2026 American Youth Policy Forum, Powered by CDF Wednesday Agenda

The American Youth Policy Forum convenes just days after the 2026 midterm elections — a moment when child advocates from across the country come together for the first time to make sense of what just happened. With critical congressional, gubernatorial, and local leadership races decided, the balance of power shaping child and family policy for the next two years is set. 

This opening plenary — building on the format and energy of AYPF’s 2024 post-election session — brings together leading experts in child wellbeing and advocacy to help participants move quickly from analysis to action. Moderated by Joy Reid, host of the Joy Reid Show, Panelists will unpack what the results mean for federal and state policy affecting America’s 73 million children, name the near-term risks and openings advocates should be watching, and offer a shared framework participants can carry into the rest of the convening — and back to their own organizing and policy work. 

Participants will leave with a clearer read on the political landscape ahead, a sense of where the child advocacy field has leverage, and concrete starting points for turning election-year uncertainty into strategy.

Speakers:

• Joy Reid (moderator), Joy Reid Show
• Sharon Parrott, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
• Bruce Lesley, First Focus on Children
• Rev. Dr. Starsky Wilson, DMin, Children’s Defense Fund
• Heidi Shierholz, PhD, Economic Policy Institute
• Rev. Leonard Burton, Center for the Study of Social Policy (CSSP)

At a time when children and youth face unprecedented stress, trauma, and isolation — and public mental health infrastructure faces unprecedented erosion through funding cuts and the removal of the experts who once guided it — this fireside chat asks what it takes to protect the whole child before crisis hits. 

Dr. Ramesh Raghavan will explore the idea of “social vaccines” — the relationships, community structures, and systemic supports that inoculate children against trauma the way clinical vaccines inoculate against disease. Drawing on his work on investing in children’s mental health, Raghavan will trace the throughline between public health infrastructure and children’s mental and behavioral wellness, asking what it takes — systemically, financially, and communally — to build healing systems young people can actually rely on. Together with Dr. Daniel Eisenberg, they will answer an essential question: “are the children well?” — and offer a working definition of what “well” could look like when public health, education, and mental health systems treat children’s dignity, hope, and joy as the starting point.