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Study
Shows Extending Care Past Age 18 May Benefit Foster Youth
The Midwest
Evaluation of the Adult Functioning of Former Foster Youth is a prospective
study following a sample of young people in Iowa, Wisconsin, and Illinois as they make the transition from
foster care to early adulthood. Data
from the Midwest Study suggest that allowing foster youth to remain in care
past age 18 increases their likelihood of attending college and their
likelihood of receiving independent living services after age 19.
http://webclipper.handsnet.org/2007/12/study-shows-ext.php
Kids
More Active When Playground has Balls, Jump Ropes
Children
play harder and longer when their child care centers provide portable play
equipment (like balls, hoola hoops, jump ropes and
riding toys), more opportunities for active play and physical activity training
and education for staff and students, according to a study published in the
January 2008 issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Researchers at the University of North Carolina School of Public Health examined
environmental factors that encourage children to be active with greater
intensity and for longer periods of time.
http://webclipper.handsnet.org/2007/12/kids-more-activ.php
AmeriCorps
Grant to Strengthen Local Goodwill Family Support Programs
The
Corporation for National Community Service has awarded Goodwill Industries
International a $441,000 AmeriCorps National Direct Grant to administer a
multi-state program to build a corps of volunteers that will support the
organization's family strengthening programs.
The AmeriCorps members will recruit volunteers and help local Goodwill
staff implement a range of family support programs, such as money management,
child and adult literacy, and tutoring and mentoring for youth.
http://webclipper.handsnet.org/2007/12/americorps-gran.php
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Public
Willing to Pay More for Rehabilitation of Juvenile Offenders
Separate
research conducted by the MacArthur Foundation
Research Network on Adolescent Development and Juvenile Justice (ADJJ) found
that when given the choice, the public is more willing to pay for juvenile
rehabilitation than incarceration.
"Momentum is gathering across the nation to replace the harsh,
ineffective measures enacted over the past two decades with programs that
address the welfare of young people while preserving safe communities,"
said MacArthur President Jonathan Fanton. "The public understands that youth in
trouble with the law are not lost, and that working with them to solve problems
is a better approach than just locking them up."
http://webclipper.handsnet.org/2007/12/public-willing.php
**Civic
Engagement
Will
Retiring Boomers Form a New Army of Volunteers?
Results
from the Urban Institute,
based on data from the Health and Retirement Survey, show that while most
volunteers acquire the volunteer habit while still working, a significant share
begins volunteer work after retirement.
Among adults who retire, 45 percent engage in formal volunteer
activities even though only 34 percent of these same adults volunteered while
working. Since boomer cohorts following
this group will be much larger, nonprofit organizations seem destined to
benefit from a significant growth in the services of retirees.
http://webclipper.handsnet.org/2007/12/will-retiring-b.php
Khris Nedam Receives 2007 National
Council for the Social Studies Award for Global Understanding
Khris Nedam, a social studies teacher in Amerman Elementary School, Northville, Mich., received the 2007 National Council
for the Social Studies (NCSS). The Award
for Global Understanding recognizes an outstanding social studies educator, or
a team of educators, who have made notable contributions in helping social
studies students increase their understanding of the
world. The award is named in honor of
James M. Becker, who was instrumental in the early development of the global
education and is often referred to as its father.
http://webclipper.handsnet.org/2007/12/khris-nedam-rec.php
**Community
Development
Community
Organizations and National Lender Join Forces to Help Rural Families Build
Homes
Low-income
families will help construct their own first homes in rural places around the
country, thanks to community-based organizations and the Housing Assistance
Council, a national nonprofit organization that helps create affordable homes
in rural America.
HAC will provide over $7.4 million in financing to 36 organizations in
17 states, using funds from the federal Self-Help Homeownership Opportunity
Program -- which is known as SHOP and administered by the Department of Housing
and Urban Development -- and other sources.
http://webclipper.handsnet.org/2007/12/community-organ.php
New
Destiny Housing Corporation Receives $256,000 Grant from the Oak Foundation
New Destiny
Housing Corporation, a nonprofit developer that provides housing and services
for families at risk of homelessness, particularly survivors of domestic
violence, has received a three-year, $256,000 grant from The Oak Foundation to
launch Project Safe Home, a new initiative that will increase permanent housing
options for its target population. The
pilot program will enable New Destiny to link low-income domestic violence
shelter residents with vacant apartments in "tax credit" buildings
where owners and developers receive tax incentives to provide affordable rents.
http://webclipper.handsnet.org/2007/12/new-destiny-hou.php
**Economic
Security
Improving
Worker Advancement in the Low-Wage Labor Market
This paper
from the Urban
Institute proposes a new federal funding stream to identify, expand, and
replicate the most successful state and local initiatives designed to spur the
advancement of low-wage workers in the United States.
