Human Services & Community Building Digest

According to the Center for Law and Social Policy, in this period of economic downturn, when our most vulnerable children and families need access to comprehensive supports, the message of this budget is simple and stark: children in low-income working families don't matter. The President proposes flat funding for child care that will cause 200,000 children to lose access to child care assistance by 2009. Instead of spending for the future through investments in young children, the Administration has proposed a budget that continues a pattern of disregard for the critical importance of our early childhood programs, ensuring a legacy that will not include support for the country's youngest and most vulnerable children.

http://webclipper.handsnet.org/2008/02/presidents-budg-1.php

President's Budget Not Enough for Children and Their Education

Statement of president of Public Education Network

"President Bush has talked tough in the past about holding our country's public schools and students accountable. His last proposed education budget appears to free him and his administration from any serious accountability for the state of our nation's public education system, which is remarkable, as such accountability was something that he and his party fought hard for in the early days of his administration. The 2009 budget includes what appears to be increases for the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), but are really just restorations of previous cuts.”

http://webclipper.handsnet.org/2008/02/presidents-budg.php

Education Department Says Budget Strengthens Nation's Commitment to No Child Left Behind

The Secretary of Education highlighted President Bush's historic support for No Child Left Behind (NCLB), and said, "This budget provides the necessary resources for critical programs that equip American students with the skills they need to compete and succeed in the knowledge-based economy." The Secretary made special mention of the budget request to restore funding for Reading First and to target resources to schools and students who need it most. All of these programs are essential to ensuring that our children not only have access to a rigorous education, but one suited for the global economy.

http://webclipper.handsnet.org/2008/02/presidents-budg-3.php

Housing Budget Devastating For Low-Income Rural Americans

Rural Americans would receive deplorably low levels of housing aid under the fiscal year 2009 budget released today by the Bush Administration, according to rural housing experts, and even a signature rental housing effort would be abandoned. "There is one bright spot in the funding proposal for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's rural housing programs," explained the executive director of the Housing Assistance Council. "The budget proposes about the right amount for rental assistance to low-income tenants, almost $1 billion. But it de-funds a number of essential programs, including the Administration's own recent efforts to save rental developments for very low-income tenants."

http://webclipper.handsnet.org/2008/02/housing-budget.php

2009 Bush Budget a Disaster for HIV/AIDS

Statement of HIVMA Executive Director

The President's proposed budget for fiscal year 2009, if enacted, would spell disaster for the nation's health, and by extension, our national effort to respond to the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the United States. The Administration's budget flat-funds critical federal support for research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), public health programs at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and vital health care safety net programs funded through the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) and the Medicaid program. After accounting for inflation, the budget proposal amounts to a cut in funding for HIV/AIDS research, prevention, care, and treatment.

http://webclipper.handsnet.org/2008/02/2009-bush-budge.php

**Children, Youth & Families

Close Ties between Parents and Babies Yield Benefits for Preschoolers

Having close ties with parents is obviously good for preschoolers, but what does that really mean? That's the finding of a new study conducted by researchers at the University of Iowa and published in the January/February 2008 issue of the journal Child Development. The study found that children who had developed a close, positive, reciprocal, and mutually responsive relationship with their mothers in the first two years of their lives did much better in two respects---responding to their mothers' requests not to do something and regulating their own behavior--than children who hadn't developed such ties.

http://webclipper.handsnet.org/2008/02/close-ties-betw.php

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A Reminder to Parents: Early Dental Visits Essential to Children's Health

February is National Children's Dental Health Month. It's sponsored each year by the American Dental Association (ADA) to raise awareness among families and policymakers about the critical importance to children of good practices of oral health. And for the sixth year in a row, the ADA opened the month with its national health outreach event, the ADA Give Kids A Smile campaign. Held this year on Feb. 1, Give Kids A Smile provided more than 51,000 dental professionals offering dental services to an estimated 500,000 underserved children at more than 2,000 sites nationwide, free of charge.

http://webclipper.handsnet.org/2008/02/a-reminder-to-p.php

Foster Youths' Views of Adoption and Permanency

This exploratory study from the Urban Institute conducted in Washington, D.C. and New York City, sought to examine foster youths' views of adoption, permanency, and adoption recruitment. Using data collected from focus groups with foster youth, ages 11 to 19, the study raised three important findings: foster care experiences influence youths' perceptions of adoption; youth have concerns and fears about adoption; and youth expect autonomy and want to feel empowered.

