Schuyler Center for Analysis and Advocacy has released Policy Priorities for the 2022-23 NYS Legislative Session.
2022-23 Policy Priorities for Child and Family Well-Being
The Schuyler Center urges New York leaders to prioritize marginalized New Yorkers, with a special
focus on children and families, in 2022. Centering these New Yorkers is more important than ever
given that low-income, Black, brown and immigrant New Yorkers, and families with children, were—
and continue to be—among those hardest hit by the impacts of the COVID pandemic.
Goal 1. New York moves forward with cutting child poverty by 50% in a decade, with attention to
reducing racial inequities. We urge New York State leaders to take these actions in 2022:
1. Swiftly implement the NYS Child Poverty Reduction Act, which passed the Legislature with
overwhelming and bipartisan support, and was signed into law on December 1, 2021. With the passage of
this law, New York’s leaders publicly declared their intent to cut child poverty in half in ten years, with
attention to racial equity and will provide New York a plan and the tools to turn the tide on child poverty.
2. Strengthen NY’s working family tax credits as part of a larger strategy to build family economic security
and reduce child poverty beginning by ending the Empire State Child Credit’s irrational exclusion of
young children (under 4) from the credit, very low-income children, and 17-year-old children, and
increasing the credit amount to meet the rising costs of raising children.
Goal 2. New York strengthens and expands child welfare preventive services to strengthen families.
To support families through the continued COVID crisis, it is imperative that New York:
1. Reauthorize child welfare preventive services this year and restore state funding for these services at
65%, as is written in State statute.
2. Increase preventive child welfare housing subsidy payment from $300 to $725 per month, for a
maximum of 36 months. New York must also build-in ongoing automatic increases to the subsidy, tied to
inflation, to ensure the subsidy serves its stated purpose of preventing family separation due to housing
instability as the cost of living rises.
3. Implement the Family Assessment Response (FAR) process statewide. FAR is a preventive, solutionfocused option for families to partner with Child Protective Services to keep their children safely at home.
Goal 3. New York prioritizes family-based foster care and reduces use of congregate care. To help
counties strengthen their use of relative and family-based foster care to meet new federal requirements and
support better outcomes for the children and youth in their care, New York should:
1. Limit congregate care placements for children under 13 years of age and increase foster care payments
and supports for families who could care for a child of any age where there was a threat of institutional
placement.
2. Establish an independent and open-ended funding stream for KinGAP outside of the Foster Care Block
Grant. KinGAP is one proven strategy to reduce the over-representation of Black and brown New York
children in foster care, strengthen families, and diminish reliance on congregate care as part of Family First
implementation, yet funding it through the Foster Care Block Grant can create financial disincentives for
its use.
Goal 4. New York establishes an Office of the Child Welfare Advocate to better ensure that youth,
biological parents, kinship caregivers, and foster parents involved in the child welfare system are
connected to the resources and supports to which they are entitled.
New York’s children and families need a publicly-accountable Office of the Child Welfare Advocate that
can neutrally and impartially mediate conflict, provide information, and protect the interests and rights of
youth, biological parents, kinship caregivers, and foster parents navigating the child welfare system.
Goal 5. New York commits to high-quality, culturally-responsive, universal child care within 4 years.
There are three main components of the Empire State Campaign for Child Care’s framework for universal
child care; all must be implemented simultaneously to guard against destabilizing the child care sector or
inadvertently harming families as New York transitions to universal child care.
1. New York provides universal, guaranteed access to child care of the family’s choice (familybased/center-based/informal child care)—for all children regardless of parental work status or income or immigration status in year one.
2. New York immediately raises workforce wages by extending stabilization grants and creating an early
childhood workforce compensation fund until payment rates are increased (in part using left-over
American Rescue Plan Act stabilization funds).
3. New York transitions to a payment rate model based on a “cost estimation model” that accounts for
geography, quality and child care staff pay at parity with elementary school teachers.
Universal child care implementation principles. Where phase-in is required:
• Target expansions to first cover low-income families, historically underserved communities and families
facing complex needs, including children with disabilities and child welfare involvement.
• Eliminate all work and immigration status requirements and activities tests for low-income families.
• Take steps to avoid benefits cliffs.
• The child care workforce must be granted significant and sustained increases in compensation before they
are asked to acquire new credentials or degrees.
• Expansion should be funded from remaining COVID relief funds, existing CCDBG funds, Build Back
Better funds (projected), state tax revenues, possible employer-side payroll tax.
Goal 6. New York expands and increases investment in child and family health.
New York is recognizing the impacts of and costs associated with the social determinants of health and
population health on the overall costs and quality of health care. In addition, there are pressures on the public
health system to address emerging diseases and the impact of chronic diseases. To meet these challenges New
York must:
1. Ensure all mothers and infants in first three years of life have continuous and holistic health coverage.
2. Expand coverage, access, and payment for services for children and families, with focus on two generational care, mental health, family (not just individual) orientation, and social determinants of health.
3. Improve access to maternal, infant, and early childhood home visiting, making it available to all families
who would like to receive services and ensure health insurance covers it. Home visiting has been shown to
improve birth outcomes, increase high school graduation rates, and reduce incidence of child maltreatment.
4. Expand access to services and supports for young children with developmental delays and disabilities
and reduce racial inequities in service delivery in Early Intervention and Preschool Special Education.
5. Improve parental mental health by strengthening and expanding the workforce: implement effective
peer navigator models and support services.
6. Expand availability of oral health services by expanding/improving the oral health workforce.
Goal 7. New York strengthens its public health infrastructure.
1. Fund and rapidly implement the collection of critical data about the health workforce that will inform
and improve health planning, access, emergency preparedness, and developmental and mental health
services.
2. Reinvest in and rebuild local health departments and communities to support their ability to provide
basic, foundational public health and prevention services in New York communities and their critical role
in health planning and emergency preparedness.
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