As a kid growing up in New York City’s Spanish Harlem, Ivette Rodriguez Stern never thought of her family as low-income. She wasn’t aware of the disparities until middle school, when field trips to museums took schoolchildren along tony Fifth Avenue.

“I thought I was the richest kid in the world. You always see people in a worse situation,” said Stern, project director for the Hawaii Kids Count, an annual status report on local youths that provides data on everything from teen birth rates to children living in poverty.

Stern, a junior specialist at the University of Hawaii’s Center on the Family, said her upbringing has helped shape her work, which focuses on gathering and interpreting data in order to promote policies that ultimately benefit Hawaii families and children.

The center and its community partners backed several legislative initiatives in the just-ended session, including a failed measure to implement an earned income tax credit for the working poor and a successful push to increase funding to help families pay for preschool tuition.

Growing up, Stern’s strong family unit and access to educational programs allowed her to overcome many of the obstacles that low-income youths face, she said.

“There were times when things were really hard, but I didn’t necessarily perceive it as hardship,” she said, noting the time her mother took down the curtains to sew a skirt she needed for a second-grade performance. “My parents didn’t have money to buy me a skirt for that performance. … That’s a real-life example of parents being consistent and staying positive.”

Stern, who lives in Manoa, earned a bachelor’s degree in sociology at Brandeis University in the Boston area, and later a master’s degree in social work at UH-Manoa. She has a daughter, 23, and a son, 17.

It’s often difficult to measure success of macro-level work, she said, but when “something that came out of the center was used to move policy forward or was used in testimony or gave some important stakeholders that ‘aha’ moment, … when you hear your work is being used, that is really, really satisfying.”

Question: Is there something in your childhood that led you to this field?

Answer: Growing up low-income and in a low-income community, going to school in the 1970s and 1980s, there was a lot of investment, especially in New York City, in public education. I benefited a lot from access to different kinds of programs. Even at a young age, even if I didn’t recognize it, I was experiencing and seeing how you climb out of hardship. There has always been that social-justice interest in me. … I always had an interest in the well-being of children and families and low-income issues and family financial security and all that tied into policy, the macro level.

Q: How has the UH Center on the Family changed over the years?

A: The center went from a very small center with our founding director, Sylvia Yuen, and at the time when I started, only one faculty and four project staff, myself included, … and then we kind of had this boom and grew in the 2000s. … We have about eight faculty now at the center and the variety of projects. … So we’ve evolved. Our mission continues to be to conduct interdisciplinary research and outreach education, which is working with the commun- ity to get the knowledge out there and to make it applicable.

Q: How long have you been involved with Kids Count?

A: I got this project in 2011 — a little bit over five years now. … Annie Casey Foundation funds a grant in each state and some territories, and then for the U.S. states they look at these indicators over time to monitor progress and to point where policy interventions may be needed. That’s kind of the point of it. At the state level here we also work with different state departments and look at their data to kind of tell the story here.

Q: A lot of it is census data?

A: Census data and national data sources like federal vital stats; for the educational indicators, national level tests that are conducted. That’s so that you can have that comparison from state to state and kind of monitor. We always say Hawaii is different. What this has allowed us to do is look at the states that are doing well or consistently ranked in the Top 5, the Top 10, and then to begin to ask, well, what are their policies?

Q: Which states consistently do well?

A: They are usually clustered around the Northeast. This year for the first time Minnesota came out (on top). Massachusetts, Connecticut. This researcher … looked at what are the policies there and what are the correlations. What you see is those are the states that are investing in the policies, specifically in education. For some of those states, in early care, preschool. They have good health care systems.

Q: What do you think prevents Hawaii from moving up in the ranks?

A: In the early 2000s we were always one of the higher-ranked states. Very broadly, there were probably greater investments, and then we had the Great Recession. There were a lot of cuts. We had Furlough Fridays. One of the first things we cut was teacher salaries, and kids weren’t going to school. That has an impact for years and years. We’ve had some slippage. That doesn’t mean we can’t go back to those investments. … It’s just a matter of public will in getting people once again, the constituency, knowledgeable about what the issues are.

Q: What were some of the significant findings in the latest Kids Count?

