Children cannot vote. They have no lobby. And despite everything American parents say they want for their children, a coherent federal policy agenda for kids has never been built. Same Sky is building it.
Whether you are raising children in rural Appalachia, San Francisco, or Philadelphia — the data show that parents want the same things for their kids. That consensus is the foundation of everything we do.
"Same Sky builds consensus among parents and children to advance a federal policy agenda that expands opportunity for every child to thrive."
The divide in American politics is real. But it does not extend to our children.
Years of polling — in Tennessee, in Georgia, and nationally — has shown the same thing: parents across every background, geography, and political leaning want the same things for their kids. They want them fed, healthy, safe, and supported. They want their government to act.
Same Sky is the federal policy agenda that reflects that consensus. We are a national initiative housed at the Emory Center for Child Health Policy, and we believe that consensus this broad deserves a policy agenda to match it.
From rural Appalachia to urban Philadelphia, from red states to blue, these five areas emerge consistently when we ask parents what their children need most. These are not partisan positions. They are parental ones.
Hundreds of thousands of children are involved in the child welfare system — often failed by circumstance before the systems meant to protect them. Same Sky advances family preservation, evidence-based treatment for substance use in pregnancy, and stronger support for children when families cannot provide it.
Firearms are the leading cause of death among children and adolescents in the United States. Nationally, nearly 8 in 10 voters support candidates backing child safe storage laws — a majority that holds regardless of political leanings. Same Sky advances evidence-based child protection measures.
No parent should wonder whether their child will go to bed hungry. Nine in ten Tennessee parents and nine in ten Georgia parents support free school meals for all children. Same Sky advances and protects federal nutrition investments that reach families still left out.
Every child deserves access to quality healthcare — a value held deeply across every geography and political leaning we have measured. Same Sky advances federal policies ensuring every child, regardless of zip code or family income, can see a doctor when they need one.
The mental health crisis facing America's children has touched nearly every family, in every community, across every income level. Same Sky advances both treatment and prevention: expanding access to care, supporting school-based mental health services, and addressing the pressures shaping children's lives.
Same Sky is built on years of original polling — surveys of parents and children conducted annually from 2019 through 2024 in Tennessee, launched in Georgia in 2025, and now extended nationally. This is not borrowed evidence. It is ours, built from the ground up at the Emory Center for Child Health Policy. It is our history, and it tells a consistent story: parents across this country agree on what their children need.
Our annual poll of Tennessee parents, launched in 2019 and conducted every fall through 2024, established the core finding that drives Same Sky: parents across income, race, education, and political leaning share a remarkably consistent set of priorities for their children. Year after year, the same themes emerged — food, mental health, safety, access to care.
Food insecurity among Tennessee families climbed to over 40% by 2023. Anxiety diagnoses in children rose from 11% in 2019 to 17% by 2023. Child mental health ranked among the top concerns for parents statewide — and the concerns looked remarkably similar whether parents were in Memphis, Nashville, or rural East Tennessee.
When COVID-19 emerged in early 2020, we immediately fielded a nationally representative survey to document what families were experiencing in real time. The findings reached the highest levels of the federal government — our research was cited in the U.S. Surgeon General's 2021 Advisory on Protecting Youth Mental Health.
The pandemic accelerated what our Tennessee polling had already shown: mental health, food security, and healthcare access were not partisan issues. They were family issues, felt in every corner of the country.
A nationally representative survey of registered voters published in JAMA Health Forum in 2024 confirmed what our years of state-level polling had shown: majorities of Americans — across party, geography, income, and race — support a robust federal policy agenda for children.
After moving to the Emory Center for Child Health Policy, we launched annual polling in Georgia — and found the same story. Parents in Atlanta and Valdosta, in rural counties and suburban school districts, want the same things for their children.
Same Sky is the next step. Built on years of listening, it translates what parents across this country have told us into a specific, accountable federal policy agenda — one that can be advanced regardless of which party controls Congress or the White House, because the parents demanding it are everywhere.
Our first national Same Sky poll goes to field in spring 2026, with an intentional oversample of Appalachian communities and broad demographic coverage across income, race, education, geography, and political affiliation — so that the agenda reflects every child, not just those who make it into national averages.
Same Sky is not just a policy agenda. It is an accountability system. We track whether children's lives are actually improving — through three complementary data streams that together tell a complete story.
Every year we survey parents and children on the issues that matter most. Results feed directly into our public scorecard at samesky.org — tracking whether federal policy is moving in the direction families demand. When it isn't, we say so publicly.
We monitor key federal legislation and administrative actions across all five issue areas. Every policy change — or failure to act — is documented and scored against the agenda families have told us they want. Across administrations and election cycles.
We use electronic health record data to track key clinical indicators — mental health diagnoses, preventive care utilization, medication access, and birth outcomes — connecting policy change to real-world impact on children's health.
Indicators are selected based on reliable clinical capture. Measures not reliably documented in health records, such as food insecurity, are tracked through our annual survey.
A national average can hide the children who are being left furthest behind. Our survey is designed to see beneath the surface. We intentionally oversample Appalachian communities, ensuring their priorities are not lost in national averages. And we collect reliable estimates across the full range of demographics — income, education, race and ethnicity, geography, and political affiliation. If the national agenda is missing certain children, we will say so.
Same Sky begins with a clear statement of what we believe, who we are, how we work, and what we are building toward.
Whether you are a parent, a policymaker, a researcher, a faith leader, or an organization working to advance children's wellbeing — regardless of your political leanings — there is a place for you in Same Sky.
Organizations, coalitions, and funders interested in advancing a federal policy agenda for children are encouraged to reach out. info@samesky.org
For press inquiries, interview requests, or data questions, contact us at info@samesky.org
Researchers and policymakers interested in our evidence base or methodology are welcome to reach out. info@samesky.org