First Focus on Children and over 90 organizations sent a follow-up to this September 15th letter to urge HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra to quickly establish a children’s interagency coordinating council housed in the Office of the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. This letter also includes recommendations for steps that the council can take to ensure its efforts on behalf of children are cross-cutting and far-reaching.

Excerpt from the letter:

The reverberations of the pandemic continue for our nation’s children. From an escalating mental health crisis among children and adolescents to widespread learning loss among students to the disproportionate impact of inflation and supply chain issues for households with children in affording and locating basic necessities. These problems are multi-faceted, and solutions to them require cross-collaboration among decision makers.

Read the full letter.