In response to recent state and local reforms, schools have reduced formal exclusionary discipline (e.g., suspensions, expulsions). Our report highlights the largely undocumented informal exclusionary discipline practices that emerge when formal discipline is no longer legally or culturally permissible. We define informal exclusionary discipline practices as within-classroom, within-school, and out-of-school practices beyond formal discipline that limit students' access to classroom learning opportunities in PreK-12 settings. These practices disproportionately affect racially/ethnically and economically marginalized students and students with disabilities, thereby reproducing formal discipline inequalities, but have received scant attention in contemporary policy discussions. We offer policy considerations for federal, state, and district policymakers to document and address these practices.
To provide policymakers and affiliated audiences (including elected officials, government agency staff, program developers, and practitioners) with comprehensive, nonpartisan reviews of child development research findings to inform decision-making. To inform SRCD members about (a) policy issues related to child development and (b) child development research related to such issues. Against the backdrop of these goals, we took the helm of the Social Policy Report editorship in January 2023. This is an exciting time to strive to make child and family policies—by which we are referring to laws, programs, and practices—more evidence-based. Researchers are becoming increasingly attuned to sharing their findings and maximizing their use. Practitioners and policymakers are increasingly interested in—and, in many cases, mandated to demonstrate—evidence-based decision-making. We view the promotion of the use of research by policymakers as not only communication from researchers to policymakers but also communication to researchers about what policymakers need to know and the format(s) in which researchers may most helpfully present findings. We are eager to leverage the Social Policy Report to facilitate an active, ongoing dialog that in turn will help make laws, programs, and practices as evidence-based as possible. In one of our first steps as editors, we established a diverse editorial board of experts who work in government, research, philanthropy, and direct service organizations. All bring experience in communicating and/or using research to inform program, practice, and/or policy decision-making. All already are helping to set the direction of the journal and support rigorous peer review processes. As we deliberated the content of the first Social Policy Report wholly under our editorial leadership, we reflected on the nature of research-policy communication and on the science interrogating the most impactful ways to use research evidence for policy development (e.g., Larsen & Owen, 2017; Oliver et al., 2022). Given the fast pace of this evolving science and its relevance to the Social Policy Report readership, we decided to create a special issue devoted to strategies for creating productive partnerships among child and family researchers, practitioners, and policymakers to make child and family policies more evidence-based. This focus also converges with SRCD's new policy strategy that leverages the SRCD Policy Department to build relationship-based connections among researchers and policymakers. We invited four essays from experts in research-practice and/or research-policy partnerships, three of whom are members of our editorial team or board. All thoughtfully took up the charge. Each essay provides provocative considerations for anyone aiming to maximize evidence use for program, practice, or policy development. Two of the essays explicitly situate their considerations in the larger context of the promotion of social justice. Government + research + philanthropy: How cross-sector partnerships can improve policy decisions and action (Owen), describes why government-research partnerships are crucial, identifies barriers to their success, proposes actionable strategies to overcome the challenges, and highlights the role of philanthropy in supporting research-government collaborations. Part of the process: Using evidence to shape policy development (Osborne) discusses the stages of policymaking and suggests how researchers can best inform each step, focusing especially on sharing accessible and actionable information at a time that is relevant for policymakers' decision-making. Talking to young children about race: Using research evidence to move the needle in early childhood educational practice and policy (Haulcy) tells the story of a practitioner leveraging research findings to illustrate how discussing race and racism with young children can combat implicit biases and foster positive racial identity development. Engineering research-practice partnerships for social justice (Tseng) emphasizes the importance of democratizing research production and use and advocating for research-practice partnerships that challenge systemic oppression and prioritize community-driven research agendas. We hope that readers find these essays informative and helpful. We welcome input on topics of interest that this special issue helps to raise and on any other topics that reflect the goals of the Social Policy Report. In the meantime, we invite readers to visit the Social Policy Report webpage showcasing its updated mission and guidelines for prospective authors. Lisa Berlin, Lead Editor, is Alison L. Richman professor of Children and Families and MPower Professor at the University of Maryland School of Social Work. Her research focuses on programs and policies to support early parenting and infants' relationships with their first caregivers. Jenni Owen, Associate Editor, is Director of the North Carolina Office of Strategic Partnerships. She was previously Policy Director for Governor Roy Cooper and on the faculty and Director of Policy Engagement at the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University. X: @jenniowen Freya Kaur, Editorial Intern, is a doctoral student in applied developmental psychology at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Her research focuses on identifying instructional practices in elementary school classrooms to help reduce attentional decay and mind wandering in students.
AbstractThis essay tells the story of a unique collaboration among practitioners, researchers, and policymakers to create and disseminate Early Risers, a podcast devoted to supporting racial equity in early childhood. Early Risers leverages research evidence to debunk common myths about how children learn about race. It showcases evidence‐informed practices for teaching young children about race and racism and for supporting positive racial identity. I share lessons learned about how research can educate caregivers, early childhood educators, administrators, and policymakers on the importance of creating pathways toward conversations about race and racism. Our hope is that Early Risers can serve as a model for researcher–practitioner–policymaker collaboration to innovate and “wake up” the early childhood field.
AbstractRigorous research can inform each stage of the policy‐making process, however too often academic research is not shared with policy leaders in a timely or actionable manner, and policies are often made and implemented with incomplete information. This essay describes each stage of the policy‐making process and discusses the types of research and evidence that are most useful at each stage. I draw on examples from my experience founding two university‐based research centers that, in addition to conducting original research, have aimed to translate complex research findings to empower policy leaders to adopt and implement effective and equitable policies.
