They're Hiding the Harm to Children - Here's How We Track it Anyway
Trusk is gutting programs that protect children and dismantling data systems that could track the harm. We must make sure the truth is seen. Here’s how we track what they want to hide.
Substack subscribers: Today I’m cross-posting another piece from my LinkedIn newsletter, Progressive Strategy Now.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was just confirmed as Secretary of Health and Human Services. The same week, the CDC’s Epidemic Intelligence Service was dismantled, the Institute for Education Sciences was shut down, and the administration continued purging public health data from federal websites. This isn’t just a war on policy—it’s a war on truth itself.
We are watching the systematic gutting of programs and services that protect children, alongside the deliberate erasure of data that could track the harm.
This erasure is no accident. Without data showing rising hunger when school meals are cut, spikes in preventable illness when clinics close, or increased suffering when developmental disability support services vanish, there’s no way to prove harm is occurring. Without proof, there’s no accountability. Without accountability, there’s no pressure for change.
From school cafeterias to clinics, from community centers to disability services, the effects will ripple through our neighborhoods. They may control the official databases, but they cannot stop us from tracking the harm ourselves.
We must respond. That response must start with independent tracking of the consequences of these policy changes. As the Trusk administration shuts down data collection and removes transparency, a diverse collective of institutions—universities, nonprofits, foundations, businesses, hospitals, community groups—must step up to document the harm.
Because if we don’t measure it, we can’t prove it. And if we can’t prove it, we can’t fight it.
Together - parents, teachers, healthcare workers, community advocates, business owners, social workers, and local leaders - we can build networks to track and expose the truth. Let me outline some features of what an effective response strategy might include, and invite your thoughts on how we strengthen this approach.
Key Warning Signals: What We Need to Track
As health, education, and social support systems crumble under assaults, we need reliable, community-level indicators that reveal the true impact on children’s well-being. These aren’t just numbers—they are early warning signals that reveal systemic failures before they spiral out of control.
The list below represents a small subset of the most urgent, widespread, and well-documented consequences of policies like those being implemented now. I’ve selected these based on past evidence from similar program cuts and disruptions—what we know happens when safety nets are dismantled:
Preventable emergency room visits surge as families lose access to routine care.
Infant and child death rates increase as access to insurance and basic care declines.
School attendance drops as more children stay home due to untreated illness, hunger, or family instability.
Mental health crisis calls increase as school counselors and crisis intervention programs disappear.
Food bank demand spikes when nutrition programs like school meals, WIC, and SNAP are slashed.
People with autism and related developmental disabilities lose vital community based supports.
Crowdfunding campaigns for medical bills surge as families turn to sites like GoFundMe to cover essential care and mounting medical debt.
The greatest danger isn’t just in the loss of any single program—it’s in the compounding way multiple system failures reinforce each other, leaving no part of a child’s life untouched. A child who loses Medicaid because of eligibility restrictions isn’t just uninsured; they’re also at greater risk of hunger if their family relies on SNAP, more likely to miss school if attendance enforcement tightens, and more vulnerable to long-term harm if mental health services disappear. And as public health, education, and social support systems are simultaneously gutted, families will find that everywhere they turn for help—local clinics, food banks, and school-based programs—those services are also disappearing. Every fallback is vanishing at once.
This is just a starting point for ideation:
What warning signs are you seeing in your community?
What metrics could help us understand systemic change?
How do we quickly build resilient networks to collect and connect these signals?
Building Networks that Last
This work won't just be difficult—it will be attacked. If independent tracking efforts are undermined or attacked, our networks must be built to withstand pressure and persist. This means designing for survival as much as effectiveness.
Decentralized but Connected
No single point of failure can be allowed to collapse the entire effort. We need multiple, overlapping networks of observers and documenters. When one channel is blocked, others must remain open.
Simple but Systematic
Our tracking methods must be straightforward enough for widespread adoption, yet rigorous enough to withstand scrutiny. This means clear, consistent ways to document what we're seeing, verify patterns, and share findings. It means building channels for cross-checking and validation without creating bureaucracy that could become a target.
Protected through Distribution
The safest place for truth is everywhere. Rather than centralizing data collection, we need dispersed networks of observers, record-keepers, and data repositories. When documentation lives in multiple places—schools, clinics, community centers, research institutions—it becomes much harder to erase.
Local Action, Networked Impact
Local efforts gain power when they are connected. A surge in child hunger in one city can be dismissed as an isolated case—but when we see the same pattern in ten cities, it becomes undeniable. Individual stories are easy to ignore. Connected patterns are impossible to deny.
These design principles raise crucial questions we must answer together:
How do we stay connected without creating single points of failure?
How do we track and verify data in ways that hold up under scrutiny?
How do we shield the people documenting the harm?
How do we ensure the right people see this data before it's too late?
From Warning Signs to Action
Data alone doesn't create change. If no one listens, if no action follows, the truth gets buried. Monitoring networks are only as powerful as the pathways that turn evidence into pressure, accountability, and protection for vulnerable communities.
Consider how evidence of harm moves through existing channels:
Healthcare providers flag concerning trends to professional associations.
School districts share enrollment and attendance data with state oversight boards.
Community organizations report program impacts to foundation funders.
Research institutions publish findings that shape policy debates.
When official channels fail, the work doesn't stop—it shifts. We've seen it before:
Communities created independent health registries when environmental hazards were ignored.
Food banks tracked rising hunger when official poverty metrics failed to reflect reality.
Parents tracked school cutbacks when districts buried the numbers.
This isn't just about collecting data—it's about making sure it reaches the right people at the right time. Local media need reliable sources who can help them expose harm. Legal advocates need documented trends that build strong cases against harmful policies. Policymakers need clear evidence to protect or restore programs before damage deepens.
Most importantly, communities and voters need ways to see and understand what's happening to their children. When official sources go dark, people deserve to know:
How many children are being harmed?
Which programs are most at risk?
What warning signs suggest bigger problems ahead?
How do local patterns connect to systemic changes?
Again, these aren't prescriptions—they're starting points for discussion.
Standing Together
The framework outlined here isn't a finished blueprint—it's an invitation to collective ideation and strategic action. Each community will need to adapt these principles to local realities. Each network will develop its own ways of tracking and sharing what it sees. What matters is that we start building these connections now, before more evidence of harm vanishes.
The time to act is now:
Already, official data sources are going dark.
Already, programs are being eliminated.
Already, the seeds of harm are being sown.
Already, the infrastructure for tracking harm is being dismantled.
Imagine it’s 2026 - what kinds of evidence about child health will we want voters to be aware of, evidence the current administration will likely try to bury? What kinds of lean, resilient evidence collection processes can we establish quickly?
We must not let the truth vanish. They are dismantling the systems that track the harm they are causing. We must build new ones.
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If this post resonates with you, let’s connect. Start by reaching out to your peers and neighbors—those who see the same changes you do. Talk to school staff, healthcare workers, food pantry coordinators, and community leaders. Compare notes. Begin documenting. Strength is in numbers, and no one should carry this burden alone.
And if you’re looking for others who are committed to this work, I want to hear from you. I’m building a network of people who refuse to let harm go unmeasured and unseen. Whether you’re tracking data, organizing locally, or just starting to figure out how to help, let’s get connected.
💡Message me here or by filling out the contact form on my website www.ptshattuck.com to be part of the growing conversation. Let’s start building the infrastructure for action—before more evidence disappears.
From Progressive Strategy Now, a publication of Paul T Shattuck LLC.
***The views expressed here reflect my personal analysis as a researcher and consultant, and do not represent the positions of any employer, clients, or affiliated organizations.