A: I always like to start with the good news. There was a slight improvement with teens graduating on time. The teen birth rate is an important one. There, that’s an example of (what happens) when you invest in programs. I emailed Judith Clark from the Hawaii Youth Services Network. Sure enough, there were funds that came down, and over the time period you see the teen birth rate go down. … Now we just have to make sure our young people have opportunities after high school. … We need to continue to create opportunities for young adults because we want to look at the life span.

The not-so-great news is what I’ve been talking about for the past several years. … Even though our child poverty rate is below the national average, each year we see more and more (in that category). Not only that, but we have one of the highest shares of children of living in households at what we call a high housing burden, where 30 percent of the income is going to housing, so that affects what families have left over for other things for kids that result in their well-being. We have more children living in what we call high-poverty areas. … And then we still have more children living in households where the parents lack secure, yearlong employment.

Q: One initiative you have mentioned is the earned-income tax credit to reduce the number of children who live in poverty.

A: There is no magic bullet and we have to come at it from all sides. … Under the family economic-security umbrella we had a bill introduced last legislative session. What we know about the earned income tax credit at the federal level is that it’s seen as one of the most effective anti-poverty strategies, and about half of the states have some form of state earned income tax credit. I think we’re one of 24 that doesn’t. … It’s not like a federal program. It’s their money and allowing them to keep their money. That boost in their annual income does go a long way. That could be one month of child care or paying off that debt or being able to pay for your young adult’s college books or even tuition at Leeward Community College. … Yes, it would cost the state revenue, but we’re talking about are we willing to make investments in our future?

Another policy in family economic security is some form of paid family leave. … There was a bill introduced last session, but now we have a resolution for a task force that’s going to be looking at it more seriously. … We do know there’s no mandate to allow for that and it really depends on where you work. You may be able to take time off, but it would be unpaid. And really, who can afford that? …

We know it’s a good thing for parents and children and it’s not only maternity (leave); it could be to care for any other family members. So many of our generation are taking care of our parents. Those health crises turn into financial crises. These are just ways to support our families and our children.

Q: Any other initiatives?

A: The one that I keep on bringing up is early care and education. Because that one is a no-brainer, the benefits of that. So there’s good news there. The Legislature invested more funds in the (Preschool) Open Doors program that provides subsidies for low-income families so that more can be served. Even though the constitutional amendment to use public funds for universal preschool programs didn’t pass, we now have a very limited pre-K program in the DOE schools. How do we expand this so that more low-income families are served? And it’s not just any care and education, but quality care and education. What kind of system does the state need to support?

We have partnered with the Hawaii Children’s Action Network, a leading advocacy organization for children … (to do an) assessment of the early learning needs in the state with the idea to then inform strategic expansion. … We kind of look at the data, conduct the research, develop the knowledge and partner with our community advocates to pass the baton. That’s an example of how it can work. Use data for strategic policy and programming.

Q: Do you think a lot of times we don’t do our homework?

A: I think we’re getting better at it. It’s a matter of access, and now knowledge is so easily accessed. We have a lot of legislators call us (to ask), what’s the data on this? I think we do do our homework. I think we could always be more strategic and more efficient and refer to the research more or refer to the knowledge that’s already out there. … It’s also important to educate the public so people can understand what the issues are.

It’s easy to say I don’t have young kids, it’s not my issue, why should I have my tax dollars pay? If you look at in the context of, well, their parents are your employees or coworkers. They are the ones who will be taking care of our economy later. You do want to make those investments and you do want a well-educated future workforce. …

Q: Let’s talk more about the jump in the number of children who live in poverty. It’s now 15 percent, up from 10 percent.

A: It’s statistically significant. … When you have that kind of poverty and financial strain earlier in life or for a long stretch of your childhood, it’s really complex. … We see that at the individual level, one of the things that can happen is you may not have the nutrition you need or the housing you need, so then it affects child and brain development. At the family level, you have stressed-out parents. That affects the parenting and the communication, and that has emotional and developmental implications.

At the community level, housing is an issue. … When it happens earlier in life, it can have a greater impact. … There are things that can be done to improve the outcomes.

Q: When you talk about things that can be done, you’re talking about the policies?

A: Research points to what can be done. It’s a matter of do we have the public will to invest in these programs. We know there’s no shortage of the things that can be done. But do we have that (will)? And I’m thinking, yeah, we do.