Kentucky Youth Advocates and partners from across the Commonwealth on Wednesday released the Blueprint for Kentucky’s Children 2025 priority agenda. The Blueprint speaks with a common voice to create brighter futures for all Kentucky kids and their families.
The Blueprint for Kentucky’s Children is a coalition of non-profit, public, and private organizations that stands on three pillars: thriving communities launch strong families, strong families launch successful kids, and successful kids launch a prosperous future for Kentucky.
This year, the Blueprint’s policy priorities focus on various gaps and challenges in the lives of the Commonwealth’s children. The priorities are focused on keeping kids safer while they learn and socialize in digital spaces, protecting kids from the harmful effects of vaping, ensuring that children with special needs have access to high quality child care, promoting family housing stability, and more.
The 2025 Blueprint for Kentucky’s Children state policy priorities include:
• Reduce the risk of sexual abuse and exploitation and increase the safety of students by ensuring appropriate disclosures, checks, and training are complete for potential public and private school employees.
• Boost child safety and reduce online risk by increasing awareness of and ensuring appropriate responses to sexual extortion.
• Protect kids from the harmful effects of vaping by ensuring compliance with tobacco-21 law, including licensing retailers selling tobacco and nicotine products, conducting annual compliance checks, and penalizing those selling to kids.
• Ensure JUUL settlement dollars are used to address youth nicotine dependence, including cessation programming support and initiatives to reduce youth initiation.
• Support the development of young children with special needs by requiring training for child care providers on strategies to support children with disabilities and incentivize programs to serve children with disabilities through the Kentucky All STARS system.
• Exempt freestanding birth centers from certificate-of-need requirements to expand access to safe, equitable prenatal and delivery care.
• Uphold the basic legal rights of children by requiring minors to speak with a juvenile attorney before they waive their Miranda rights.
• Enact caregiver consideration legislation to expand the court’s options for alternative sentences to incarceration when the defendant is the primary caregiver to a dependent child.
• Promote family housing stability by sealing filings that do not result in an eviction and prohibit minors from being named on eviction filings.
• Place common sense standards around utility disconnections and create avenues for families to get reconnected quicker.
For more information on each of the priorities, view the 2025 Blueprint fact sheets at kyyouth.org/blueprintky.
“As we look ahead to the new year and legislative session, we are once again calling on the General Assembly and the Governor to put kids first in their decision making and policymaking. From family housing stability to child safety in schools and online to ending the youth vaping epidemic, all kids deserve safe, healthy, and thriving childhoods. Will our leaders, and will YOU, join us in helping make Kentucky the best place to be young?” urged Dr. Terry Brooks, executive director, Kentucky Youth Advocates.
Each year, Blueprint for Kentucky’s Children partners and advocates bring attention to Blueprint priorities in Frankfort at the annual Children’s Advocacy Day at the Capitol, which will be part of Children’s Advocacy Week March 3-7, 2025. Children’s Advocacy Day will take place on March 5th offering elected officials, child advocates, and young people themselves opportunities to connect and raise their voices for kids.
Learn more and sign up to receive updates on Children’s Advocacy Week at kyyouth.org.
Kentucky Youth Advocates