Good morning! ☀️

And Happy Sunday! 172 years ago, on this date, suffragists held the first-ever National Women’s Rights Convention in Massachusetts. Durin the convention, Lucy Stone, one of the speakers, said “We want that [women] should attain to the development of her nature and womanhood; we want that when she dies, it may not be written on her gravestone that she was the [widow] of somebody.” The suffrage movement succeeded in their cause when the 19th amendment was ratified on August 18, 1920. It granted women the right to vote.

Question: What was the first institution of higher learning in the United States?

News

Universal Pre-K in New Mexico

New Mexico voters are set to vote a ballot measure that would make the state the “first in the country to guarantee a constitutional right to early childhood education”. In other words, constituents of the state will be voting on whether or not to make pre-kindergarten (pre-K) a universal right.

The measure would be funded by the state’s sovereign wealth fund, a “batch of money” that belongs to the state and which the state invests. The fund was originally created through the Land Grant Permanent Fund in 1912 and was financed by state oil and gas revenue, in addition to interest through investments.

Currently, the state requires 5 percent of the fund to be withdrawn annually and distributed to support schools, hoospitals, and universities. If the amendement passes, it would authorize an additional 1.25 percent annually for education, which translates to around $250 million.

Currently, only three states, Vermont, Oklahoma, and Florida, in addition to the District of Columbia, offer univesal Pre-K. There are many arguments for and against universal pre-K. Proponents point out that high-quality early childhood may reduce teen pregnancy, improve graduation rates, and reduce incarceration rates. On the other hand, detractors argue that the effects of pre-K are mixed and that the money should instead be spent on expanding other programs such as the federal child tax credit or direct subsidies for parents.

Other social work-related news

• Since licensed social worker Karla McDay founded Harmony House in 2014, she has been working to assist young adults experiencing homelessness in Summit County

• Millions of Americans will find out soon how much their health insurance premiums will increase next year — and eat into their paychecks

• Paying for mental health care is leaving families in debt and isolated. This is exacerbated by the difficulty of finding a mental health provider who accepts insurance

• Colorado, Florida, and Idaho will not participate in a key part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Youth Risk Behavior surveys that reach more than 80,000 students. Over the past 30 years, the state-level surveys, conducted anonymously during each odd-numbered year, have helped elucidate the mental health stressors and safety risks for high school students

Reads on research

• Children who were randomly placed out of institutional care and into well-supported foster care before the age of 3 had changes in areas of the brain that support higher-order problem-solving years later when the children were 16. In addition, children placed into high-quality foster care before 3 years old saw typical brain development from 9 to 16 years, in areas related to emotional reactivity, language and executive function, but this pattern was altered in children who were deprived of family care

Other reads on policy

• The government announced plans on Tuesday to award millions of dollars in grants to expand all-hours mental health and substance abuse care in more communities around the country

• The federal government is pumping millions more into an effort to expand the United States' network of community mental health centers

Tech, social work, and cool opportunities 😎

• Take a peek at the recent investments in behavioral health

• How Covid prompted Asian startups to use tech in revolutionizing mental health support

• Credentialing Manager at Equip, a company helping families recover from eating disorders

• Senior Manager at Carbon health

Answer: Harvard University