After months of considering the structure of this site, developing in-depth, comprehensive content, and gathering community feedback on the usability and functionality of this website, Vision for Children at Risk and the St. Louis Metropolitan Children’s Agenda in conjunction with numerous community partners are excited to debut the Children’s Policy Forum.  It is our hope that this dynamic tool will make data and policy information easily accessible to community stakeholders, will educate the community about the critical issues affecting children, youth, and families, and perhaps most importantly will build a virtual community and provide a forum for the interchange of ideas and continuous dialogue directed toward improving the well-being of children in the St. Louis region.

We fully realize that this website will only be useful and relevant as long as the information and data on the Children’s Policy Forum remains accurate and up-to-date.  We are committed to regularly updating and improving this website, but we need your help.  We need the experience and expertise of all those in the child-serving community to offer suggestions, corrections, changes, and additions to the content on this site.  We envision this website as constantly evolving and we welcome your continuous feedback which will make this website a more useful and valuable community tool.

From its inception the Children’s Policy Forum was designed to showcase the work of Vision for Children at Risk and the St. Louis Metropolitan Children’s Agenda—as well as the wealth of data and information generated in the process of this work—and publish it online in order to reach a broader community.  We not only want to make our data more accessible, we want to create a place where community stakeholders can discuss what the numbers actually mean for children and families in the St. Louis region.  We not only want to inform the child-serving community about the critical issues facing children, youth, and families, we also want to provide a place where people can find out who is actively working on a particular issue, what programs and initiatives are in place, and how we can join together strategically to more efficiently and effectively impact children throughout the St. Louis region.

Please take a moment to explore the many ways this website serves as a vital tool for the child-serving community of the St. Louis region.  A brief description of the main functions of this website follows.

• Fundamental Needs – In this section of the website you will find the six broad areas of fundamental childhood need that Vision for Children at Risk and the St. Louis Metropolitan Children’s Agenda use as a common framework to carry out their work.  The six fundamental need areas include: Family Support, Early Childhood Development, Maternal & Child Health, Quality Education, Youth Development, and Safe Neighborhoods & Strong Communities.  In each of these fundamental need areas you will find numerous sub-topics ranging from "Children with Incarcerated Parents" to "School Choice" to "Neighborhood Leadership."  For each sub-topic an overview of the issue, a discussion of current critical issues, a list of key stakeholders, a description of strategic initiatives, a discussion of needs and recommendations, a list of related legislation and a list of national resources has been developed.
• Info Center – For over a decade, Vision for Children at Risk has published the Children of Metropolitan St. Louis report.  This biennial report tracks over 30 child well-being indicators in 168 ZIP codes in the five-county St. Louis metropolitan area.   The Info Center was developed in order to make our data more accessible and more user-friendly to community stakeholders.  It is our hope that through the Info Center and features that allow users to customize reports, export data, and explore the data through maps, users will utilize our data to advocate for the children, youth, and families of the St. Louis region.
• Children’s Agenda – The purpose of the St. Louis Metropolitan Children’s Agenda is to pursue strategic, collaborative community action directed to addressing the fundamental needs of the region’s children.  Representatives of some 300 children’s agencies and community organizations serve voluntarily in Children’s Agenda work groups.  The Children’s Agenda encompasses over 30 strategies covering a full range of children's needs.  For each strategy, a work group plans and implements policies or programs addressing the targeted issue.  In this section of the website you can find out more about the Children’s Agenda partners and what Fundamental Need Area or strategy you might want to get involved in.
• Advocacy – When people think of advocacy they most often think of legislative advocacy.  In this section of the website you will find detailed information about the many different types of child advocacy and how best to utilize these different methods to achieve change.   This section also houses our Message Boards.  We encourage you to use the Message Boards to post your comments, questions, ideas, and insights on any issue that relates to the well-being of children, youth, and families.  This is where we hope to get the child-serving community in St. Louis communicating, engaged, and motivated.
• News – In the News section we hope to share not only news about Vision for Children at Risk, but also the work of the many partner agencies of the St. Louis Metropolitan Children’s Agenda.  We also plan to collect and track articles from various news sources that discuss issues that pertain to children, youth, and families, particularly in the St. Louis region.
• Events – We hope to share the events of both Vision for Children at Risk and the St. Louis Metropolitan Children’s Agenda in this section.  It is our hope that this events section will expand to include events from across the St. Louis region that focus on the well-being of children, youth, and families.
• Blog – Here you will find blogs by the staff of Vision for Children at Risk and by community guests.  We invite our partners and anyone who has an interest in the well-being of children, youth and families, to submit guest blogs.  These blogs will serve as a place where healthy dialogue about children’s issues takes place and as a way to collectively shape the conversation and encourage progress on behalf of all the region’s children.  Let the discussion begin!

Want to know how the Children's Policy Forum acts as an advocacy tool?  Visit our Advocacy section.