Episode: KIDS COUNT 2021 with Christine Tiddens

This week, Idaho Voices for Children director Christine Tiddens joins Melissa Davlin to talk about the new KIDS COUNT Data Book, an annual report that examines child wellbeing state by state. This year's edition explores how families with children fared during the pandemic and broader trends since the Great Recession. "What we've seen is that the number of Idahoans struggling to get by has really sharply increased, due to a variety of factors including the pandemic's really far reaching health and economic impacts," Tiddens said. Davlin and Tiddens discuss the report, with wide-ranging data from educational outcomes and poverty rates to health insurance coverage and teen pregnancy rates, and the economic picture it paints for Idaho families. Tiddens also describes her organization's state and federal policy priorities, and what she thinks can be done to address trends that began long before the pandemic.