WARWICK – If my legs were behaving better, I had planned on attending the breakfast held on Monday morning, May 5, to celebrate the release of the 31^stannual Rhode Island KIDS COUNT Factbook.

For more than three decades, the Factbook has served as the best source of metrics to capture what is happening in the lives of children and families in Rhode Island, creating an invaluable Bible of data which currently tracks more than 70 trends on an annual basis.

In the past, ConvergenceRI has likened the annual breakfast ceremony to a Rite of Spring passage, a rollicking revival meeting that brings together a congregation of believers, with eloquent speakers sharing crucial policy messaging as well as schoolchildren performing heartfelt songs of hope about their future.

The call-and-response chant coming out of these breakfast celebrations might have been: This is what community looks like. [See link below to ConvergenceRI story, “Do kids count?” which shared a comprehensive narrative from a decade of reporting.]

The facts are incontrovertible: Despite efforts to discredit diversity and equity and inclusion by so many at the national level, the stark reality is that the demographic trends in Rhode Island are shifting our landscape dramatically.

•    We will soon be a minority majority state, with 47 percent of all children under age 18 identified as “People of Color,” compared to 28 percent of adults, according to 2020 Census data. In just five years, by 2030, that demographic shift promises to become the new reality. [That change is occurring despite a falling birth rate in the state, with the number of children under age 18 in Rhode Island registering a 6.3 percent drop between 2010 and 2020.]
•    Rhode Island also experienced the highest growth of Multilingual Learner [MLL] students in the nation between 2010 and 2020.

And, as identified by the 2025 Rhode Island KIDS COUNT Factbook, racial disparities in Rhode Island continue to plague all the outcomes tracked for maternal health, infant health, children’s homelessness, children’s mental health, dental health, childcare, and educational achievement.

In Rhode Island, racial and ethnic disparities also figure prominently in the metrics that measure median family incomes: for Latino families, it is $65,799, compared to $120,491 for White families.

This year’s Factbook also came with a stark warning: The future prosperity of Rhode Island is at risk, being threatened by proposed slashing of federal funding to numerous programs by the Trump administration that support the well-being of children and families. They include:

•      SNAP [Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program], which served 44,951 children and 99,993 adults in 2024.
•     Head Start, a federally funded comprehensive early childhood program, which had 1,438 children enrolled in October of 2024, up 3 percent from 2023 but down 36 percent from 2015.
•     RIte Care, Rhode Island’s Medicaid CHIP health insurance program, which had 117,890 children under age 19 enrolled as of December of 2024. Children with health insurance have fewer preventable hospitalizations than those who are uninsured.
•     Fully immunized children. In 2023, 78 percent of Rhode Island children by the age of 24 months were fully immunized, which is above the national average of 67 percent but down from 82 percent in 2013.
•     School meals. Universal School Meal programs provide free breakfast and/or lunch to all children, regardless of income. In Rhode Island, in December of 2024, 35,314 children participated in the school breakfast program and more thank half of all students – 75,933 – participated in the National School Lunch program.

“Diversity, equity, and inclusion are under attack from the federal government despite the persistent and unacceptable disparities in child well-being by race, ethnicity, income, disability, language, sexual orientation, gender identity, neighborhood, and ZIP code,” Paige Parks, executive director of Rhode Island KIDS COUNT, told ConvergenceRI following the event. “These disparities will continue to persist among children and families if equity and equitable policies and investments are removed and if federally collected data becomes less available. We must use data as our compass to address disparities and to ensure all children have the opportunities needed to thrive.”

The festive breakfast celebration held at the Crowne Plaza in Warwick featured many of the state’s top elected officials – including the entire Congressional delegation, Sens. Jack Reed and Sheldon Whitehouse, Reps. Gabe Amo and Seth Magaziner, newly elected Senate President Valarie Lawson and House Speaker Joseph Shekarchi, Gov. Dan McKee, Treasurer James DiOssa, and Secretary of State Greg Amore, among others.

In turn, the Rhode Island KIDS COUNT Factbook breakfast was sponsored by a bevy of philanthropic partners and corporate sponsors, including: The Rhode Island Foundation, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of RI, Delta Dental, United Healthcare Community Plan, the Bank of Newport, Amica Insurance, Hasbro, Inc., Neighborhood Health Plan of Rhode Island, the Papitto Opportunity Connection, Rhode Island Energy, and Tufts Health Plan. [Editor’ Note: The Rhode Island Foundation continues to make targeted investments to preserve the community’s safety net for children and families, while half of the corporate sponsors for the Factbook’s breakfast are health insurers.]