AbstractResearchers often lament that government decision‐makers do not generate or use research evidence. People in government often lament that researchers are not responsive to government's needs. Yet there is increasing enthusiasm in government, research, and philanthropy sectors for developing, investing in, and sustaining government‐research partnerships that focus on government's use of evidence. There is, however, scant guidance about how to do so. To help fill the gap, this essay addresses (1) Why government‐research partnerships matter; (2) Barriers to developing government‐research partnerships; (3) Strategies for addressing the barriers; (4) The role of philanthropy in government‐research partnerships. The momentum to develop, invest in, and sustain cross‐sector partnerships that advance government's use of evidence is exciting. It is especially encouraging that there are feasible and actionable strategies for doing so.
AbstractOur current systems for producing and using research are mired—as are all U.S. institutions—in a long history of racism, xenophobia, and a culture of paternalism. Fortunately, we are not beholden to maintaining those systems, and we can re‐imagine and re‐engineer the ways we approach research and what we seek to accomplish with it. Research–practice partnerships (RPPs) can play a unique and meaningful role in bringing research to bear on social justice for children and families, but the partnerships must be intentionally designed for those goals. In this essay, I discuss three design principles for RPPs: centering children marginalized by oppression, embracing historical perspectives, and contending with power asymmetries.
For much of the past decade, suicide has been the second leading cause of death for adolescents in the United States, and suicide rates among adolescents have been rising for the last 15 years. Suicidal thoughts and behaviors among adolescents were common before COVID-19 and have become an increasing public health priority in the pandemic′s wake. In this Social Policy Report, we review evidence for suicide prevention strategies designed to address these rising trends. We make recommendations for federal, state, and local policymakers and practitioners; program developers in organizations that design and implement programming for youth; and academic and nonacademic researchers. Where research evidence is strong, we suggest legislation, funding, and implementation. In areas where gaps in evidence exist, we recommend program development and research. Our recommendations follow the order in a taxonomy adapted from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, beginning with strategies that change the structural conditions in which adolescents live and concluding with strategies that support adolescents following a suicide (i.e., postvention). We find strong evidence for, and recommend policy implementation of: restricting access to lethal means; LGBTQ+ affirming policies; screening for suicide risk in medical settings; and community-wide investments via the Garrett Lee Smith Memorial Act. In schools, we find benefits of, and recommend funding and implementation of, youth-focused programs. Even so, gaps exist: (a) research on economic policies for adolescents is nonexistent; (b) while mental health care access is a barrier, we do not know how to reduce youth suicide rates via changing care access; (c) data on crisis lines are encouraging but descriptive; and (d) school personnel training increases knowledge and confidence but not adolescent help-seeking. Finally, guidelines for response following a suicide loss focus on immediate support and are based on limited research; this is an area for program development and research. We recommend state-level policymakers restrict access to firearms via regulations and safe storage; public health officials implement firearm safe storage programs and build barriers on buildings/bridges; public health officials and health care providers distribute lockboxes for medications; and the Consumer Product Safety commission enact regulations that restrict the size of bottles for lethal over-the-counter medications. We recommend that state-level policymakers protect and implement strategies that treat LGBTQ+ youth equally and affirm LGBTQ+ identities (e.g., maintain same-sex marriage laws, protect affirming school environments/safe spaces for LGBTQ+ youth); state policymakers and school district/school leaders fight anti-LGBTQ+ legislation, policy, and practices that limit access to medical care, sports, representation in classroom conversations; and school leaders support LGBTQ+ affirming spaces (e.g., GSAs). We recommend that The Joint Commission1 update its recommendations to include universal suicide risk screening for adolescents; the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services at the Department of Health and Human Services require screening for suicide risk in pediatrics and emergency departments as part of routine care; and health care providers implement such screening practices. We recommend that the federal government increase funding for the Garrett Lee Smith Memorial Grants that provide funding to communities for suicide prevention activities in youth-serving organizations and for the Suicide Training and Awareness Nationally Delivered for Universal Prevention (STANDUP) Act of 2021 that offers suicide prevention funding to schools to implement effective programs. We also recommend that public health and school district leaders apply for such funding and implement evidence-based practices. We recommend that state and local policymakers fund and monitor school district- and school-level implementation of state-wide suicide prevention laws and that school district/school leaders ensure implementation of such laws. We recommend that the state and federal Departments of Education fund and encourage implementation of evidence-based school youth-focused programs,2 in tandem with school staff training programs, and that school district/school leaders implement such programs. We recommend that the National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics create national standards for suicide death classifications and require workforce training to reduce variation across place and persons that can lead to underreporting for minoritized racial/ethnic and LGBTQ+ groups. We also recommend that public health officials ensure that coroners and medical examiners receive such training. Engage peer leaders to spread messages of help-seeking as normative in schools, in youth-serving organizations, and on social media. Develop programs that address unique needs of groups at high risk (e.g., Indigenous, multi-racial, LGBTQ+, and rural adolescents). Also develop programs for racial/ethnic minority youth for