WHO WE ARE

Making New York City A Better Place for Children

Since our founding in 1944, CCC has paired professional staff experts with citizen volunteers to document the facts, educate the community, and advocate for change.

This approach to child advocacy is unique, fact-based, and combines the best features of public policy research with a tradition of citizen activism.

Our work focuses on identifying the causes and effects of vulnerability and risk; recommending solutions to issues children and their families face; and making certain that public policies, legislation, budgets, programs an dservices are responsive to the needs of children. We advance recommendations that are designed to effectively eliminate barriers, combat disparities, and create opportunities, so that it is possible for all children to grow into adulthood ready to meet the demands of society and fully engage in the 21st century economy.

What Makes Us Effective

Independence from government funding which allows us to develop impartial priorities and policy positions.

Breadth of focus which addresses all the key issues affecting children, including child welfare, child care, health and mental health, housing and homelessness, income and food security, education, youth services and juvenile justice.

Expertise, research capacity and rigorous fact-based analysis relied upon by policymakers, professionals, parents, journalists and others in need of a timely and accurate information on children.

Outreach to New Yorkers across the five boroughs through public education campaigns, e-advocacy and the media, policy briefings, and leadership courses for youth and adults.

Unique collaboration of professional staff and citizen volunteers, which underpins all facets of our work: research, community education, and advocacy.



How We Meet Our Goals

By casting light on the facts, fueling civic discourse and engaging adversaries and allies in building solutions, CCC mobilizes New Yorkers to get elected and appointed officials to listen, to act, and to make New York City a better place for children.

Fact-Finding Analysis and Research
Our work builds from a base of facts that are collected routinely and reviewed rigorously.

CCC's Keeping Track of New York City’s Children is the most extensive data resource available on the status of the city's 2 million children. This encyclopedia of child well-being -catalogues the facts and tells the story of what life is like for a child growing up in New York City.

When there is limited information or questions about a program or policy, CCC develops citizen-led task forces as vehicles to collect data and create a record of what is or is not working for children. We supplement analysis of primary source data with our own independent qualitative research comprised of focus groups and one-on-one interviews with program administrators, service providers and service recipients. In addition, we leverage our expertise across a wide range of issue areas resulting from our position on government workgroups and advisory boards to perform ongoing monitoring of programs, policies and budgets and keep abreast of emerging needs and the current state of programs serving children.

Community Education
CCC makes effective use of our research by sharing our data, findings and recommendations with New Yorkers. We assist fellow advocates, service providers, schools, foundations, reporters, community and civic organizations, as well as parent groups and government agencies in their use of Keeping Track data. We host policy briefings to bring citizens, academics, direct service providers and elected and appointed officials together in one place to have candid in-depth discussions on important children's issues. Our e-action membership ensures that New Yorkers and our volunteers are kept informed of policies, programs, and emerging issues through newsletters and e-alerts. We train adult and youth volunteers annually on the status of New York City's children, state and city budgets, and the essential elements of effective research and advocacy. All of our policy reports and budget analyses and widely distributed and available online.

Advocacy
All of CCC's work comes together when staff and citizen volunteers reach out to elected and appointed officials to urge them to create and implement policies, legislation and budgets that effectively meet the needs of children and families. Our advocacy involves a multi-pronged approach to draw attention to the needs of children: organizing colleagues and building coalitions on core priorities; meeting with elected and appointed officials; developing and distributing budget and legislative recommendations; testifying at legislative hearings and public meetings; providing background information to the press; and holding press briefings and press conferences on critical issues.

Through our e-action campaigns we are also able to get information to New Yorkers quickly, mobilizing thousands to electronically contact elected and appointed officials at the local, state and federal levels to advance our shared agenda to improve the well-being of New York's children.