LANSING – Michigan’s Children will celebrate exemplary community, legislative and judicial accomplishment on behalf of children at the Twelfth Annual Much Ado About Something Wonderful on Tuesday, November 29, 2011 from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at the Country Club of Lansing.

Each year, this special recognition benefit brings together the governmental affairs community and elected officials who help us achieve our vision of making Michigan the best state in America to be a child.

LANSING – New Census data to be released this week showing rising child poverty in 2010 should sound an urgent alarm for Congress and Michigan’s Legislature to act now to invest wisely in kids who need the most help.

Thursday’s coming release of the American Community Survey follows last week’s Current Population Survey, and will offer more definitive data on specific demographics. All indicators raise expectations that the data will shine a beacon on the increasing struggles our children faced last year and the perilous position in which government cuts are placing our most vulnerable youngsters whose health, education, safety and very futures depend on decisions being made right now.

GRAND RAPIDS, MI – An independent evaluation of an innovative approach to children’s health care in west Michigan has found the program is succeeding in significantly reducing the number of expensive emergency room visits and hospital admissions while improving kids’ health.

Since launching in 2008, the Kent County Children Healthcare Access Program (CHAP) has cut the number of ER visits 14 percent at participating health care providers, and inpatient hospital admissions are down 12 percent. The decreases are even more significant among children with the most significant needs: a 35 percent drop in ER use and 62 percent drop in hospitalizations. Additionally, there was a 40 percent increase in families with a specific plan to manage their child’s asthma – the most common chronic children’s disease and one of the leading causes of hospitalization.