whom there is limited programming. Develop programs that support adolescent needs for identity, meaning-making, belonging/connectedness, and hope for the future. Involve youth directly in the design of programs, amplifying youth voices and giving youth opportunities to take (positive) risks. Develop postvention strategies that support the long-term resilience of adolescents who have experienced the loss of a peer or family member to suicide. Conduct experimental and quasi-experimental research on the impact of economic policies to reduce poverty on adolescent suicide death and attempt rates. Conduct research on inclusive policies and practices (i.e., diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging initiatives) for minoritized racial/ethnic groups (Black, Latino/a/x/e, Indigenous, and Asian/Pacific Islander adolescents). Conduct experimental and quasi-experimental studies on the impact of increasing mental health care on adolescent suicide rates. Conduct quasi-experimental studies on the roll-out of crisis services across states. Study differences in implementation across states and localities to guide recommendations for best practices and identify gaps in program design and delivery. Test the impact of effective peer gatekeeper programs on minoritized racial/ethnic and LGBTQ+ adolescents and in a wider set of school and neighborhood contexts. Study promising postvention efforts to refine existing guidelines. Build data systems for real-time analysis of suicide fatalities and thoughts and behaviors, and that permit examination of person, place, and policy characteristics in tandem. Our report relies on the following definitions: “Adolescents”: youth between the ages of 10–19. “LGBTQ+ youth”: Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and other nonheterosexual, noncisgender youth. “Suicidal thoughts (or suicide ideation) and suicidal behavior”: thoughts of dying, making plans to end one′s life, and suicide attempts. (We do not include nonsuicidal self-injurious behavior [i.e., self-harm]). “Suicide attempt” is an act in which someone harms themselves with an intent to end their life but does not die. “Suicidology” is the scientific field for suicide research. The suicide field is replete with provocative terminology, in part because of its long history as a stigmatized behavior and condition. We use (and recommend) the following language for discussions of suicidal thoughts and behaviors among adolescents: “Died by suicide” rather than “committed suicide,” which hearkens back to the history of suicide as being considered a crime and/or sin. “Suicide death/fatality” rather than “successful suicide attempt” that implies something positive as a result of the suicide attempt. “Suicide social transmission” rather than “contagion” that implies an infectious disease framework for transmission of risk among individuals in social groups. For much of the past decade, suicide has been the second leading cause of death for adolescents in the United States, after unintentional injuries (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2023a). Suicide is a global public health issue highlighted in the United Nations Third Sustainable Development Goal (Target 3.4.2; World Health Organization, 2022). Adolescent deaths by suicide have been rising in the United States for the last 15 years, with an age-adjusted rate at 7 per 100,000 adolescents or 2900 deaths in 2021 (CDC, 2023a). Rates of suicidal thoughts (i.e., suicidal ideation) and suicidal behaviors (i.e., plans and attempts) are far more common than fatalities and much higher among adolescents than adults. In 2021, one in five adolescents reported seriously considering suicide and 1 in 10 reported attempting suicide in the last year (CDC, 2023b). The recent increase in suicidal thoughts and attempts post-COVID represents a continuation of rising trends that began in 2009, well preceding the pandemic (CDC, 2023b) (See Box 1 for definitions and terminology used in this report). Adolescent groups most at risk for suicide fatalities include Indigenous adolescents, boys, and adolescents in rural communities (CDC, 2023a); those most at risk for suicidal thoughts and attempts include Indigenous adolescents, multiracial adolescents, girls, and LGBTQ+ adolescents, particularly bisexual and transgender adolescents (CDC, 2023b). Recent data show a greater increase in suicide fatality rates for racial/ethnic minority (Black, Latino/a/x/e, Indigenous, and Asian/Pacific Islander) adolescents as compared with adolescents overall (CDC, 2023a) and a greater increase in suicidal thoughts and attempts for Black youth, resulting in rates for Black adolescents now largely comparable to that for White adolescents (Lindsey et al., 2019). Racial/ethnic minority adolescents are an increasing proportion of suicide deaths among adolescents each year, due to increasing suicide rates and changing population demographics in the United States (CDC, 2023a; US Census Bureau, 2022). See Appendix A for detail on rates and trends. Although adolescent suicides have been rising for over a decade (CDC, 2023a, 2023b), the pandemic′s toll on activities, social connections, and deaths made these trends increasingly visible and, perhaps as a result, physicians, psychiatrists, and children′s hospitals declared a National State of Emergency in Child and Adolescent Mental Health (AAP-AACAP-CHA, 2021), the Surgeon General released a youth mental health advisory (Office of the Surgeon General, 2021), and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP) released a practice guide for youth-serving organizations (AAP/AFSP Blueprint, 2023). Annual funding by the National Institutes of Health (2023) for youth suicide research doubled post-COVID, from $102 million annually in 2017–2019 to $212 million annually in 2020–2022. These efforts follow suicide prevention goals set previously by AFSP and Zero Suicide (albeit neither focused on youth) and a 1999 Surgeon General call for action (although research on youth-focused strategies was quite limited at the time; Office of the Surgeon General, 1999). The recent calls highlight approaches in primary care, emergency departments, communities, and schools, as part of a multipronged strategy for mental health promotion, prevention, and treatment. This Social Policy Report responds to these calls by reviewing evidence for prevention strategies that have emerged over the last several decades to reduce adolescent suicide deaths and suicidal thoughts and behaviors among young people, and offering recommendations for policy, practice, program development, and research.3 Our review differentiates studies assessing causal relations between strategies and adolescent outcomes (i.e., experimental and rigorously-designed quasi-experimental designs that account for