In the Worker Advancement Grants for Employment in States (WAGES)
program, the federal government would offer up to $5 billion annually in
matching funds for increases in state, local, and private expenditures on
worker advancement initiatives.
http://webclipper.handsnet.org/2007/12/better-workers.php
Transitional
Jobs for Ex-Prisoners
This paper
from MDRC presents early results from an evaluation of the Center for
Employment Opportunities (CEO) in New York City, a highly-regarded employment
program for former prisoners. These
ex-prisoners, many of them parents of children receiving welfare, face serious
obstacles to successful reentry, and rates of recidivism are high. After a four-day job readiness class,
participants are placed in temporary, minimum-wage jobs with crews that work
under contract to city and state agencies.
Among those who came to CEO within three months after release, program
group members were significantly less likely to have their parole revoked, to
be convicted of a felony, and to be reincarcerated.
http://webclipper.handsnet.org/2007/12/transitional-jo.php
Employees
with Workplace Flexibility have Healthier Lifestyle Habits
The study,
titled "The Effects of Workplace Flexibility on Health Behaviors: A
Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Analysis," is published in the Dec. 11
issue of The Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine. Individuals who perceive an increase in their
flexibility are more likely to start some positive lifestyle behaviors. The study focused on frequency of physical
activity, engagement in stress management programs, participation in health
education activities, healthful sleep habits, and self-appraised overall
lifestyle.
http://webclipper.handsnet.org/2007/12/employees-with.php
**Education
Delivery
of Prekindergarten in Child Care Centers
According
to the National Women's Law Center, as
state-funded prekindergarten investments continue to grow across the country,
it is more important than ever that policy makers take advantage of existing
child care and other early childhood settings to offer families—especially
families with parents in the workforce—options that can meet their diverse
needs. The lessons learned through the
experiences of these and other child care centers can do much to inform ongoing
efforts at the state and local level to include child care centers as full
partners in providing prekindergarten and to ensure that prekindergarten
initiatives are effective overall.
http://webclipper.handsnet.org/2007/12/delivery-of-pre.php
Teachers
from Alternative Programs More Critical of On-the-Job Support
Public
Agenda and the National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality released
research that raises questions about the support given to new teachers who come
to teaching through alternate routes - new teachers who are often placed in the
most troubled schools. The second report
of the "Lessons Learned" series, "Issue No. 2: Working Without a
Net" focuses on new teachers in high-needs schools and compares the
perspectives of those coming to the profession through traditional teacher
education versus those from three alternate-route programs: Teach for America,
Troops to Teachers and The New Teacher Project.
http://webclipper.handsnet.org/2007/12/teachers-from-a.php
Education
Department Invites Eligible States to Submit Innovative Models for Expanded
Growth Model Pilot
U.S.
Secretary of Education announced that it is opening the growth model pilot to
all eligible states saying, "our work on
reauthorization has shown broad bipartisan support for growth models and now,
many states have improved data systems so they can track individual student
growth over time." It will allow states
another effective way of measuring adequate yearly progress (AYP) by measuring
individual student growth over time, and it will continue to expand the
flexibility available to states under No Child Left Behind. The growth model pilot was established in
November 2005 and was included in the President's NCLB reauthorization
blueprint earlier this year.
http://webclipper.handsnet.org/2007/12/secretary-spell-10.php
**Health
Second
Children's Health Bill Makes Significant Changes to Focus More Heavily on Poor
Children
According
to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities,
on November 30, Congress sent the President a revised version of bipartisan
legislation to strengthen children's health coverage (H.R. 3963). The revised bill focuses even more on
covering the lowest-income uninsured children.
Only 500,000 of the 3.9 million otherwise-uninsured children who would
gain coverage under the bill would do so as a result of state actions to
broaden their SCHIP eligibility criteria.
http://webclipper.handsnet.org/2007/12/second-children.php
New
Children's Health Legislation Would Not Allow Any Undocumented Immigrants to
Enroll in SCHIP or Medicaid
According
to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities,
President Bush has said he will veto the second bipartisan compromise bill
passed by Congress (H.R. 3963) to reauthorize the State Children's Health
Insurance Program (SCHIP). The second
bill contains significant changes that close the door on the possibility that
undocumented immigrants could be found eligible for Medicaid or SCHIP. To ignore this fact and incorrectly claim that
undocumented immigrants would receive coverage under the bill is not valid
justification for vetoing the extension of health coverage to nearly 4 million
uninsured children.
