On the Road to Universal Children's Health Coverage: An Update on the KidsWell Campaign

Recognizing the Affordable Care Act as a crucial opportunity to close the children’s insurance coverage gap, the Atlantic Philanthropies created the KidsWell Campaign to try to achieve universal children’s health care coverage and support an enduring infrastructure that would remain after Atlantic’s funding ended. This report presents descriptive, interim findings on two evaluation research questions: (1) to what extent has state grantees’ participation in KidsWell strengthened advocacy networks and capacities so far? and (2) which advocacy activities do grantees believe to be most effective in securing policy advances for children’s health care coverage? Evaluators find that participation in KidsWell has strengthened state grantee networks and capacities; most grantees report that KidsWell resources helped grantees develop effective advocacy campaigns by strengthening partnerships within states. Grantees believe coalition-building and direct contact with elected officials to be the most effective activities they undertook.