Economic Shocks: Public Policy Can Support or Stress Families with Clare Anderson

Today’s guest is Clare Anderson, a policy expert and passionate advocate for using evidence to drive upstream investments to prevent child welfare involvement. Claire is a Senior Policy Fellow at Chapin Hall, and she’s spent years organizing data to help us understand the impact of economic policy on families — and what puts them at risk.

Clare helps connect the dots between the economic shocks that families experience between economic policy and child welfare involvement. Clare shares the preponderance of evidence from 40 years of research that simply validates what families have been saying all along: invest in public benefits like SNAP, Medicaid, and child care if you truly want to dramatically reduce family separation and foster care placements.

But this conversation is about more than the data. Underlying Clare’s message is a worldview centered on creativity, compassion, and imagination. Clare’s work reminds us that systems don’t change just because of evidence; they change when people decide to act differently. And she invites us to think about what it means to meet families not at the moment of crisis, but at the moment of opportunity.

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Here are some additional resources Clare would like to share with you.

• Access to Medicaid and Healthcare Promotes Child Safety – Chapin Hall
• Expanded Child Tax Credit as a Key Anti-Poverty & Child Welfare Prevention Strategy – Chapin Hall
• Access to Food Assistance Programs Increases Child Safety – Chapin Hall
• Disrupting the Link Between Poverty and Child Welfare Involvement through Policy, Practice – Chapin Hall
• A Key Connection: Economic Stability and Family Well-being – Chapin Hall

We appreciate you spreading awareness by sharing this episode with your friends, family, and colleagues who care about family well-being.

Please email us if you want to connect with the creative team or find out how to engage with the family well-being movement. [e-mail]