http://webclipper.handsnet.org/2008/02/foster-youths-v.php

**Civic Engagement

Declare Yourself Anticipates Record Youth Turnout for Super Tuesday Primaries

Declare Yourself, the national nonpartisan, nonprofit youth voter registration initiative, which has registered more than a quarter million young voters so far for the 2008 campaign, predicted record level participation by 18-to-29-year-old voters in the Feb. 5 "Super Tuesday" primaries, extending this year's historic youth voting trend and expanding young people's influence on the presidential campaign. Based on a new online survey and focus groups conducted by Declare Yourself, concerns about the economy are particularly driving young people to the polls.

http://webclipper.handsnet.org/2008/02/declare-yoursel.php

Older Americans Suffer Serious Access Limitations to Exercise their Right to Vote

The US Senate Special Committee on Aging held a hearing in Washington, DC, on older Americans and the significant barriers they face in exercising their right to vote. An associate professor of Medicine and Medical Ethics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and a member of Penn's Institute on Aging, testified before the Committee, citing results from a series of his studies examining voting rights for the elderly, recommends that to help break down the logistical and geographical voting barriers many older Americans face, the United States must develop a model for mobile polling.

http://webclipper.handsnet.org/2008/02/older-americans-1.php

**Community Development

Poor Neighborhoods' Influence on Parents May Raise Preschool Children's Risk of Problems

Children who live in poor neighborhoods may be at increased risk of verbal and behavioral problems. A new study suggests that for some of their parents, living in poor neighborhoods is associated with poorer mental health, poorer family relations, and less consistent and more punitive parenting. Conducted by researchers at the University of Ottawa, Johns Hopkins University, the University of British Columbia, and Statistics Canada, the study does not show that poverty leads to bad parenting, which in turn leads to poor outcomes in children, rather, this study shows that in neighborhoods where there is socioeconomic disadvantage, children's verbal and behavioral outcomes are influenced by poor parental mental health and parenting behaviors."

http://webclipper.handsnet.org/2008/02/poor-neighborho.php

Thousands of Floridian Homeowners Could Benefit from Government Mortgage Program

Thousands of Floridians are benefiting from a new government-backed mortgage refinancing resource, and many more can still be helped, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development. HUD's FHASecure product and other efforts put in place by the Bush Administration for homeowners who need helping staying in their homes. It is targeted to families with subprime loans who have good credit and payment histories who want to refinance into a safer loan.

http://webclipper.handsnet.org/2008/02/thousands-of-fl.php

Foreclosure Prevention Program in Chicago

Foreclosure does not have to be inevitable. That was the message from the Department of Housing and Urban Development on a visit to Chicago’s Tuley Park Field House where the city held a workshop to support, educate, and assist homeowners in need of help keeping their homes. The "Borrower Outreach Day" allowed homeowners to meet with lenders and housing counselors about their refinancing options, how to avoid foreclosure, and get their personal finances back in order.

http://webclipper.handsnet.org/2008/02/jackson-and-dal.php

**Economic Security

How Much Does the Federal Government Spend to Promote Economic Mobility? And for Whom?

This report from the Urban Institute tallies all federal spending and tax subsidies aimed at promoting the economic mobility of Americans for 1980, 2006, and 2012. This first effort at defining a mobility budget--$746 billion in 2006--reaches two major conclusions: poor and lower-income households owe little or no tax and so are excluded from the bulk of economic mobility programs, which are often delivered in the form of tax subsidies; and while these households do benefit from many other federal programs, those programs generally are not aimed at promoting mobility--and sometimes even discourage it.

http://webclipper.handsnet.org/2008/02/how-much-does-t.php

Video Contest of Young Voters Warns Against Danger of Growing Debt among Young Americans

A new contest for budding filmmakers focuses on the growing problem of "Debt Disease" among young Americans. The first-place winner of the "Keep It In Your Pants" contest - open to students 14 years of age and older enrolled in middle school, junior high, high school, college, or graduate school - will receive a $5,000 scholarship for school-related expenses. Some of the biggest banks in the country employ troubling practices that contribute to Americans - including students - going deeper and deeper into debt.