confounding influences)4 from those that examine associations between strategies and outcomes, with causal research guiding our policy and practice recommendations. We focus on adolescents ages 10–19, a group at increasing risk of suicide over this age period (CDC, 2023a). Developmental psychologists have long considered adolescence a period of high risk/high reward in which adolescents′ emerging independence can lead to consequential risk-taking, while new ways of thinking can be generative (Steinberg, 2008, 2014). Advances in neuroscience suggest adolescents have a highly-active reward system that leads them to take risks and that those risks can be positive (e.g., auditioning for a play) or negative (e.g., shoplifting; Ernst, 2014; Telzer, 2016). Peers play an important role in adolescents′ positive and negative risk-taking (Cascio et al., 2015; Nelson et al., 2005; Steinberg, 2015; Telzer et al., 2018; Van Hoorn et al., 2016). Generation Z, the most recent cohort to enter young adulthood (born 1997–2012), have garnered significant concern given the macro-context in which they are developing (Dimock, 2019). While limited research investigates the impact of macro-conditions on youth suicide, Gen Z youth have been required to participate in active-shooter drills (Moore-Petinak et al., 2020), have experienced the ubiquity of smartphones and social media (Twenge et al., 2022; Williams, 2015) and are growing up under a worsening climate crisis (Gislason et al., 2021), which may undermine mental health. We focus on prevention strategies that school personnel, community leaders, and health care providers can implement for all adolescents irrespective of suicidal risk.5 Intervention strategies, for adolescents already at suicidal risk due to an identified mental health condition as determined by a mental health professional, have been the prevailing paradigm for this field.6 Yet, barriers to mental health care (Clement et al., 2015; Gulliver et al., 2010) make suicide prevention′s reliance on clinical care alone insufficient for reaching adolescents at an early point in their suicide risk trajectory.7 We posit the effectiveness of layered approaches, such that: adolescents know where to get help; the peers and adults around them can recognize the signs of suicidal thinking and know how to ask about it, respond to it, and link youth to resources; and environments are protective to deter suicidal action (AAP/AFSP Blueprint, 2023; Morris, 2021). Ideally, all of this would occur in a just context in which youth feel accepted and hopeful about the future, although the benefits of making communities more accepting and hopeful are not well studied. Our review updates Gould et al.'s (2003) paper that reviewed prevention strategies through the late 1990s.8 We present evidence behind policy and public health approaches, strategies shown effective in pediatric primary care and emergency departments, and a rising number of innovative programs in schools. We provide recommendations for policymakers, practitioners, program developers, and researchers, offering a strategic vision for the future of adolescent suicide prevention. Table 1 presents our taxonomy for organizing suicide prevention strategies (adapted from CDC, 2022; see Column 1 for overarching domains and Column 2 for prevention strategies within domains).9 Column 3 summarizes our research review on which we base recommendations (see later sections for detail on studies reviewed and citations). Column 4 presents our recommendations for policymakers, practitioners, program developers, and researchers. We discuss strategies in the order proposed in the CDC taxonomy, beginning with strategies aimed at changing the structural conditions in which adolescents live and concluding with strategies aimed at messaging about suicide deaths and supporting adolescents following a suicide (i.e., postvention). We supplement the CDC taxonomy with a final category on data infrastructure. Strengthen household financial security Strengthening financial security reduces overall (adult) suicide rates, but this strategy has not been tested for adolescents. Evidence for adolescence is descriptive and mixed. Researchers: Conduct experimental and quasi-experimental research on the impact of economic policies to reduce poverty on adolescent suicide death and attempt rates. Reduce access to lethal means Restricting access to lethal means is effective in reducing suicide deaths (despite modest substitution effects), with benefits of firearm regulations and installation of barriers and nettings in places known for suicide deaths. Rigorous trend analysis finds the Clean Air Act of 1970 led to reductions in suicide rates in the 1990s by reducing deaths by carbon monoxide poisoning; quasi-experimental research in the U.K. shows the value of reducing the size of analgesic packaging. Policymakers and Practitioners: State-level policymakers—restrict access to firearms via regulations and safe storage. Public health officials—implement firearm safe storage programs and build barriers on buildings/bridges. Public health officials and health care providers—distribute lockboxes for medications. Consumer Product Safety commission—enact regulations that restrict size of bottles for lethal over-the-counter medications. Create accepting policies and cultures Implementation of same-sex marriage laws reduces suicide attempts among all high school students, especially for LGB youth. Policies and practices affirming LGBTQ+ youth show similar benefits. Research on inclusive policies for minoritized racial/ethnic groups is lacking. Policymakers and Practitioners: State policymakers—protect and implement strategies that treat LGBTQ+ youth equally and affirm LGBTQ+ identities (e.g., maintain same-sex marriage laws, protect affirming school environments for LGBTQ+ youth). State policymakers and school district/school leaders—fight anti-LGBTQ+ legislation, policy, and practices that limit access to medical care, sports, representation in classroom conversations. School leaders—support LGBTQ+ affirming spaces (e.g., GSAs). Researchers: Conduct research on inclusive policies/practices (i.e., diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging initiatives) for minoritized racial/ethnic groups. Ensure mental health insurance parity and increase access to mental health care Provide rapid and remote access to help Mental health parity laws increase mental health care utilization and diagnoses for adolescents. Care access is of concern although there is limited research on the impact of greater access on suicide rates. Usage rates of crisis lines (relative to need) are low but some lines reach otherwise underserved populations. Reductions in distress or suicidal ideation are observed following calls, but there is no causal