CDF's Southern Regional Office opened in Jackson, Mississippi in January 1995 and works in the states of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, and Mississippi. The Children's Defense Fund grew out of the civil rights movement in these southern states, where slavery, segregation, and poverty have diminished the opportunities for generations of children and call for a special effort to put right.

Today, Mississippi ranks 50^th among states in many measures of child welfare, per pupil expenditures, percentage of children who are poor, percentage of babies born at low birth weight and infant mortality with many of the other southern states not far behind.

Since 1995, CDF/SRO has:

• Secured resources to open a New Orleans office in November 2005, following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, to work with affected families and children.
• Launched Mississippi and Arkansas Cradle to Prison Pipeline ^® campaigns.

• Built a network of religious and community organizations, children's advocates, youth leaders and public officials across the South.
• Worked with black caucuses in southern states on their states' legislation to implement the new national welfare reform law the Personal Responsibility Act of 1996 - in ways that were more supportive and less punitive to families.
• Did the same in 1999 when states were implementing their block grants for welfare funds coming from the federal government.
• Helped formed a network of child care providers who serve low income working families. This group, the Mississippi Low Income Child Care Initiative, is actively involved in making better quality child care more accessible to Mississippi's poor children.
• Helped develop state-based Children's Health Insurance Programs in southern states following the passage of the federal Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP). CDF and its partners increased the number of Mississippi children enrolled in CHIP from less than 700 to more than 60,000 in four years. This CHIP outreach effort also produced a surge in the number of children enrolled in Medicaid.
• Worked with legislative leaders and other community partners to ensure that the Mississippi Adequate Education Program is fully funded and to secure additional funding for the state's "at risk" students.