Who are America’s children and how can we help them all succeed? The United States is more ethnically diverse than ever before with the children of immigrants the fastest growing segment of the child population. The Foundation for Child Development’s New American Children (NAC) initiative aims to build a knowledge base about the well-being of young children living in low-income immigrant families, how best to nurture and educate our newest Americans, and how to connect research with sound policies and practices to improve their life prospects.
The children of immigrants experience some of the greatest hardships in America, including poverty, inadequate access to health care, crowded housing, and language barriers. The number of children living in immigrant families has increased dramatically since 1975. Now, one in five American children under the age of six are growing up in families with at least one foreign-born parent, and over half of them live in low-income families.
FCD provides fellowship support through its Changing Faces of America’s Children – Young Scholars Program (YSP) as the primary strategy of NAC. Launched in 2003, its goal is to stimulate research on the development of immigrant children from birth to age ten, particularly those living in low-income families, and to support and promote exceptional young scholars studying these issues.