evidence of the impact of crisis lines on suicide rates. Counselor training and experience contributes to better outcomes for adult callers (there is no comparable information for adolescents). Researchers: Conduct experimental and quasi-experimental studies on the impact of increasing mental health care on adolescent suicide rates. Researchers: Conduct quasi-experimental studies on the roll-out of crisis services across states. Given national implementation of crisis lines, study differences in implementation across states and localities to guide recommendations for best practices and identify gaps in program design and delivery. Identify adolescents at suicidal risk Invest in suicide prevention efforts in schools and youth-serving organizations Train adult gatekeepers Train peer gatekeepers and change norms Suicide-specific universal screening is acceptable in medical settings, identifies suicidal adolescents that would be otherwise missed, does not lead to more suicidal thinking, and improves treatment initiation. The Garrett Lee Smith Memorial Act of 2004 provided resources for a broad range of youth suicide prevention across settings in communities and has been shown to be effective. The STANDUP Act of 2021 offers suicide prevention funding to schools to implement effective programs. States vary in school district-level laws and there is large variation in implementation at the district level. Training school personnel to identify and refer adolescents in schools increases adult knowledge and confidence but not adolescent help-seeking. Training peers in schools is effective, when aimed at recognizing signs and helping friends seek support. Effective programs leverage friend networks through peer leaders. Effective programs have not yet been tested for impact on minoritized LGBTQ+ or racial/ethnic groups. Programs focus on recognizing the signs and connecting youth to care, with inattention to adolescent needs for identity, meaning-making, belonging/connectedness, and “finding a life worth living.” Only some programs permit youth to be involved in the design of program activities. Policymakers and Practitioners: The Joint Commission—update recommendations to include universal suicide risk screening for adolescents. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) at the Department of Health and Human Services—require screening for suicide risk in pediatrics and emergency departments as part of routine care. Healthcare providers—implement such screening practices. Policymakers and Practitioners: Federal government—increase funding for the Garrett Lee Smith Memorial Grants and the Suicide Training and Awareness Nationally Delivered for Universal Prevention (STANDUP) Act of 2021. Public health and school district leaders—apply for such funding and implement evidence-based practices. Policymakers and Practitioners: State and local policymakers—fund and monitor school district- and school-level implementation of state-wide suicide prevention laws. School district/school leaders—ensure implementation of such laws. Policymakers and Practitioners: State and federal departments of education—fund and encourage implementation of evidence-based school youth-focused programs, in tandem with school staff training programs. School district/school leaders—implement such programs. Program Developers: Engage peer leaders to spread messages of help-seeking as normative in schools, in youth-serving organizations, and on social media. Program Developers: Develop programs that address unique needs of groups at high risk (e.g., Indigenous, multi-racial, LGBTQ+, and rural adolescents). Also develop programs for racial/ethnic minority youth for whom there is limited programming. Program Developers: Develop programs that support adolescent needs for identity, meaning-making, belonging/connectedness, and hope. Program Developers: Involve youth directly in the design of programs, amplifying youth voice and giving youth opportunities to take (positive) risks. Researchers: Test the impact of effective peer programs on minoritized racial/ethnic and LGBTQ+ adolescents and in a wider set of school and neighborhood contexts. Report and message about suicide safely and for prevention Intervene after a suicide (postvention) Exposure to a suicide death is associated with greater risk, and national reporting guidelines reduce such risks. Experimental research points to the benefits of “positive, action-oriented messages.” Expert consensus guidelines detail appropriate responses after a suicide death. Yet guidelines are focused on crisis response rather than longer-term grief support and are based on very limited research. Program Developers: Develop postvention strategies that support the long-term resilience of adolescents who have experienced suicide loss. Researchers: Study promising postvention efforts to refine existing guidelines. Suicide-related mortality data is affected by the lack of universal burden of proof and other standards that result in underreporting. To date, research on youth suicide trends has focused on individual-level characteristics (race/ethnicity, gender identity) with less attention to the context in which youth develop. Policymakers and Practitioners: National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics—create national standards for suicide death classifications and require workforce training to reduce variation across place and persons. Public health officials—ensure that coroners and medical examiners receive such training. Researchers: Build data systems for real-time analysis of suicide fatalities and suicidal thoughts/behaviors, and that permit examination of person-, place-, and policy- characteristics in tandem. Our review highlights a number of promising strategies to address adolescent suicide and signals the ways in which the field has evolved over the last two decades. We find strong evidence for, and recommend policy implementation of: restricting access to lethal means (e.g., firearms, building/bridge protections, and medication overdose protections); LGBTQ+ affirming policies; screening for suicide risk in medical settings; and community-wide investments via the Garrett Lee Smith Memorial Act. In schools, we find benefits of, and recommend funding and implementation of, youth-focused programs, especially those aimed at building skills and changing norms through social networks. Even so, large gaps exist: (a) research on economic policies for adolescents is nonexistent; (b) while mental health care access is a barrier, we do not know how to reduce youth suicide rates via changing care access; (c) data on crisis lines are encouraging but descriptive; and (d) school personnel training increases knowledge and confidence but not adolescent help-seeking. Finally, guidelines detailing