The findings and recommendations of the Woodrow Wilson School's Graduate Policy Workshop WWS591g: Disadvantaged Young Children in Newark, are available in the workshop final report Achieving the Goals of the Newark Children’s Bill of Rights: Recommendations to Mayor Cory A. Booker and Director Maria Vizcarrondo, Newark Department of Child & Family Wellbeing.  The report, co-authored by M.P.A.’08 students Ronald Chatters III, Vincent Chin, Brett Hembree, Jessica Hembree, Maia Jachimowicz, Eric Mikanda, Jacob S. Rugh, and Sarah Sable, was prepared for Newark New Jersey Mayor Cory Booker and Department of Child and Family Wellbeing Director, Maria Vizcarrondo.

“Achieving the Goals of the Newark Children’s Bill of Rights” provides recommendations on how the City of Newark can best fulfill its Children’s Bill of Rights (CBR), which calls for good homes, education, nutrition, healthcare, neighborhoods, and recreation for the city’s youngest and most disadvantaged children.

The workshop was offered in conjunction with the Woodrow Wilson School’s Center for Research on Child Well-being (CRCW) and its two main projects: the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study and The Future of Children journal. The Fragile Families study aims to address questions of interest to researchers and policymakers on the welfare of children born into unmarried families by following a cohort of nearly 5,000 children since birth. The Future of Children is a joint project between WWS and the Brookings Institution that seeks to promote effective policies and programs for children by providing policymakers, service providers, and the media with timely, objective information based on the best available research.

Under the guidance of Sara S. McLanahan, the William S. Tod Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs and Director of the Bendheim-Thoman Center for Research on Child Wellbeing at the School; Elisabeth Donahue, Lecturer of Public and International Affairs; and Associate Research Scholar Michelle O. DeKlyen, participants aimed to assess the needs of Newark’s children between 0 to 5 years of age, and offer useful recommendations to the city of Newark “as it confronts the growing challenges of improving social outcomes for disadvantaged children in the community,” the authors write.

Students met with practitioners in the field to assess Newark’s greatest needs and research key areas of concern, namely, maternal mental health; fatherhood and parenting; child exposure to violence; family income security; lead poisoning in children; early childhood care and education and Newark’s recently-initiated Family Success Center (FSC) initiatives. FSCs are designed to provide Newark residents with core services to strengthen families and communities.

Discussions were held with a number of experts and stakeholders, including representatives from government agencies, non-profit organizations, academics and advocacy groups across New Jersey, and in several benchmark states, including California, Maryland, and Pennsylvania.

Among the recommendations, students highlighted the need to reduce depression among mothers with young children though education, treatment or referral; to improve the impact of residential and non-residential fathers on child wellbeing through fatherhood programs; reduce the impact of violence on children by launching a child development community policing program; and identified the need to establish a lead poisoning program and empower homeowners to abate lead hazards in a cost-effective manner. 

The report also reveals findings and outlines recommendations for FSCs.  The authors note, “The intentions of New Jersey’s Family Success Initiative are well meaning, but the long-term sustainability of Newark’s FSCs remains threatened at this early stage. The state’s comprehensive set of goals establishes an unrealistic expectation about what a center could accomplish with limited staff, resources, and community capacity. The requirement that all centers must provide 10 core services could make it difficult for the FSC’s to succeed.”

Graduate policy workshops are a part of the core curriculum of the WWS graduate program. Each fall, six to eight School graduate policy workshops are designed to investigate a policy issue for a real-world client, or to provide information and analysis to organizations or individuals with expertise in the topic. Each workshop consists of approximately eight to 10 second-year M.P.A., M.P.P., and Ph.D. students who evaluate the given policy problem and develop a final report for and presentation to the client or issue experts.