The Opportunity Index uses 20 indicators across four dimensions to provide users with a numerical measurement of opportunity across all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The four dimensions of community well-being are: the economy, education, health, and community. To better understand how each dimension and its indicators help to craft this unique score, the Forum will take a deep dive into each, identifying its impact on opportunity, implications for change, and policies that could help communities move forward.

The City of Seattle and King County are now testing a new housing intervention called the Creating Moves to Opportunity (CMTO) project. CMTO tests a more personalized response to the proven idea that place matters for children and that moving young people to neighborhoods of higher opportunity can lead to positive economic, health and education outcomes. This blog will examine the research that informed this project, the promising results that Seattle and King County have demonstrated so far, and how this body of research has equity implications for both program design and research.

Advocates for young people, justice and equity are celebrating a long-overdue Congressional reauthorization of the nation’s main federal legislation covering juvenile justice, the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA) . Sixteen years after it was last updated and authorized by Congress, a bipartisan bill passed both chambers and now moves on to President Trump to sign into law.

The JJDPA sets standards and protections for young people in state justice systems, and helps states reform their juvenile justice approaches to better align with what data and emerging brain science show are better for kids and keep communities safer.