appropriate responses following a suicide loss (i.e., postvention) focus on immediate support and are based on limited research; this is an area for program development and research. While suicidologists have made progress in identifying effective strategies for adolescent suicide, only a handful of youth-focused strategies have been proven effective (contrast that with nearly 100 middle and high school social-emotional learning programs reviewed by Durlak et al., 2011). Moreover, programs do not address adolescent needs for identity, meaning-making, belonging/connectedness and “finding a life worth livingm,” and, thus, where we recommend program development. Finally, successful programs have yet to be tested with minoritized youth (i.e., racial/ethnic minority and LGBTQ+ youth; although work is underway by our team and others (e.g., Goodwill, Guerrero Vasquez, Wilcox, and Wyman), and research and public discourse have largely ignored the higher suicide risk of multiracial and bisexual youth, who may struggle to “fit in” (Nishina & Witkow, 2020). Here, too, we recommend program development and research. Although funding for youth suicide has increased in the last few years, only 14% of the annual $1.550 billion in funding for youth mental health research through the National Institutes of Health (2023), is allocated to youth suicide. Increasing funding for youth suicide may close these gaps. We suggest layering approaches to ensure repeated opportunities to reach struggling adolescents by implementing strategies in medical settings, communities, and schools.10 We are encouraged by reductions in rates of suicide attempts and mortality from the Garrett Lee Smith Memorial Grants that combined increased access to services with greater surveillance, awareness programming, and stigma-reducing strategies. No single strategy is likely to move the needle in reducing adolescent suicide, but a combination of layered strategies, with efficacious treatment, might bring down rates of adolescent suicide, addressing this public health priority. In the next sections, we discuss in greater detail the evidence behind prevention strategies that provide the foundation for our recommendations. Social inequity may confer suicide risk through household instability, food insecurity, and other forms of economic deprivation. The largest body of work in this area has considered labor market policies to address poverty (i.e., strengthening household financial security). Decades of research have documented poverty-related disparities across developmental outcomes from early childhood to adolescence (Duncan & Brooks-Gunn, 1997; Duncan et al., 1998), with evidence for causal links between increases in income and outcomes for children by leveraging policies aimed to reduce poverty (Duncan et al., 2011). While suicide risk is not typically studied, outcomes such as internalizing and externalizing behavior and self-regulatory skills that are associated with suicide risk are examined. Measures to strengthen financial security have been shown to reduce adult suicide rates in quasi-experimental studies, but have not been examined for adolescents (Dow et al., 2020; Flavin & Radcliff, 2009). For example, leveraging difference-in-difference models that control for other state-level differences, Dow et al. (2020) demonstrated that the implementation of state-level policies that increased minimum wage or the Earned Income Tax Credit lowered nondrug suicide rates for adults with a HS diploma or less (e.g., increasing minimum wage by 10% reduced nondrug suicides by 2.7%). Similarly, controlling for state social capital, increasing state spending on transfer payments, medical benefits, and family assistance is associated with decreased state-level adult suicide rates (Flavin & Radcliff, 2009). For adolescents, parental education (Chen et al., 2022) and socioeconomic status (Farrell et al., 2019) are inversely associated with suicidal ideation and attempts, but not deaths by suicide (Benny et al., 2023; Braudt et al., 2019). Correlational evidence on the role of income inequality in adolescent suicide deaths is also mixed (Benny et al., 2023; Wadsworth et al., 2014). While labor market policies may be promising, there is no causal evidence yet that such policies impact adolescent suicide outcomes. Additional experimental and quasi
AbstractPolicies and programs designed to serve children and families are sometimes misaligned with developmental science research. Broad child neglect reporting laws, first adopted by the United States in 1974, have led to families being prosecuted by child protection authorities for allowing children to participate in everyday age‐appropriate activities unsupervised. In this report we describe the challenges of defining child neglect and outline the current landscape of neglect laws in the United States. We then provide a broad overview of some of the developmental milestones children need to reach to participate in unsupervised activities and the benefits of independent activities on child development. Children can often accomplish tasks at a much younger age than law, parents, and caregivers in the U.S. believe. We then turn to the literature from across the world and argue that culture, not innate ability, drives much of the variation in the age at which children can do things on their own. Finally, we make recommendations to parents, caregivers, legislators, advocates, and developmental scientists to better align practice with research. This is a social justice issue that should resonate across party, racial, and class lines. Developmental scientists are needed as advocates and advisors on policies impacting children and families, especially child neglect laws.
ABSTRACTThe main goal of this social policy report is to propose a holistic approach for promoting developmental success among Latinx children and youth. This report highlights the need to 1) redefine success and 2) account for intersectional inequalities. First, the current demographic landscape of Latinx students is presented to showcase the variability in experiences among Latinx children and youth. We review past policies (across the last two and current U.S. Administrations and within the state of California), educational programs (e.g., McNair scholars' program, AVID), and theoretical frameworks (within developmental and sociocultural disciplines). Next, we introduce a nuanced holistic approach for promoting Latinx children and youth's developmental success, underscoring the integration of factors within the sociocultural, family, and individual domains. Finally, this report provides accessible recommendations for policymakers, researchers, and practitioners to effectively promote equity and developmental success among diverse groups of Latinx children and youth.
