Beloved,
In the month since President Trump delivered his State of the Union address, commentators have continued to debate strategy, elections, and political wins and losses. Children’s Defense Fund is asking a different question. What do these choices mean for children?
Families are navigating rising costs, strained schools, and policies that too often treat children as afterthoughts. Recent reporting from ProPublica and policy analysis published in The Hill have raised concerns that proposed federal budget cuts could undermine childcare, education, and child protection systems that families depend on.
Political choices aim to intentionally sow fear in immigrant communities, threaten basic supports like nutrition assistance, and deepen inequities that young people already face daily. Our partners from the Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights and First Focus on Children have documented how these choices are shaping childhood in real time.
Our responsibility is more than observing or analyzing these realities. We must confront them.
CDF is grounded in a simple conviction: America must place children at the center of its policy conversation. When we fail to do so, the consequences are felt first and worst by those already pushed to the margins. But when we get it right, children and communities alike can flourish.
This moment demands clarity and courage.
Through research, public campaigns, and community training, Children’s Defense Fund helps strengthen child well-being systems and build a movement that refuses to accept child poverty, family separation, or neglect of our youngest neighbors as inevitable. We provide programs like CDF Freedom Schools® that help children grow up healthy, educated, and safe. We convene faith leaders and advocates to deepen strategy, strengthen relationships, and renew commitment to justice for children through the Hall-Proctor Institute for Child Advocacy Ministry. We track policy impact, support lawmakers, and amplify the voices of young people and families gathered at Executive Learning Sessions and through CDF programming across the country.
The question before us now is not only what leaders say about our future. It is what we—all of us—are willing to do to secure it.
So, we will keep organizing, advocating, and standing with young people and families in pursuit of a nation that truly values every child. I invite you to stay in this work with us.
For our children,
Rev. Dr. Starsky Wilson
President and CEO