Stabilizing Children's Lives: Insights for Research and Action

Instability can threaten some of the most basic things children need to flourish: a sense of security in the world, strong relationships with loving adults, a stable environment, and stable access to resources such as food, housing, education, and health care. Research across a range of domains suggests that instability in children’s lives undercuts many of the foundations necessary for children to achieve their full potential and limits upward mobility for their families.  As a result, instability threatens societal goals to support children’s well-being and long-term success, as well as progress toward a more equitable society.

Though it appears simple, instability is a complex issue to address. It can occur in many different dimensions of a child’s life, affect their healthy development through several pathways, and be triggered or ameliorated by many interconnected aspects of their life. As a result, children’s vulnerability to instability depends largely on their ability to access a complex web of personal, familial, social, community, private (including employers), and public supports. This web is, in turn, likely shaped by characteristics of child and family, by the community context in which they live, and by larger systemic factors.

Despite the threat posed by instability, there has been—until recently—relatively little sustained focus on what needs to be done to stabilize children’s lives. Awareness of the importance of stability for children’s healthy development has emerged separately and unevenly across different policy areas (e.g., employment, housing, education, child care, nutrition, and health), across different areas of research (e.g., toxic stress, family economic security, child development, and residential patterns), and from different perspectives and sectors (e.g., federal, state, and local policymakers, researchers, and local service providers). Varying levels of information are available on instability within these domains, and little attention has been paid to the pervasive and interconnected nature of the issue, to possible cross-cutting policy strategies and solutions, or to bringing together these disparate perspectives to identify effective strategies.

In 2015, the Urban Institute received a research planning grant designed to assess what information is needed to support changes in policy and practice to help foster stability and ameliorate the consequences of instability for children’s development. Using a combination of interviews with leading experts and a quick literature review, a team of senior researchers conducted a scan of what information and research was needed to inform action within and across key domains. These domains include parents and primary caregivers, social and community networks, caring institutions (e.g., child care, early education, and schools), employment, income and assets, key resources (e.g., health, housing, and food), and the public safety net. We also assessed what we need to learn about how instability shapes children’s well-being and interviewed community practitioners for their perspectives on what research is needed.

This paper presents the key findings and insights from this research grant. It describes what we know about some of those questions and what information is still needed to help families, communities, and public institutions stabilize children’s lives and promote their healthy development.