communities to conduct meaningful and useful research and help translate evidence into policy and practice.

As we look ahead to Native American Heritage Month in November, we’re sharing a new resource, Understanding Data Sources, Gaps, and Opportunities in Native Maternal Health: https://www.childtrends.org/publications/understanding-data-sources-gaps-opportunities-native-maternal-health

Our commitment to research that supports the priorities and well-being of Native children, families, and communities continues throughout the year.

👇 Find resources and ways to stay connected below.

10/09/2026

Strengthening emerging adults’ engagement and leadership in workforce development efforts can help address broader structural barriers that shape young people’s opportunity. Through the Supporting Emerging Adults Developmental Framework project, Child Trends, Michelle L. Farr (JUST alittle LOVE LLC, or JaL), and the Annie E. Casey Foundation partnered with community providers who work with systems-involved emerging adults to promote workforce development strategies using the Emerging Adult Justice Developmental Framework (EAJDF).

Child Trends’ blog describes how using the EAJDF to establish a Community of Learning with workforce development organizations helped them develop practical, developmentally appropriate approaches to engage emerging adults.

Strengthening program engagement and leadership among emerging adults can help address broader structural barriers that shape young people’s opportunity.…

10/08/2026

Child Trends’ new research brief examines the extent to which early care and education (ECE) programs in Maryland serve children whose enrollment is paid for by a Child Care Scholarship (CCS). We found that, as of Spring 2026, the majority of centers in Maryland (67%) served at least one child with a CCS, while only 41% of family child care providers did so. Analysis also included the average share of ECE programs’ licensed capacity occupied by children with a CCS and whether this share varied by ages of children served, program quality rating, and program size.

This research brief examines the extent to which early care and education (ECE) programs in Maryland serve children who receive care paid for by a Child Care Scholarship (CCS) from the state’s child care subsidy program. The brief highlights key findings from analyses of Maryland child care licens...

10/07/2026

Two in three parents seeking information about their child’s education reported using communications from their school, according to Child Trends analysis of data collected through the AmeriSpeak® panel.

Schools are the bridge between research and parents. When researchers and schools work together, parents are more likely to receive information they trust and feel confident using to make decisions about their child’s education. Our analysis points to a clear takeaway: Parents are most likely to rely on and trust information about their child’s education when it comes directly from their school.

For researchers, these findings point to the importance of working alongside schools and districts as partners in sharing research with parents. When materials are co-created with school staff and designed to fit naturally within existing communication channels, parents are more likely to receive information that they recognize as trustworthy and connected to their real decisions.
https://www.childtrends.org/publications/parents-trust-school-communications-education-more-AI-social-media-news

10/06/2026

Good policy and programmatic decisions begin with high-quality information. Latino Families Flourishing (LFF), an initiative led by Child Trends’ Hispanic Institute and supported by Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, is working to generate that information by developing a national survey grounded in what Latino families and communities say actually matters. Guided by this intention, LFF held seven virtual engagement sessions with 86 organizational representatives and community leaders spanning health and education, child care, economic supports, community development, and other sectors.

Attendees affirmed what LFF heard directly from Latino parents and caregivers: Family closeness, relationships, and mutual support are central to Latino family flourishing. They also surfaced new priorities—like retirement planning and climate change—and generated over 200 ideas for survey questions. Beyond shaping the survey itself, attendees offered insight into what makes data accessible and usable: pairing statistics with real stories, offering benchmarks or comparisons, using a variety of formats, framing findings around family success, and providing technical assistance to communities.

The survey fields in early 2027, with findings shared later that year. Stay tuned!

Read more about how community voices are shaping this survey:

Good policy and programmatic decisions begin with good information. High-quality survey data can help us understand where and how children and families are thriving and where policies, programs, and investments must address the challenges that prevent them from reaching their fullest potential. When...