Groundwork Ohio and CareSource release "Threads of Hope: Community Voices Stitching Together Solutions for Healthier Beginnings." This groundbreaking report sheds light on Ohio’s maternal and infant health crisis, and the role of family engagement in creating meaningful change. Through the voices of mothers, community leaders, and healthcare providers, we will explore the systemic barriers, policy opportunities, and solutions needed to ensure every baby has a healthy start.

Learn more and access the report online at https://www.groundworkohio.org/threads-of-hope

Groundwork Ohio joined Public Opinion Strategies to release 2024 child care poll results capturing the views of Ohio voters and parents of young children. This data reveals pressing concerns around child care access, affordability, and the readiness of Ohio’s youngest children for success. Participants heard from Public Opinion Strategies about how these challenges impact families, the workforce, and the economy, and gained insight into voters’ attitudes toward potential policy solutions.

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This poll highlights the urgent need to increase access to quality, affordable child care for working families. Groundwork Ohio's policy agenda reflects the needs of working parents and voters by demanding increased state investment to expand access to publicly funded child care for working families up to 200% of the Federal Poverty Level and increase the capacity of quality programs to serve the growing needs of children and families. If we listen to parents and voters, we can meet the needs of young children and families and drive Ohio’s economic prosperity.

Groundwork Ohio unveiled its Policy Agenda on November 13, 2024, designed to support the health, education, and economic well-being of Ohio's youngest residents and their families. This agenda reflects insights from the recent Roadshow Listening Tour, where diverse voices across Ohio shared their unique challenges and hopes. During the webinar, we explored critical policy priorities and discussed how these evidence-based solutions will promote opportunities for all Ohio children. We also covered ways participants and stakeholders can begin to mobilize to implement the policy agenda during Ohio’s state budget process.

Over a decade ago, then-legislators Shannon Jones and Charleta Tavares crossed the partisan divide to create landmark legislation to address Ohio’s abysmal infant mortality rate. Eight years after Senate Bill 332 passed into law, Ohio continues to rank in the bottom ten states nationally for infant mortality. While policy changes are necessary to address this persistent crisis, it is not sufficient to save the lives of Ohio’s vulnerable infants.

Join Groundwork Ohio for the latest webinar in our Building Momentum Series: Asthma Disparities for Black Children in Ohio. Experts in asthma care and policy will explain asthma’s prevalence for Black children, the resources available for treatment, and the barriers to care.

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Infant-Early Childhood Mental Health (IECMH) describes the capacity of an infant or young child to: form close and secure relationships; to experience, manage, and express a full range of emotions; and explore the environment and learn in the context of family, community, and culture. If a child faces negative early experiences during the pivotal years from birth to age 5, poor outcomes can be seen in a child's social, emotional, physical, cognitive, communication, and motor skills development.

A panel of experts joins Groundwork Ohio for an online discussion about the challenges facing infants, toddlers, and young children in Ohio in achieving healthy outcomes. We'll discuss the important role that WIC (Women, Infants, and Children) benefits play in helping families maintain proper nutrition and health.

Watch as expert panelists talk through the disparities children with disabilities face in accessing early childhood education programs. This dynamic conversation also reviewed the new Ohio PROMISE initiative that focuses on dismantling these disparities, and discussed the impact of inclusion on communities.

This webinar will elevate the issue of child care access disparities in rural and Appalachian Ohio. The region faces unique challenges, with a significant proportion of children living in child care deserts and poverty. Nearly one in three children in these areas live in poverty, and almost two in three children in rural Ohio lack access to quality child care services.

We cover an overview of the child care crisis in rural and Appalachian Ohio and how the Farm Bill proposes to invest in child care infrastructure. 

Groundwork Ohio's Early Childhood Dashboard is a data-driven resource providing updated insights into the well-being of Ohio’s youngest children and their families. Building on the 2023 Dashboard, this edition highlights persistent and growing needs despite recent investments and calls for bold, scalable solutions that respond to the needs of parents. Groundwork Ohio was joined by the data team from Health Policy Institute of Ohio to analyze the data in a panel discussion.  

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Despite efforts to improve outcomes for young children, Ohio is not making progress at the scale needed. We must ask: What can Ohio do differently? The answer is clear—invest boldly in proven solutions and listen to parents to drive meaningful change. The 2025 Early Childhood Dashboard serves as a call to action to implement bold, parent-driven policies that will create lasting change for young children and their families.

Paid Family Leave holds transformative potential for improving health outcomes, reducing inequities, and fostering economic stability for families across our state. Over the past year, Groundwork Ohio has led a statewide initiative to better understand the opportunities and challenges of implementing Paid Family Leave in Ohio. Our newly released report, A Year in Review: Exploring Paid Family Leave outlines recent findings and serves as a roadmap for policymakers, advocates, and stakeholders to take bold, informed action. We were honored to hear from national expert Molly Weston Williamson, Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress, who addressed key questions about the benefits, challenges, and equity considerations tied to Paid Family Leave.

We explored the importance of creating and maintaining high-quality early learning environments and how they support children's growth and development. We discussed Quality Rating and Improvement Systems (QRIS), Ohio’s new revised Step Up to Quality program, defining and implementing quality standards, and the benefits of high-quality care for children across diverse populations.

Housing insecurity can have profound effects on the development of young children. But what are the root causes of housing instability? And how do we ensure families have access to stable housing?

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Groundwork Ohio is excited to announce our partnership with the RAPID Survey Project, a national initiative focused on understanding the needs of children under six and their caregivers. In this webinar, we will review the results of the Family Voices Project, highlighting key insights and discussing their implications for state policy and advocacy efforts. 

Join us to learn how you can participate in our Roadshow Listening Tour series this spring and how you can take part in advocacy in your own community. You'll learn how to engage your policymakers, both digitally and in-person, right their own backyards. We’ll also talk about how these grassroots efforts translate into changes at the Statehouse.

Dental health during pregnancy and among young children is a significant unmet need in Ohio, especially for people living in low-income families. While it is too often forgotten when considering prenatal and early childhood health, our panelists are joining us to elevate and increase understanding of the issue during National Children's Dental Health Month.

Join Debbie Gingrich, LISW-S Chief Program Officer, and Ashley Glass, MPH, BSN Maternal Mental Health Program Manager, with Best Point Behavioral Health for a training that was developed from data and information from a grant funded by Bi3.

Best Point Behavioral Health hosted listening sessions, focus groups, and individual interviews to understand the experience Black Mothers have in navigating their mental health both during and after pregnancy.

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