http://webclipper.handsnet.org/2007/12/new-childrens-h.php
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities Response
to President Bush's Veto of the Children's Health Insurance Bill
The bill
would provide coverage to nearly 4 million otherwise-uninsured children, the
vast majority of them poor enough that they already qualify for coverage under
states' current rules. Yet the President
ignored this fact, as well as the substantial changes Congress made to the
original bill after he vetoed it in order to respond to critics' concerns. Most notably, the new bill prohibits states
from raising their SCHIP income limits above 300 percent of the poverty line. Also, unlike the original bill, the new bill
focuses all of its financial incentives for enrolling uninsured children on
states that enroll more children who are eligible for Medicaid, most of whom
are below the poverty line.
http://webclipper.handsnet.org/2007/12/robert-greenste.php
**Hunger
and Nutrition
President's
Vetoes Could Cause Half a Million Low-Income Pregnant Women, Infants, and
Children to be Denied Nutritional Benefits in One of Nation's Most Effective
Programs
According
to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities,
WIC is widely regarded as one of the most effective programs at any level of
government, and there has long been a bipartisan commitment --- adhered to by
previous congresses and by both the Clinton and Bush administrations until now
--- to provide sufficient funding to serve all eligible women, infants, and
children who apply. If funding for WIC, along with other domestic discretionary
programs, is reduced to the level the President has proposed, the number of
low-income women, infants, and children served by the program will have to be
cut by more than 500,000 below the current level.
http://webclipper.handsnet.org/2007/12/presidents-veto.php
Mediterranean
Diet and Physical Activity Each Associated with Lower Death Rate Over 5 Years
Eating a
Mediterranean diet and following national recommendations for physical activity
are each associated with a reduced risk of death over a five-year period,
according to two reports in the December 10/24 issue
of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. Both studies use data from the National
Institutes of Health-AARP Diet and Health Study, which began when
questionnaires were returned from 566,407 AARP members age 50 to 71 in six
states between 1995 and 1996.
http://webclipper.handsnet.org/2007/12/mediterranean-d.php
**Seniors
Geriatric
Care Intervention Appears to Provide Some Benefits for Low-Income Seniors
A
home-based geriatric care program for low-income seniors resulted in
higher-quality medical care, improvement in quality of life and fewer emergency
department visits, but did not appear to prevent decline in physical
functioning, according to a study in the December 12 issue of JAMA. Low-income seniors frequently have chronic
medical conditions and limited access to health care. Older adults in general, and especially the
poor, often do not receive the recommended standard of care for preventive
services and management of chronic diseases.
http://webclipper.handsnet.org/2007/12/geriatric-care.php
**Substance
Abuse
Pre-Natal
Alcohol Exposure Shapes Sensory Preference, Upping Odds of Later Alcohol Use
and Abuse
Young
people whose mothers drank when pregnant may be more likely to abuse alcohol
because, in the womb, their developing senses came to prefer its taste and
smell. Researchers with the State
University of New York Developmental Ethanol Research Center observed that a
biologically instilled preference for alcohol's taste and smell can make young
people much more likely to abuse alcohol, especially in light of social
pressures, risk-taking tendencies and alcohol's addicting qualities.
http://webclipper.handsnet.org/2007/12/prenatal-alcoho.php
Decreasing
Access to Cigarettes for Youth in the Minnesota Adolescent Community Cohort Study
New
research in the December issue of Preventive Medicine, published by Elsevier,
shows that there was a decline in access to cigarettes from commercial venues
from 2000 to 2003.These findings are specific to the Minnesota Adolescent
Community Cohort study, a longitudinal telephone survey of youth less than 18
years old. In sharp contrast, the
probability of their obtaining cigarettes from a social source in the previous
month during the same time period increased significantly from 54% to 76%.
These results are important because they indicate a decreasing access to
commercial sources of cigarettes.
http://webclipper.handsnet.org/2007/12/decreasing-acce.php
Statement
from Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America on 'Monitoring the Future' Findings
The
findings, released at a news conference today, showed that illicit drug use
among eighth, tenth and twelfth graders continued its overall decline but
prescription drug abuse remained at high levels. We know that we need comprehensive
community-wide approaches to effectively prevent and reduce drug abuse, and
that's what CADCA coalitions are doing in towns and cities nationwide. That's why CADCA is working with partners
such as the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) to address
prescription and over-the-counter medicine abuse.
http://webclipper.handsnet.org/2007/12/statement-from.php
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