New Resources and Opportunities – April 2026

Check out resources and opportunities from Family Voices and our partners. Resources from Family Voices’ policy team are in both English and Spanish, with more languages in development. Partner resources are mainly in English.

National Survey of Children’s Health (NSCH) Factsheets

• NSCH State Factsheets: The National Center for a System of Services for CYSHCN, in collaboration with the Altarum Institute, developed state factsheets drawing data from the 2021-2022 National Survey of Children’s Health (NSCH). These state specific factsheets offer key NSCH data to help states track progress toward improving the system of services for CYSHCN.

National Center for a System of Services for CYSHCN

• Crosswalk of NSCH, Pediatric Integrated Care Tool (PICS) and the Family-Centered Care Assessment (FCCA) Tool: The National Center for a System of Services for CYSHCN developed a crosswalk to demonstrate how the NSCH, PICS, and FCCA can be used to complement each other in assessing sub-components of the medical home. This crosswalk was designed for Title V CYSHCN programs to support their work with families, partners in public health departments, clinical practices, and family-led organizations.
• Understanding the Medical Home Model for Your Child: The National Center for a System of Services for CYSHCN created a plain language tipsheet to help families understand medical home. The tipsheet offers helpful explanations of what medical home is, its key features, the importance of a medical home for CYSHCN, as well as information and resources.

Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services

• ASPIRE Model Launches to Support Children and Youth with Complex Medical Needs: The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS)is launching the Accelerating State Pediatric Innovation Readiness and Effectiveness (ASPIRE) Model to support the delivery of care for children and youth up to age 21 with complex medical and behavioral needs who are enrolled in Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). ASPIRE is a state-based and voluntary model that will run for ten years. Up to five states will be selected to participate. A Notice of Funding Opportunity is expected to be released later in 2026. Please visit the CMS website for more information.
• CMS Toolkit for Children’s Behavioral Health Services and EPSDT Requirements: The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) developed a new behavioral health toolkit to help state Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) agencies ensure that children and youth experiencing behavioral health conditions receive timely care. The toolkit outlines actionable state strategies across four areas including, behavioral health care delivery systems, early intervention, access to services, and workforce capacity. The toolkit also entails state examples and detailed appendices with information on services, models of care, and more! Title V CYSHCN programs may find this resource helpful for strengthening and coordinating behavioral health services for CYSHCN within their state or jurisdiction.

Child Trends

• New Data Reveal Wide Variation in States’ Use of Formal Kinship Care: Studies show that kinship care—an arrangement in which a child lives with relatives or close family friends when their parents are unable to provide a safe home—helps children stay connected to family, culture, and community while supporting their emotional well-being, academic success, and healing from trauma. Children in foster care are often placed with relatives or other kin, which is commonly referred to as “formal” kinship care. A new Child Trends analysis of federal foster care data shows that states vary widely in their use of formal kinship care placements.
• More Than 1 in 4 Children and Youth in Foster Care Have a Special Health Care Need (SHCN): Children and youth with SHCNs enter foster care at higher rates than their peers without an SHCN. Further, they have different experiences once in foster care, including longer stays in foster care, multiple placements, and exit to permanency at lower rates than their peers without an SHCN. Research shows that children and youth who enter foster care often have less access to appropriate health care before entering foster care. This lack of appropriate health care can continue during foster care for children and youth when services and supports are not widely accessible.
• Extended Foster Care Policies and Practices That Boost Young Adults’ Participation: Extended foster care programs are most beneficial when their implementation fosters the development of young adults with foster care experience and meets them where they are in life. This blog highlights three policies and practices—automatic enrollment, program re-entry after exit before age 21, and robust supportive housing services—that some states have implemented to boost participation and provide these young people with greater access to life skills training and foundational supports.

Thorn Run Partners (TRP)

• TRP provides a state-by-state “roadmap” that translates each state’s Rural Health Transformation Program application into a profile of proposed initiatives, priority activity areas, use-of-fund categories, and award amounts.

Family Voices Public Policy Webpage: Family Voices regularly releases new policy materials. Stay tuned to our Public Policy page to read our new resources.

• Families in all communities are impacted by the constant changes in policy. Check out our best practices in communicating policy changes with families.