The RAPID Survey Project and First Steps Kent have partnered to listen to Kent County’s families with young children about their experiences, the support they need, and what’s going well.

When the COVID-19 pandemic began to take hold in the U.S. in March 2020, Congress temporarily boosted several social support services, including Medicaid (Medi-Cal in California) and SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as CalFresh in California).

This fact sheet summarizes the rates of overall material hardship, housing related hardship, and hunger, set alongside the timeline of federal policies designed to reduce hardship during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In this fact sheet, we summarize ongoing trends in key domains associated with the well-being of those who provide child care to children in the U.S.

This fact sheet summarizes what providers have shared about the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) relief funds and what they expect the impacts to their program may be when the funds are no longer available.

This fact sheet summarizes the rates of overall material hardship, housing related hardship, and hunger, set alongside the timeline of federal policies designed to reduce hardship during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The RAPID-California Voices Project is shining a light on how parents and caregivers are faring in the Golden State. In this first fact sheet, we focus on the data we have gathered so far on parents’ experiences of material hardship, their well-being, and awareness and likelihood of using the state’s new transitional kindergarten program.

Our policies reinforce parents’ lack of resources during early childhood, instead of counteracting it during this critical period. Let’s do more to support families.

From April through November of 2022, the RAPID survey included questions designed to help us understand how extreme weather and other effects of climate change are impacting families with young children, as well as to what extent families are engaging in behaviors that promote sustainability and enjoyment of nature.

In December 2022 the rate of material hardship reached its highest level since we began collecting data. Since July 2022, the data also show an increase in the number of RAPID households reporting hardship in two, three, and even four categories of basic need.

This fact sheet outlines our findings about child care providers, their goals for homeownership, and barriers to affordable housing.

We asked parents to answer open-ended questions about the things they look at to know how well their children are doing, the supports and services they rely on, and what their long-term goals are for their children.

While progress has been considerable, the pressing problem of child poverty has not been resolved.

We invited parents to tell us: What is helping you and your family the most right now? Clear patterns emerged in their answers, though the factors that families found helpful varied considerably across income levels.

During 2022 we have seen nationwide increases in the costs of basic essentials. For families with young children, steep increases in the cost of baby items have been especially challenging.

Explore the most commonly occurring themes around pandemic challenges that have emerged from our past fact sheets and examine how these themes vary in different demographic groups.

The pandemic continues to cause disproportionate numbers of women to leave the workforce. Here's what women in our survey are currently saying about work and how their situations have changed over the past year.

Families of children with special needs have continued to experience more material hardship, hunger, and emotional distress compared to those who do not have children with special needs. In December 2020, we published a blog post that summarized the challenges that families of children with special needs have faced during the COVID-19 pandemic. This factsheet reveals the disparities and unique challenges since then.

The topics and trends that RAPID has followed for the past two years provide a living record of the pandemic. However, these issues didn’t begin in 2020 and the challenges will remain in the lives of our survey families well after the pandemic has faded into history.

Economic hardship within the early childhood workforce is compounded by low wages and significant debt, including student debt.