The Annie E. Casey Foundation’s KIDS COUNT project has released its annual data book, which provides a picture of the well-being of children in the United States.

The book can be a useful tool for NASW members, said NASW Senior Practice Associate Roxana Meruvia Torrico.

“KIDS COUNT shows the latest data in a range of areas, including education; health and poverty; and family and community,” Torrico said. “It also provides information related to overall child well-being by state, and this provides a national picture as well as state-by-state information about children’s well-being.”

The book includes 10 areas of measure:

• percentage of low birth-weight babies;
• infant mortality rate;
• child death rate;
• rate of teen deaths by accident, homicide and suicide;
• teen birth rate;
• percent of children living with parents who do not have full-time, year-round employment;
• percent of teens who are high school dropouts;
• percent of teens not attending school and not working;
• percent of children in poverty; and
• percent of families with children headed by a single-parent.

“The KIDS COUNT Data Book has been done every year for several years now,” said Joan Levy Zlotnik, director of the NASW Social Work Policy Institute. “It also gives a picture about how individual states and the U.S. overall improves or gets worse over time.”

Findings for 2013 reveal an improved outcome overall, and the book says this year’s data provide some hopeful signs. The latest data also show continued incremental improvement in educational achievement and child health and safety, as well as a record low level of teen births.

You can download the 2017 KIDS COUNT Data Book as a PDF from the Casey Foundation website.

The Casey Foundation is an organization dedicated to helping build better futures for disadvantaged children in the United States. KIDS COUNT is a national and state-by-state project of the foundation, with the data book being its principal activity.