Act 96 of 2015 created the Health Care Reform Legislative Task Force in Arkansas. This task force will determine the future of the Private Option and the Medicaid program. The following principles should guide policymakers as they consider ways to transform and modernize the health care system. Policy changes should meet the health needs of […]

While there were a few bright spots, it was a tough year for racial equity and opportunity at the legislature. Lawmakers passed policies that will limit opportunities for many Arkansas families. They also failed to pass policies that would have given more Arkansans a chance to thrive and succeed in the future. These policies affect […]

ARKids First has been hugely successful in providing health coverage for kids in Arkansas, despite growing child poverty rates. While the number of children living in poverty has increased to almost 30 percent since 2008, the percentage of children without health coverage has remained very low. This news comes as lawmakers meet to discuss possible […]

Early childhood professionals often use the terms early childhood mental health and positive social and emotional development interchangeably. Social development involves skills like communicating needs, getting along with others and making friends. Emotional development involves skills like being able to be soothed when upset, recognizing feelings and expressing them appropriately, and beginning to understand that others have feelings too. When children experience healthy social and […]

This is the third installment in a three-part series on the child welfare system in Arkansas.

This legislative session, like many others before it, had its ups and downs. The children and families of Arkansas won some, but suffered some major losses as well. The Private Option, Arkansas’s version of Medicaid expansion, will continue to provide health coverage for low-income Arkansans, at least through 2016. However, changes are likely on the horizon. Our state’s […]

Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families has always done a good job of changing with the times. As we’ve watched the political climate in Arkansas shift over the past couple of years, we’ve responded with our own changes as well.

When Keith A. Nitta, then of the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service, and I developed our 2008 study “Arkansas Education in the Post-Lake View Era: What Is Arkansas Doing to Close the Achievement Gap?,” Arkansas was just emerging from the dramatic alterations in state education policy created by the adequacy and equity […]

Even during relatively “good” economic times in Northwest Arkansas, child poverty has grown faster than the overall population. As our region has grown more successful, many of our children have fallen behind. While the region’s poverty percentage is lower than that of most of the state, the number of children living in poverty in both Washington and Benton counties is higher […]

In 2013, one out of four Arkansans did not have health insurance. Thousands of low-income Arkansans made too much money to qualify for Medicaid, but not enough to receive financial help in the health insurance Marketplace (through tax subsidies). Arkansas faced a looming Medicaid budget shortfall, all while more than half a million Arkansans had no health coverage. […]