Welcome to the Missouri KIDS COUNT Corner. Missouri KIDS COUNT (MKC) is a program of the Family & Community Trust (FACT) sponsored by the Annie E. Casey Foundation (AECF). FACT has been the Missouri affiliate of AECF since 2015. The goals of KIDS COUNT are to facilitate child and family well-being by positively impacting conversations and collaborations regarding public policy at the state and local level. MKC connects state and local public institutions, the non-profit and volunteer sectors, direct service providers and clinicians, and the advocacy and faith communities to work together to ensure our children are safe and our families are strong.
The work of MKC happens via engagement and communications. Consistent with the AECF KIDS COUNT model, MKC releases an annual update on the well-being of Missouri’s children. This annual indicators report is organized around a set of twelve outcome indicators organized by the functional domains of family life, economic well-being, health, family & community, and education. The MKC outcome indicators are evidence-based and provide a strong ‘proxy’ value of not just the direct measure but are established predictors of overall well-being. Additionally, the annual MKC release includes contextual indicators organized by domain to provide current background and explanatory information.
First published in 1993, the MKC annual indicators are created and released by FACT in partnership with state agencies, non-profit partners, and analytical support from the University of Missouri. In addition to the MKC release, the AECF also produces a similar annual release that focuses on the well-being of children in the United States, the fifty states, as well as the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. The MKC annual release happens in early April in coordination with the FACT Community Partnerships’ Annual Day at the Capitol, while the AECF national release happens in early June.
This year, this feature of the FACT website will explore each outcome indicator by functional domain, explaining the background of the indicator, the relevant supporting research, trends in the indicator over time, and its intended proxy power.