ABSTRACTThe data on COVID‐19 show an irrefutable and disturbing pattern: Black Americans are contracting and dying from COVID‐19 at rates that far exceed other racial and ethnic groups. Due to historical and current iterations of racism, Black Americans have been forced into conditions that elevate their risk for COVID‐19 and consequently place Black children at the epicenter of loss across multiple domains of life. The current paper highlights the impact of the pandemic on Black children at the individual, family, and school levels. Based on an understanding of the influence of structural racism on COVID‐19 disparities, policy recommendations are provided that focus on equitable access to quality education, home ownership, and employment to fully address the needs of Black children and families during and after the pandemic. Research, practice, and policy recommendations are made to journal editors, funding agencies, grant review panels, and researchers regarding how research on COVID‐19 should be framed to inform intervention efforts aimed at improving the situation of Black children and families.
ABSTRACT The U.S. has seen a more than five‐fold increase in the number of children who experience the incarceration of a parent, such that now 7% of all U.S. children have been impacted. Parental incarceration has been linked to an array of consequences for children's development and well‐being, spanning most developmental domains and all developmental stages. The overarching goal of this report is to briefly summarize the associations between parental incarceration and adverse outcomes across various aspects of child well‐being and development (Section I), and to discuss the role of policy (Section II) in both contributing to mass parental incarceration in the U.S. (Section II.A.) and addressing the many impacts of parental incarceration in the U.S. on child well‐being and development (Section II.B.). Throughout this report, we acknowledge impacts and additional considerations related to families of color, who are disproportionately affected by incarceration and associated policies.
AbstractIn the United States, more than 5.4 million children and adolescents under age 18 provide care for family members who are aging or have chronic illness, disability, or other health conditions that require assistance. In this policy report, we describe youth’s care for the family, and highlight the increasing prevalence, global challenges, and uneven successes of measurement and categorization. We briefly summarize research on how caregiving affects youth’s academic, social, and emotional well‐being. Next, we present novel, emerging evidence from the public school‐based 2019 Youth Risk Behavior Survey for the State of Florida, which suggests that as many as 24% of middle school students and 16% of high school students provide at least some care to the family on a regular basis. Drawing on this evidence, we discuss targeted social programs which have been shown to promote the well‐being of caregiving youth outside of the United States, as well as a 13‐year‐old school‐based intervention in The School District of Palm Beach County, Florida. We conclude with specific recommendations for a path toward recognizing and supporting caregiving youth via policy and practice in the United States. Our aim is to increase the awareness and feasibility of identifying and supporting caregiving youth and their families via government‐organized data collection and targeted social policies.
AbstractThis is a mixed‐methods study of risk and resilience in a sample of over 14,000 students from 49 schools, assessed during the first 3 months of COVID‐19 in the United States. Over a third of students were of color and almost a third received financial aid. Participation rates were typically 90–99%. Overall, rates of clinically significant depression and anxiety were lower during distance learning in 2020 as compared to parallel rates documented during 2019, with a few exceptions. Hispanic students did not show reductions in depression rates, nor did gender non‐binary youth. Analyses of multiple risk and protective factors showed that in relation to depression, the most potent predictor was parent support, with effect sizes at least twice as high as those for any other predictor. Other robust predictors of depression included efficacy of learning online and concerns heard by school adults. In predicting to anxiety, parent support again had the largest effect sizes, followed by concerns heard at school, students’ worries about their futures, and worries about grades. In general, the absence of protective factors was more likely to be linked with high distress among youth of color than White students, and among girls and gender non‐binary students as compared to boys. At a policy level, the findings call for concerted attention to the well‐being of adults charged with caring for youth. Parents’ mental health has been increasingly threatened with the protracted stress linked with the pandemic. Thus, all avenues must be considered toward providing them with support—using feasible, community‐based interventions—as this is always the most important step in fostering children's resilience through adversity. Additionally, schools’ expectations about learning will have to be adjusted. As educators try to make up for academic losses during the pandemic, they must avoid high workloads detrimental for students’ mental health (and thus ability to learn). Finally, there must be ongoing institutional mental health support for teachers, counselors, administrators, and staff. Many of these adults have provided critical safety nets for youth since the start of the pandemic and are themselves at high risk for burnout. In conclusion, findings clearly show that if a central societal goal is to maximize resilience among youth through the continuing pandemic‐related challenges, we will have to deliberately prioritize an “upstream” approach, ensuring ongoing support for the adults who take care of them in their everyday lives.There must be ongoing institutional mental health support for teachers, counselors, administrators, and staff. Many of these adults have provided critical safety nets for youth since the start of the pandemic and are themselves at high risk for burnout.
AbstractIn recent years, families with children from the Northern Triangle countries of Central America constitute a large and growing proportion of migrants and overall filed asylum claims. In an effort to deter overall immigration through the U.S.–Mexico border, the executive branch under the Trump administration has made substantial changes to federal immigration and asylum policy in recent years. Given the sensitive nature of early development and the hardship and trauma that many migrant children have experienced, immigration policies that do not prioritize child wellbeing, and in fact, neglect or harm it, can have lifelong negative consequences on physical and psychological wellbeing. In light of the scope of children and families affected by these policies and potential magnitude of their effects, the present review aimed to: 1) outline federal immigration policies under the Trump administration that primarily impacted migrant children and families; 2) review the research base regarding the effects of these policies on physical safety and health, development, mental health, family wellbeing, and education; and 3) provide policy recommendations to prevent further harm, mitigate the great harm already done, and prioritize child wellness moving forward. Findings from the review indicate that even short experiences of detention, particularly when children are separated from parents and caregivers, are associated with serious, lasting negative effects across every domain of functioning. The practices of separation, detention, and removal to temporary encampments compound traumatic experiences that migrant families are often fleeing, which in turn may set up already vulnerable children for a trajectory of continued marginalization. Future directions for research and implications for policy and practice are discussed.
