At Michigan’s Children, we believe that racial and ethnic disparities must be reduced so that all children have equal opportunities to thrive. We work with policymakers, advocacy partners, community leaders, and parents to advance public policies and programs to eliminate racial and ethnic disparities in child wellbeing. In 2011, Michigan’s Children’s priorities in reducing racial disparities will focus on the following areas:

• Increase access to health services that result in healthy mothers and children.

• Increase access to home visiting and family support programs for low-income children and children and families of color.

• Increase access to high quality child care and preschool programs, which have proven to reduce racial gaps in educational achievement.

• Support multiple pathways to graduation, including alternative and community education options and partnerships between community college and workforce development agencies.

• Provide incentives for schools to establish effective discipline alternatives and support truancy prevention and credit recovery initiatives that utilize strong community partners.

As a part of the Race Matters project, Michigan’s Children seeks to not just draw attention to these inequities in outcomes, but also offer solutions to policymakers and members of the community as to how these disparities can be addressed and how not addressing them will hurt Michigan’s economic future. This will be done through engaging people who are disproportionally impacted by laws and policies in the policymaking process by increasing civic engagement. We will also work with policymakers to clearly display how the policies they pass will serve to either increase or help alleviate racial and economic disparities and why it’s important for them to be aware of these issues in policymaking.