Projects Archive

Projects listed here have been successfully completed by NCCP. Although they are no longer active projects, we archive them for future reference and organizational history.

50-State Policy Tracker

The NCCP 50-State Policy Tracker is a unique, online tool allowing policymakers, journalists, social researchers, and advocates to quickly and accurately compare state policies and programs vital to the well-being of low-income families. It includes key state data for 10 important social programs: child care subsidies, Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit, Earned Income Tax Credit, family and medical leave, income tax policy, Medicaid/Children’s Health Insurance Program, minimum wage, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF), Unemployment Insurance.

Access to Health Insurance for DACA Recipients with Disabilities: Regeneron Science Competition Project

The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program was created to allow undocumented immigrants brought here as children to apply for protection from deportation and work permits. This report provides a more detailed look at health insurance coverage status of DACA recipients, particularly those with disabilities, in states that cover them in their Medicaid programs.

A 5 Year Plan to Address Barriers to Oral Health in New Jersey

This study, conducted between 2018-2020, identifies barriers surrounding oral healthcare that adults with IDD face and strategies for overcoming these barriers in New Jersey.

The Affordable Care Act, Medicaid, and Youth Transitioning from Foster Care

The Affordable Care Act, Medicaid, and Youth Transitioning from Foster Care outlines the unique health needs of young people in and aging out of foster care; describes the coverage former foster youth are entitled to under the ACA, the restrictions states have applied, and reasons for opposition; and makes recommendations to legislators, state policymakers, and advocates for removing barriers to access.

Disability Perspectives on Paid Leave

This project includes ground-breaking qualitative research about how workers with disabilities and working caregivers of people with disabilities and serious health conditions use, need, and benefit from family and medical leave. 

Examining the Impact of HUD’s Rental Assistance Demonstration on Children in Public Housing

NCCP evaluates the impact of Rental Assistance Demonstration on the well-being of low-income children living in public housing in California and how the effects might vary by the characteristics of RAD sites (e.g., urban versus rural).

Expanding Opportunities for Family Engagement

This project tracks research-informed policies and programs that support parents’ engagement in their young children’s learning and development, provides technical assistance to states, and develops resources for states (e.g., a program family engagement assessment and planning tool, parent survey).

Family Self-Sufficiency and Stability Scholars’ Network

The project examines how policy changes (increases in family income eligibility, increases in provider payment rates, and unionization of home-based providers) affect continuity of child care subsidy receipt; how such policy changes affect stability in child care arrangements; and how such policy changes affect families with a history of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) receipt.  

Improving the Odds for Adolescents

Improving the Odds for Adolescents is a two-year project to improve health outcomes for adolescents – with a special focus on disadvantaged youth – through the strengthening of state policies, including fiscal strategies.

Improving Oral Health and Oral Health Care for Adults with IDD in New Jersey

The project’s aim is to reduce barriers to oral health care for adults with IDD in New Jersey. Oral health care, which is critical to overall health and well-being, is the primary unmet health need among adults with IDD.  

Interdisciplinary Research Leaders

Interdisciplinary Research Leaders brings together teams comprised of two researchers and one community leader, helping them develop advanced leadership skills and a clear focus on health and equity that will enable them to break down silos, address health disparities, and build fundamentally healthier communities.

Making Sufficient Oral Healthcare for People with IDD a Cost-Effective Reality

People with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) experience poorer oral health and more difficulty in finding, getting to, and paying for appropriate oral health care, relative to people without IDD. This project assessed, by state, the availability of Medicaid-funded oral health coverage for adults with IDD, including oral health care provided through Medicaid waivers. 

Making Work Supports Work

Making Work Supports Work is a collaborative project in which NCCP works with state and national partners to help policymakers improve supports for low-wage workers and their families. The goal is to promote a work support system that enables full-time workers to make ends meet and ensures that earning more always improves a family’s financial bottom line.

New Jersey Parenting Project

The NCCP policy brief, Protecting Workers, Nurturing Families: Building an Inclusive Family Leave Insurance Program, presents findings and recommendations from the first in-depth look at the experiences of low-income workers with New Jersey’s paid family leave policy. New Jersey’s Family Leave Insurance program, introduced in 2009, gives workers six weeks of paid time off per year to bond with a new child or care for a sick family member.  The program is funded through an employee payroll tax and benefits are paid at two-thirds of the worker’s average wage, up to a maximum weekly benefit of $615 in 2016.  

NYC Continuous Quality Improvement for Preschool Programs

This project is developing and testing a new continuous quality improvement (CQI) model in NYC preschool programs serving low-income families. The model is designed to build the capacity of early care and education programs to engage in ongoing efforts to strengthen program quality.

NYC Partners for Preschool Quality

This project is developing and testing a new continuous quality improvement (CQI) model in NYC preschool programs serving low-income families.  The model is designed to build the capacity of early care and education programs to engage in ongoing efforts to strengthen program quality.  

NYC Preschool Education Leaders’ Support of High Quality Teaching

High quality preschool can play a key role in helping low-income children enter kindergarten with foundational skills that will help them succeed.  A critical support to quality preschool is an on-site education leader (e.g., the education director or principal) who can promote excellent teaching.  In  partnership with Bank Street College, this project investigates factors that support or hinder teachers’ use of effective practices in New York City preschool programs.

Project Thrive

Project Thrive is a public policy analysis and education initiative to promote healthy child development and provide policy support to the State Early Childhood Comprehensive Systems (ECCS) initiatives funded by the Maternal and Child Health Bureau.

Research Connections

Research Connections promotes high-quality research and its use in policymaking by providing online access to thousands of journal articles, research reviews, government reports, and policy briefs. Research Connections is the central access point for products developed by federally funded early care and education research workgroups.  

Resilience in Low-Income Families

This research project seeks to determine what can be learned from low-income parents and to use those findings to promote policies designed to build resiliency and help lift more families out of poverty. The project includes a review of research on poor and low-income families to define parent resilience and analysis of several national longitudinal surveys to identify indicators of family strength and associated positive child outcomes.  The findings will be used to develop a policy brief with policy/practice recommendations for promoting resiliency in low-income parents.

Social Inclusion and Respect for Diversity

Promoting Social Inclusions and Respect for Diversity is a two-year action research study of the formation of regional coalitions of researchers, policymakers, practitioners, evaluators, advocates, and funders to promote social inclusion and respect for diversity (SI & RD) in early childhood education in the U.S.

Strategies for Early Learning

Strategies for Early Learning promotes the dissemination of the growing knowledge base about the most effective ways to ensure that young children enter school with the necessary skills to be successful.

Two-Generation Policies for Young Children and Families in Deep Poverty

This project analyzes national-level and state-specific data to examine the well-being and life circumstances of young children in deep poverty, and policies and programs that can help reduce risk for these children.

UCR: California Case Study

Unclaimed Children Revisited: California Case Study is a series of county-specific case studies, a statewide analysis, and a set of fiscal analyses of effective policy-linked strategies to improve children’s mental health in the state of California.

Unclaimed Children Revisited

Unclaimed Children Revisited is a multi-pronged project that is generating new knowledge about policies across the 50 states that promote or inhibit the delivery of high-quality mental health services to children, youth, and families in need.

Youth, Homelessness, and Education

The Youth, Homelessness, and Education project is a pilot project focusing on youth (ages 12 to 17) who have been homeless, run away, or both. The project uses data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 to examine how youth experiences of having been homeless or having run away influence the likelihood of graduating from high school.