http://webclipper.handsnet.org/2008/02/student-video-c.php

Designing Subsidy Systems to Meet the Needs of Families

According to the Urban Institute, many state and local child care subsidy agencies have been redesigning their policies to better meet the needs of the families they serve, and to create more efficient and fiscally responsible systems. These strategies reflect states' growing understanding of the dynamic nature of low-income families' lives and of the challenges they face as they move toward stable employment.

http://webclipper.handsnet.org/2008/02/designing-subsi.php

Not-So-Super Tuesday for State Labor Markets

One sign of economic trouble is a rising unemployment rate. When the labor market weakens it hurts not just those who are out of work, but also suppresses pay levels for working people from the lowest-paid through middle-income families. To see how the 24 "Super Tuesday" states are faring over recent months in terms of unemployment rates, health care coverage, pension rates, and other important economic indicators, read the Economic Policy Institute’s new Issue Brief.

http://webclipper.handsnet.org/2008/02/notsosuper-tues.php

Recessionary Conditions Appear in the Job Market

According to the Economic Policy Institute, the number of jobs in the nation fell last month for the first time in almost five years, the clearest signal yet that the labor market is in a recession or teetering on the brink of one. Averaging over the past three months, the BLS's Establishment Survey showed that payrolls grew by a scant 42,000 jobs per month, compared to 169,000 a month over the comparable period one year ago. Excepting health care, most industries across the economy either shed jobs or grew considerably more slowly than in recent months.

http://webclipper.handsnet.org/2008/02/recessionary-co.php

**Education

USA Today Op-Ed Praises Opportunity NYC

USA Today published a column by Joyce King, "Bloomberg Incentive Chases King's Dream," on the Opportunity NYC demonstration, an initiative of Mayor Michael Bloomberg's Center for Economic Opportunity that involves new forms of temporary cash payments to poor families to boost their income in the short-term while building their capacity to avoid longer-term and second-generation poverty. One, called the Family Rewards program, is a comprehensive, two-generation strategy that focuses on children's education, family preventative health care, and parents' workforce efforts. A second, called Work Rewards, targets the workforce efforts of low-income adults living in subsidized housing.

http://webclipper.handsnet.org/2008/02/usa-today-oped.php

Good Parenting Helps Difficult Infants Perform as Well or Better in First Grade than Peers

Some infants are called difficult, challenging parents because they cry frequently, are very active, and may not adapt well to new situations or people. A study, from Indiana University, which followed infants from birth to first grade, found that first graders who were difficult as infants and whose mothers provided excellent parenting had as good or better grades, social skills, and relationships with teachers and peers as first graders who were less difficult as infants and had excellent parenting from their mothers.

http://webclipper.handsnet.org/2008/02/good-parenting.php

Friends' School Achievement Influences High School Girls' Interest in Math

Girls in high school take as many math courses as boys, influenced by close friends and peers who are doing well in school. More than boys, girls look to their close friends when they make important decisions, such as whether to take math and what math classes to take, confirming how significant peers are during adolescence. Those are the findings of a new study conducted by researchers at the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Pennsylvania, and Michigan State University.

http://webclipper.handsnet.org/2008/02/friends-school.php

**Health

The 2007 State of the Union Address: The President's Health Insurance Proposal Is Not a Solution

While it is encouraging that President Bush made health care a theme of last night's State of the Union address---an issue of great importance to the new Congress and to the public---his proposal to offer tax deductions to those who buy health insurance would do little to cover the nation's nearly 47 million uninsured. Although the Bush administration's plan would offer subsidies to people looking to buy insurance on the private market, it would fail to assist most of the uninsured. The Commonwealth Fund 2005 Biennial Health Insurance Survey found that one-fifth of people who had sought coverage in the individual health insurance market in the last three years were denied coverage because of health problems or were charged a higher premium.

http://webclipper.handsnet.org/2008/02/the-2007-state.php

The Role of Health Care Foundations

Private foundations are a very small piece of the action in the United States---their health care spending amounting to less than 0.5 percent of national health spending in 2006---yet Joel Fleishman's book The Foundation, reviewed by Lewis G. Sandy (Sep/Oct 07), demonstrates that this small group of institutions is often instrumental in improving society. Trenchant analyses like Fleishman's of foundations are rare but, as Sandy maintains in his review, it can promote better performance by a group of privileged institutions whose achievement record is far from uniformly high.

