THE CHILDREN’S AGENDA
ROCHESTER, NY
Larry Marx, chief executive officer at The Children’s Agenda, describes the organization as “a research shop.” For 20 years, The Children’s Agenda has been working to improve the lives of children by advancing effective, equitable policies, especially for families most impacted by poverty, racism, health inequities, and trauma.
The Children’s Agenda focuses on five main issues in an effort to better the lives of Rochester families: child poverty, childcare, early childhood developmental services for early intervention, preschool special education, and health issues, particularly Medicaid supports for mental health services for children as well as in-school health services. There are also a few other concerns the organization prioritizes, including exclusionary discipline being the default response for behavioral issues.
Last year, The Children’s Agenda produced 23 policy briefs, most of which were well covered by the media and well absorbed by policymakers. Working to create such large-scale change takes a motivated team. On top of their 15 person staff and the more than 5,000 members of their action network, The Children’s Agenda also has a base of 80 parent leaders who join them, armed with their fact sheets, as they head to Albany or school district meetings, ready to talk about their personal experience of the issues at hand. “We don’t do anything alone,” shares Marx. “We work in coalition all the time.”
“At a local level, we’re leaders in the Rochester-Monroe Anti-Poverty Initiative and at the state level, we are coleaders of the brilliantly titled New York Can End Child Poverty coalition.
We are either leading, or partnering in, up to 20 coalitions at any point in time, which is a tall order for our staff. Eamonn works both at the state level and heads up much of our city, county, and school district work in Rochester,” Marx explains, speaking of Eamonn Scanlon, director of community impact. “We’ve all figured out that the best way we can help, even if we’re only focused on Rochester’s children, is by using every lever available to us at the state level.”
Now that The Children’s Agenda is operating on the state level, they’ve been able to increase the number of people they’ve helped into the millions. That number was in the thousands when they first began at a local level. “We were instrumental in getting the state to expand the state child tax credit, which means an additional 1.6 million families now benefit,” adds Scanlon. “What’s really unique and rewarding about this work is that we conquer big problems and also small, the things that affect millions of kids, that affect all New York children. That’s why I love this work, because of how many kids we can impact.”
Both Scanlon and Marx feel that the one of the most inspiring parts of their work is the multiplier effect of empowering others to advocate for themselves. Much of The Children’s Agenda’s goal is to encourage people to get the services in their communities themselves. This is demonstrated most by the organization’s parent leaders, a group which refers to themselves as VIPs—Very Invested Parents.
“We did a press conference, in December 2023, where we had a parent poll of 600 parents in Monroe County talking about the crisis of economic hardship that’s hitting with inflation. One of our parent leaders, Christian Serrano, told a very personal and moving story about how as a single dad he struggles to gain access to childcare, and it was limiting his income. Afterwards our staff helped him access childcare assistance funding, funding that we have lobbied for years. And it’s changed his life,” Marx says.
“We’ve mobilized the public to talk to the governor. We’ve mobilized our parent leaders to talk to their legislators, and the school districts too. We are that connection repairer and that communication vehicle,” Scanlon explains. “Even more rewarding, beyond the policy wins, is the civic development engagement work that we do with parents and the community. There’s a particular parent leader that we’ve worked with for a number of years now, who is so deeply engaged in housing efforts, and she’s also done work with us federally on the Medicaid cuts and SNAP cuts, as well as school discipline, and she is so confident now speaking to legislators about the issues. Given the struggles she’s had in her life it’s remarkable to watch her empower folks to see the big picture, to engage with government. She is the embodiment of the other side of despair.”
The work and the hope that The Children’s Agenda brings to their community demonstrates that change is possible, even in the most difficult of times. The other side of despair isn’t simply joy, it’s trust in oneself, independence, strength, and most of all, it’s helping others.
5 Years Later
“There’s been a very slight snap back post-COVID, but not enough; the overall trajectory is still really bad. We’re still seeing a huge need for mental health supports for youth in schools and in the community more generally. 11% of girls on a local survey reported attempting suicide in the past year and 45% said basically that they were depressed. There are still kids dealing with the academic gap that they have. And even though crime is going down, and there are certainly a lot of things that are getting better, we have these huge unaddressed needs that did not go away, they are still very present and very big.”
—Eamonn Scanlon