In turn, the breakfast attracted strong, comprehensive local media coverage. The questions are: How was the messaging heard and received by Rhode Islanders? How will the messaging and data analyses be turned into legislative action?

Taking action in the courts    
On the very same Monday afternoon that the Rhode Island KIDS COUNT 2025 Factbook was released, R.I. Attorney General Peter Neronha held a news conference to announce a new lawsuit in federal District Court in Providence to halt the dismantling of the federal Health and Human Services [HHS] under the Trump administration, the latest in a series of more than a dozen lawsuits being brought by a coalition of state attorneys general. Call it transforming words into action in the courts.

“American heroes, pregnant women, workers, those in need of mental health treatment, all left to fend for themselves by these reckless cuts,” Attorney General Neronha told the reporters who had gathered at the news conference. “This attack on HHS tells you everything you need to know about the priorities of this Administration, and they don’t include your health or that of your family.”

Among the speakers featured at the news conference were Paige Parks, the executive director of Rhode Island KIDS COUNT, along with Dr. Beth Cronin, the section chair of the Rhode Island chapter of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, Daniel Fitzgerald, director of Advocacy of the American Lung Association in Rhode Island, and Julian Drix from the Human Impact Partners.

In her remarks, Parks expanded on the findings released that morning in the 2025 KIDS COUNT Factbook. “This afternoon, my remarks are about Rhode Island’s children, the impact of dismantling HHS, any changes to federal funding, and what effect it would have on the important programs that many of our Rhode Island children depend upon,” Parks began.  “Decades of research have shown that high-quality preschool programs help children gain academic and social-emotional skills before school entry and can produce positive outcomes that last well into the school years, including reduced need for special education services and improved high school graduation rates.”

Parks continued: “Learning disparities appear early and grow over time without access to enriching early learning experiences. Participating in high-quality early learning programs from birth through kindergarten helps ensure children enter school with the skills needed to succeed. Without government funding and the support of HHS, children from low-income families and Black and Latino children will have less access to high-quality preschool compared to higher-income white families.”

Parks then spoke about the importance of Head Start programs. “Head Start programs deliver early education, dental, medical, and mental health supports, nutrition services, developmental screenings, and also help families by having them involved in program decision-making, helping to build parental skills, and supporting their entry and retention in the workforce.”

She then talked about the potential impact of federal cuts to the Head Start program in Rhode Island. “It’s also important to note that Head Start is integral to Rhode Island’s early learning system and the Rhode Island pre-K delivery system. Head Start agencies administer 40 percent of Rhode Island’s pre-K programs. If Head Start collapses, our early learning system becomes even more fragile. It’s like when you play the game of ‘Jenga’ and the stack is fragile. The last thing you want to do is pull out that block on the bottom because it is holding up so much. That’s what our Head Start programs are in Rhode Island.”

Parks then reiterated support for federal and state investments in Head Start. “Rhode Island KIDS COUNT supports federal and state investments in Head Start. Rhode Island is one of 14 states and Washington, D.C., that invests state funds into Head Start and Early Head Start to serve more children, support more competitive teacher salaries, and help programs meet their federally required 20 percent match.

In conclusion, Parks said: “We cannot lose this incredibly important program that not only helps to build the future of children and their families, but is critically important to all of our futures.”

The biggest threat is to Medicaid    
Last week, the Providence Community Health Centers announced that it was laying off some 70 workers, 10 percent of its workforce, due to low reimbursement rates. The community health center is the latest health provider in Rhode Island to be under financial strain.

In response, R.I. Attorney General Peter Neronha issued an alarm and a challenge: raise Medicaid rates, he urged the General Assembly. “[The] news about significant layoffs at Providence Community Health Centers is as alarming as it is unsurprising,” he said in a news release on Thursday.  “It’s quite simple really: our health care system will continue to collapse unless state leadership invests and raises Medicaid reimbursement rates to support the financial needs of Rhode Island health care practices,” he continued. “And, to be clear, this latest hit to our health care system could not have been predicted by quarterly financial reports. Providence Community Health Centers is a well-respected, critically important organization, and yet, they are struggling to survive; the latest victim in this state’s unwillingness to address reimbursement rates.”

Neronha criticized the state’s apparent inaction. “What’s infuriating is that we know what the problem is, and we know how to fix it, but instead, we are rolling out modest health care grants and commissioning more studies. Rhode Islanders deserve quality, affordable, and accessible health care, and state leadership is failing to deliver it.”

Neronha concluded with a warning to legislators. “I urge the General Assembly to support increases in the state budget for Medicaid reimbursement. It’s not too late yet. But it almost is.”