http://webclipper.handsnet.org/2008/02/john-craig-on-t.php

**Homelessness

Episcopal Community Services Breaks Ground on New 'Green' Permanent Supportive Housing Site

Episcopal Community Services (ECS) will hold an official groundbreaking ceremony to celebrate the agency's newest supportive housing site, Bishop Swing Community House. ECS is a leading nonprofit provider of shelter, housing and social services for homeless families and individuals in San Francisco. ECS is proud to announce that Bishop Swing Community House will be one of the first multi-unit projects serving formerly homeless people that will also be recognized as a green building by the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Homes Pilot Program.

http://webclipper.handsnet.org/2008/02/episcopal-commu.php

**Nonprofit Management

The Essentials of Representing Nonprofits and Foundations

A nine-week online seminar designed for attorneys, accountants and other professionals who represent tax-exempt organizations engaged in lobbying and election-related advocacy. Beginning February 20th, Alliance for Justice will conduct a weekly online seminar on tax, lobbying and election law for attorneys and accountants representing nonprofit organizations and foundations. Our attorney trainers will explain the elements of representing nonprofit organizations that lobby for legislation, support or oppose ballot measures, or become involved in candidate elections, as well as the rules of foundation support for advocacy.

http://webclipper.handsnet.org/2008/02/the-essentials.php

**Nutrition and Healthy Living

American Food: Still the Best Deal in the World

Although food prices rose 4.8% last year, eating nutritiously is still well within reach of the American family, according to the latest U.S. Department of Agriculture statistics. Analysis done by USDA's Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion indicates that families could, in fact, spend even less on food than what they currently spend and eat a healthier more nutritious diet. USDA's Low-Cost Food Plan shows what a family on a budget can spend on food and still achieve a nutritious diet that meets current Dietary Guidelines for Americans.

http://webclipper.handsnet.org/2008/02/american-food-s.php

**Seniors

Alliance for Children and Families Awards $75,000 in Grants to Member Agencies to Support Aging Services

The Alliance for Children and Families, a national membership association of nonprofit human service providers, has awarded a total of $75,000 in grants to 25 nonprofit member organizations interested in furthering their capacity to address aging issues. Each of the 25 agencies received a $3,000 mini-grant after going through a national, competitive process. The mini-grants are a component of the Alliance's New Age of Aging project, a five-year initiative designed to help prepare human service organizations throughout North America to best provide services for older adults as the vast baby boom generation ages.

http://webclipper.handsnet.org/2008/02/alliance-for-ch-1.php

Hand-held Computers Prod Older Adults to Exercise More

Today's younger generation may reckon that "ne'er the twain shall meet" where technology and their elders are concerned. However, ongoing research by Abby King, PhD, professor of health research and policy and of medicine at the Stanford Prevention Research Center, appears to be gradually dispelling that notion. In a study that appears in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, King showed that specially programmed or personal digital assistants, can prod middle-aged and older Americans - the most sedentary segment of the U.S. population - into increasing their physical activity levels.

http://webclipper.handsnet.org/2008/02/handheld-comput.php

**Substance Abuse

Acculturation in the Texas-Mexico Border Region: Effects on Drinking Differ by Gender

Immigrant groups that acculturate to mainstream America tend to have more alcohol-related problems. A new study from the University of Texas School of Public Health on drinking by Hispanics along the Texas-Mexico border shows that acculturation can have very different effects on men and women. Previous research has shown that immigrant groups that acculturate to mainstream American culture tend to have more alcohol-related problems.

http://webclipper.handsnet.org/2008/02/acculturation-i.php

Parental Drinking and Parenting Practices Influence Adolescent Drinking

Adolescence is a critical time of development on many different levels, but especially concerning the initiation and escalation of alcohol use. For example, the proportion of American adolescents who regularly drink alcohol roughly doubles during secondary-school years. New findings from Virginia Commonwealth University show that parental drinking both directly influences adolescent drinking, as well as indirectly through adolescent perceptions of parenting, especially monitoring and discipline received.

http://webclipper.handsnet.org/2008/02/parental-drinki.php

Human ServicesCommunity BuildingDigest

Human Services
Community Building
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