Colorado report shows mixed results for children's well-being

Data from this year’s report shows mixed results for the well-being of the state’s youth amid federal funding cuts and an ongoing pandemic rebound. The report found that overall child well-being in Colorado fell from 12th highest in the nation to 14th over the past year.

“Across all issue areas in this report, I'd say there's really two main themes that stood out,” said Maya Gould, vice president of research for Colorado Children's Campaign, a research and policy organization that published the Kids Count in Colorado! report.

“The first is access. A lot of kids in Colorado still aren't getting their basic needs met, and they're having difficulty accessing the services and support they need to get those needs met," Gould told The Center Square. "The second theme is that the access issue is worse for certain groups over others.”

Healthcare is a key area where children’s access is falling behind, according to the report, which found that 6% of kids are uninsured, up from 4% last year.

“But it went up the most among low-income kids,” said Gould. “In just one year, [among] kids who are experiencing poverty or living close to the poverty line, the uninsured rate rose to 10% – so it doubled. That's one-in-10 kids now who are low-income and who don't have health insurance in Colorado.”

Childcare accessibility is another issue the state has run up against, with only enough licensed childcare to cover 13% of infants in the state. 

“While we know that not all families are really looking for licensed care, what that shows us is that most families don't even have the option if they wanted to explore it,” said Gould.

The report also highlighted major education gaps that the state needed to address. One major indicator, third-grade reading and writing, found that 58% of Colorado third graders were not up to the standard. 

"There’s pretty big disparities by race, ethnicity, income and different student characteristics,” Gould said of the easing and writing metric. “And what that tells us is that we are not doing a good enough job, both inside and outside of the classroom, at getting these kids the services and the support they need to hit those milestones — because really most all kids are able to learn to read or able to learn to write. It’s just a question of are we getting them what they need to hit those milestones.”

Gould added that while the third-grade reading level was not a new trend, it was a focus of this year’s report to reverse an acceptance of low reading and writing levels. 

On the plus side, the report shows a decrease in chronic absenteeism, which is when a student misses 10% or more of the school year.

The absenteeism, which peaked around 33% during the pandemic, has fallen to 28% this year. 

Other recent gains by the state included a universal 15 hours-free preschool program created in 2022, and a sharp decline in teen suicide rates from 22.1 per 100,000 15 to 19-year-olds in 2020 to 14 in 2024, according to the report. The teen suicide rate is also lower than before the pandemic. 

“It’s really great and encouraging progress to see that not just suicide rates are going down, but also overall youth are reporting better mental health since the pandemic,” said Gould. 

One issue that’s been affecting a wide variety of child well-being issues is the recent cuts to federal programs, according to the Colorado Children’s Campaign. 

“Things at the federal level are constantly changing, and a lot of programs we talk about in this report have been threatened with cuts or different changes,” said Gould. “It’s really hard to predict the future about how it's truly going to affect kids in Colorado.”