Human Services
Community Building
Digest

The Children's Defense Fund Action Council today released a nonpartisan report that ranks members of Congress according to their 2003 votes on legislation affecting the lives of children. The scoring system is based on 11 key votes cast in the House and Senate last year, including a positive score for co-sponsorship of the Act to Leave No Child Behind, the comprehensive, bipartisan legislation that reflects CDF's mission and is based on policies that have a proven record of helping children.

PDF: http://www.cdfactioncouncil.org/scorecard2003.pdf

Reversing Direction on Welfare Reform: President's Budget Cuts Child Care for More Than 300,000 Children

A report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and the Center for Law and Social Policy finds that an OMB estimate — that the number of low-income children receiving child care assistance would drop 200,000 by 2009, under the President’s budget — significantly understates the decline in child care assistance the budget would cause.

http://www.cbpp.org/2-10-04wel.htm

Providing Comprehensive, Integrated Social Services to Vulnerable Children and Families: Are There Legal Barriers at the Federal Level to Moving Forward?

A report from the Center for Law and Social Policy finds that over the past several years, social service providers have increasingly recognized that families seeking assistance often face multiple, complex needs and that they require the services of more than one program. Working in consultation with state and local officials, this paper offers a model of cross-system integration focusing on comprehensive services for children and families. This paper was written as part of a collaborative effort between the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices, CLASP, and the Hudson Institute.

http://www.clasp.org/DMS/Documents/1076428367.74/view_html

Twenty-Five per cent of Teenage Girls Face Depression

According to a Canadian study, twenty-five per cent of females between the ages of 16 to 19 will experience an episode of major depression and smokers are more likely to become depressed.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2004-02/uoa-tpc020304.php

**Civic Engagement

Report to Present New Findings about Political Influentials Online, Answers Important Questions about Nature of Online Politics

A new report from the University's Institute for Politics Democracy & the Internet highlights a new community of citizens online that is defining the 2004 presidential campaign.  These citizens are Internet-oriented and politically energized, and they support their candidates by visiting their Web sites, joining Internet discussion groups, reading political Web logs and making political contributions over the Internet.  Even before the first primary, they played a pivotal role in the campaign, and they may be harbingers of permanent change in American politics.

PDF: http://www.ipdi.org/Influentials/Report.pdf

**Community Development

Reform to Section 8 aims to help families achieve self-sufficiency

According to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the sweeping reform of the nation's rental assistance voucher program announced in HUD's 2005 proposed budget is designed to help public housing authorities (PHA’s) enable more low-income families to transition to self-sufficiency while reducing the number of families on long waiting lists around the country.  The new Flexible Voucher Program (FVP) will allow PHA’s to assist the 1.9 million families the Section 8 program currently assists and potentially serve more families.

http://www.hud.gov/news/release.cfm?content=pr04-013.cfm

Administration Seeks Deep Cuts in Housing Vouchers and Conversion of Program to a Block Grant

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities finds that the proposed cuts are deeper — and the policy changes more sweeping and threatening to the low-income people the voucher program serves — than any proposal advanced by any prior Administration during the voucher program's 30-year history.

http://www.cbpp.org/2-12-04hous.htm

Prisoners Once Removed Probes "Indescribable Burden" of Imprisonment and Reentry on Children, Families, and Communities

The Urban Institute finds that with incarceration rates at record high levels, the criminal justice system now touches the lives of millions of American children each year, profoundly affecting childhood development, parenting patterns, social services delivery, foster care systems, and community norms. This book documents the consequences of imprisonment for individual prisoners, their families, and the communities to which these prisoners return and asks whether the corrections and health and human services systems can better serve this growing population.

http://www.urban.org/Template.cfm?Section=Home&NavMenuID=3&Template=/TaggedContent/ViewPublication.cfm&PublicationID=8723

**Economic Security

Growing Up in Poverty Project: Child Care in Poor Communities: Early Learning Effects of Type, Quality, and Stability.

A report from Policy Analysis for California Education, University of California at Berkeley finds that young children in poor communities are spending more hours in nonparental care because of policy reforms and expansion of early childhood programs. Studies show positive effects of high-quality center-based care on children’s cognitive growth. Yet, little is known about the effects of center care typically available in poor communities or the effects of home-based care. Using a sample of children who were between 12 and 42 months when their mothers entered welfare-to-work programs, this paper finds positive cognitive effects for children in center care. Children also display stronger cognitive growth when caregivers are more sensitive and responsive and stronger social development when providers have education beyond high school. Children in family child care homes show more behavioral problems but no cognitive differences.

