Children and Families Initiative

Children and Families Initiative is sponsored by The David and Lucile Packard Foundation. The David and Lucile Packard Foundation supports partners working to ensure that health care, child care, and financial support systems serving moms, expectant parents, and families with young children are better connected, easier to access, and better equipped to meet diverse family needs.

The initiative funds nationally, with focused investments in California, Louisiana, and Mississippi.

Children and Families Initiative • The David and Lucile Packard Foundation You might be looking for: Children and Families Initiative We work to ensure moms, expectant parents, and children have the support they need to be healthy and thrive. The early years of a child’s life set the foundation for a lifetime of health, learning, and well-being. But for many parents in the U.S., that healthy start is frustratingly out of reach.

While there are programs and services designed to help expectant parents, families, and children, they can be disconnected, confusing, and difficult to navigate, leaving families to create a patchwork of support to meet basic needs like prenatal health care or affordable child care.

Through our Children and Families initiative, we support partners working to ensure that the health care, child care, and financial supports systems that serve moms, expectant parents, and families with young children are better connected, easier to access, and better equipped to meet the diverse needs of families. Our goal is to improve these systems for all families.

Our starting point is focusing efforts to mitigate the current maternal and child health crisis for the communities most impacted: In the U.S., Black women are nearly three times more likely and Indigenous women two times more likely to die as a result of pregnancy compared with White women. Black and Indigenous babies have double the risk of infant mortality as do White babies.

Latino children are two times more likely and Indigenous children three times more likely than White children to be uninsured, preventing many families from accessing essential care. Building a future where all c hildren and families can thrive means addressing these urgent and unequal outcomes and barriers to care.

We make grants that invest in community-driven innovative solutions, support visionary leaders working within these systems, and champion policies that benefit families and young children. The Children and Families initiative funds nationally, with focused investments in California, Louisiana, and Mississippi.

Children and Families Initiative Overview Center for Community Change State of California Department of Health Care Services The Children’s Partnership New Partnership Connects Health Care and Child Care for Oakland’s Expecting Families The weeks before a baby arrives can be filled with one long checklist of questions for mothers and caregivers. What doctors do I need to meet...

Packard Foundation Names Ruth Levine Vice President of Families and Communities Maternal and Child Health Landscape: A Three-County Study in California “If You Could Wave a Magic Wand…” Parents on How Systems Can Work for Families The Mississippi Clinic Providing So Much More Than Healthcare How a New Orleans Play Space Helps Families Flourish What It Really Takes for Families to Thrive