Foster care provides round-the-clock substitute care for nearly 700,000 U.S. children who are temporarily or permanently separated from their family of origin each year. Each state manages its own foster care system according to federal regulations. Despite numerous large-scale federal policy reforms over the past several decades, substantial concerns remain about the experiences and outcomes of children in the foster care system. The most recent effort to reform foster care, the Family First Prevention Services Act of 2018, attempts to both reduce the use of foster care and increase the quality of care. In this report, we review how policy has shaped the experiences and outcomes of children in foster care, where policy has succeeded, and where it falls short of achieving its goals. We then identify opportunities for federal and state policy to better support the safety, health, and well-being of children in foster care.
AbstractA variety of civic actors—government, associations, and local agencies—work to help parents advance the vitality of our youngest children. Empirical findings accumulating over the past half‐century identify benefits for infants and toddlers stemming from three policy models: paid leave for parents after a newborn arrives; regular pediatric assessments, including home visiting; and quality caregivers situated in homes or centers. We review what is known about the effects of these policies, along with constituent elements of quality (mediators) that operate proximal to children's health, cognitive, and emotional growth. Much has been learned about how such collective action, carried out by local organizations, advance infant–toddler development. Methodological advances foster new knowledge: moving closer to causal inferences and pinpointing social mechanisms that enrich infant–toddler settings. Less well understood is how policy levers can move the malleable elements of program quality to raise the magnitude or sustainability of program effects. We note the benefits of income‐support efforts for fragile families, while urging new work on how economic dynamics touch the capacity of parents and caregivers to better nurture infants and toddlers.
AbstractThe absence of violence against children is a fundamental children's right and a major milestone of civilized society. Similarly, reports on incidences of violence by children and youth, including severe cases with devastating consequences, speak to the need that the trauma of exposure to violence in childhood needs to be addressed. While violence and its risk factors are generally understood, what is less clear are the essential protective factors, how we can identify those as early as possible, and how we can use them to prevent and address the trauma of violence exposure in children and youth. In this report, I review pathways of child and youth violence through the lens of social‐emotional development as a central protective factor. Negative emotions of frustration and anger can underlie violence and aggression. Kind emotions, such as caring and our ability to connect with others emotionally, can serve as social‐emotional protective factors. A brief review of the central social‐emotional processes and their development is provided, including the human capacity to feel with others and express empathy, be emotionally aware and care about the effects of one's own actions on others, and be able to regulate the self and their emotions. Given the negative widespread and long‐term impact of exposure to violence, I describe research‐informed attempts to prevent violence exposure across development. Taking a humanistic, strength‐based perspective, the focus is on social‐emotional protective factors to address violence and nurture mental health in every child. I conclude with recommendations for practice and policy.
In recent decades, educators and policymakers in the United States have increased their focus on Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) learning opportunities both in school and in informal learning environments outside of school. Informal STEM learning can take place in varied settings and involves a variety of STEM domains (e.g., engaging in engineering practices in a construction exhibit at a museum; talking about math during book reading at home). Here we provide a selective review of the literature on informal STEM learning to illustrate how these educational experiences are crucial for efforts to increase early STEM learning even before children reach school age. Leveraging cognitive and learning science research to inform policy, we make three recommendations to advance the impact of informal STEM learning: 1) integrate cognitive and learning science–based learning practices into informal learning contexts, 2) increase accessibility and diversity of informal STEM experiences, and 3) create explicit connections and coherence between formal and informal STEM learning opportunities in early childhood education.
We document the need to examine digital game play and app use as a context for cognitive development, particularly during middle childhood. We highlight this developmental period as 6‐ through 12‐year olds comprise a large swath of the preadult population that plays and uses these media forms. Surprisingly, this age range remains understudied with regard to the impact of their interactive media use as compared to young children and adolescents. This gap in knowledge about middle childhood may reflect strong and widely held concerns about the effects of digital games and apps before and after this period. These concerns include concurrent and subsequent influences of game use on very young children's and adolescents’ cognitive and socioemotional functioning. We highlight here what is currently known about the impact of media on young children and adolescents and what is not known about this impact in middle childhood. We then offer recommendations for the types of research that developmental scientists can undertake to examine the efficacy of digital games within the rapidly changing media ecology in which children live. We conclude with a discussion of media policies that we believe can help children benefit from their media use. Our hope is that this review will foster greater investigation of the cognitive socialization, as raised over 20 years ago by developmental psychologist and early games researcher Patricia Greenfield, that digital games serve during the middle childhood period, and childhood more generally.
Economic instability has increased in recent decades and is higher for families with low incomes and Black families. Such instability is thought to be driven primarily by precarious work and unstable family structure. In addition, the social safety net has become less of a stabilizing force for low‐income families, in part because benefits are often tied to employment and earnings. Too much change in economic circumstances may disrupt investments in children, parenting practices, and family routines—particularly if the economic changes are unpredictable, undesired, or not part of upward mobility. Given the considerable evidence that economic circumstances affect child health and development, economic stability can and should be an important goal of multiple policy domains. In this report, we describe economic instability, review the pertinent theories for considering how economic instability might matter to children, and describe ideas for policies that could reduce or moderate instability. We include policies that reduce instability in earnings, use public assistance to stabilize income or reduce material hardship, or enhance parents' capacity to deal with or avoid instability.