PDF: http://pace.berkeley.edu/Stanford_Child_Dev_Findings.pdf

Child Care Programs Help Parents Find and Keep Jobs: Funding Shortfalls Leave Many Families Without Assistance

According to an analysis from the Center for Law and Social Policy, child care subsidies help low-income families work and leave welfare, but funding shortfalls are forcing states to enact restrictive policies that are hurting poor families and efforts to promote their employment and earnings. The Administration’s recently proposed FY 2005 budget would make this situation even worse. This paper includes excerpts from recent press coverage about child care restrictions and cutbacks in 15 states.

http://www.clasp.org/DMS/Documents/1076435918.03/view_html

Low-Income Families in Connecticut: Working More Yet Struggling to Get Ahead

The National Center for Children in Poverty finds that as earnings increase—particularly as they rise above the poverty level—families begin to lose eligibility for work supports that help them get ahead.  Using the Family Resource Simulator to chart the resources and expenses of two hypothetical Connecticut families illustrates whether the state’s public policies reward and encourage employment.

http://www.nccp.org/pub_frs04a.html

President's Budget Contains Larger Cuts In Domestic Discretionary Programs than Has Been Reported

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities points out that budget books the Administration released this week omit information on the President's proposed funding levels for programs in years after 2005, but the OMB documents that — underlie the budget show the Administration is proposing cuts in domestic discretionary programs that reach $50 billion a year by 2009.

http://www.cbpp.org/2-5-04bud.htm

CHN Capitol Hill Budget Briefing Resources and Links

The Coalition on Human Needs held a budget briefing for Capitol Hill staff and advocates. The briefing explored the ways in which President Bush's FY05 budget shortchanges low income working families and other vulnerable populations, cuts or endangers funding for many social welfare programs and is neither compassionate nor conservative.

http://www.chn.org/issues/article.asp?art=2099

**Education

'No Child Left Behind' Holds Potential for Teacher Improvement

According to a position paper by The Renaissance Group, the "No Child Left Behind," act implemented two years ago, warrants broader support among universities for its push to strengthen teacher quality.  The report finds that the legislation does hold promise when it comes to improving the ability and qualifications of classroom teachers.

http://www.emporia.edu/rengroup/news/index.html

Report - No Child Left Behind - National Cost Study Released

A study sponsored by Education Leaders Council offers a thorough examination of the new requirements under NCLB and the fiscal impact of those requirements in four substantial areas -- accountability, personnel, information management and school improvement. For every year studied, it shows that the additional revenues provided exceed the state and local costs of these requirements, resulting in an annual surplus for general school improvement. Further examination of previous NCLB revenue and cost studies also supports the conclusion that the law is adequately funded.

PDF: http://www.educationleaders.org/elc/events/elc_cost_study-04.pdf

**Health

SCHIP Provided Health Coverage to 5.8 Million Children in 2003

The Department of Health and Human Services announced that about 5.8 million children who otherwise would not have health coverage were enrolled in the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) at some point during fiscal year 2003 -- a 9 percent increase from the previous year.  Created in 1997, SCHIP is a state and federal partnership designed to provide health insurance coverage to uninsured children, many of whom come from working families with incomes too high to qualify for Medicaid but too low to afford private health insurance.

http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/2004pres/20040212.html

*Nonprofit Management

New Report Finds Many Indiana Nonprofits Challenged by Small Staffs, Low Revenues

A new report profiling the Indiana nonprofit sector shows that many organizations are constrained by their relatively small sizes and low revenues, among other revealing results.  The report, prepared by researchers at the Indiana University Center on Philanthropy and the School of Public and Environmental Affairs, found a sector made up of a significant number of small organizations with small budgets carrying out a diverse set of activities. The report is believed to be the most comprehensive of its kind ever compiled because it includes all types of nonprofits, including several types of organizations rarely captured in previous studies.

http://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/1264.html

**Welfare and Welfare Reform

Heeding Clinton's Welfare Advice

In an op-ed, a visiting Brookings Fellow reviews former-President Bill Clinton's advice on how to continue improving welfare reform and compares Clinton's agenda to the current state of the debate over federal welfare reauthorization.

http://www.brookings.org/views/op-ed/waller/20040206.htm

Why Congress Should Expand, Not Cut, Access to Long-Term Training in TANF

A paper from the Center for Law  and Social Policy highlights that research has shown that the welfare-to-work programs that have been most successful in helping parents work more and increase earnings over the long run are those that include substantial access to education and training, together with employment services and a strong overall focus on work as the goal. This paper provides data that argues for increasing welfare recipients’ access to longer-term training. (Publication No. 04-09).

http://www.clasp.org/DMS/Documents/1076428384.07/view_html