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**Children, Youth & Families
Millions of Children Would Benefit From
an Increase in the Minimum Wage
A report released by the Children's Defense
Fund shows nearly 10 million children could benefit from raising the minimum
wage to $7.25 per hour. In the report, titled Increasing the Minimum Wage:
An Issue of Children's Well-Being, the Children's Defense Fund shows that,
in 2004, 9.7 million children lived in a household with at least one worker
earning between $5.15 and $7.25 per hour. The pernicious sting of poverty
puts these children at greater risk of poor health due to lack of affordable
health care, increases their likelihood of falling behind in school and leaves
families unable to pay for adequate housing, nutritious food or quality child
care.
http://www.childrensdefense.org/pressreleases/050518.aspx
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Midwest Evaluation of the Adult Functioning of Former Foster
Youth
This is the second report from Chapin Hall Center for Children at the University of Chicago from
the Midwest Evaluation of the Adult Functioning of Former Foster Youth, a
longitudinal study of youth aging out of foster care and transitioning to
adulthood in Iowa, Wisconsin and Illinois. It is based on survey data collected during follow-up
interviews with 603 of the 736 youth from whom baseline data were collected.
Results suggest that youth making the transition from foster care to young
adulthood face a number of significant challenges, including educational deficits,
mental health problems, economic insecurity, victimization, and early child-bearing.
http://www.chapinhall.org/article_abstract_new.asp?ar=1388&L2=61&L3=130
Popular Teens Show Healthy Personality
Traits, But Are Vulnerable to Negative Peer Pressure
According to a team of researchers at the
University of Virginia, being a popular teenager can be a risky business. On
one hand, they have a lot of friends. On the other hand, they're particularly
vulnerable to their friends leading them astray. The good news is that the
popular teens in the study showed strong family attachments and a healthy
sense of personal identity. The bad news is that their ability to get along
well with others makes them particularly susceptible to following friends
into such risky activities as shoplifting or smoking marijuana.
http://www.ascribe.org/cgi-bin/behold.pl?ascribeid=20050513.124733&time=21%2000%20PDT&year=2005&public=1
Minority Youths Self-Esteem Grows, Not
Shrinks Over Time
A new study published in the latest issue
of the Journal of Research on Adolescence focused on Black, Latino, and Asian
American students from lower and working class families at a public high school
in New York City. The researchers found that on average the self-esteem
of these students increased. And contrary to other common assumptions, both
boys and girls experienced similar trajectories. "Black adolescents
reported higher self-esteem, while Asian American adolescents reported lower
self-esteem, compared to their Latino peers," the authors state. Latinos
experienced the sharpest increase over time creating self-esteem that was
comparable with their Black peers.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-05/bpl-mys051605.php
Children's Peer Group Influences Ethnic/Racial
Prejudice
A study published in the journal Child Development
finds that children's tendency to show ethnic/racial prejudice is greater
when their friends exclude individuals on the basis of race and when their
peer groups feel threatened by outsiders. This research, which explored the
attitudes, beliefs and behaviors that young children show towards those of
other groups, showed that children spontaneously compared the perceived status
of different groups. Also, when changing groups, children were more willing
to move to the group with members of the same race.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-05/sfri-cpg051005.php
Children of Incarcerated Mothers Exhibit
Poor Attachment to Caregivers, Mothers
A study from the University of
Wisconsin demonstrates
that children of incarcerated mothers generally have insecure relationships
with their mothers and caregivers. Of the 54 children studied whose mothers
were in prison, 63 percent had insecure relationships with their mothers and
caregivers. Children were more likely to have secure relationships with their
caregivers if they were living in a stable environment. These findings highlight
the need for stable, continuous placements for children with incarcerated
mothers.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-05/sfri-coi051205.php
ACLU Sues HHS over Abstinence Aid
The American Civil Liberties Union filed suit
against the Department of Health and Human Services, accusing the Bush administration
of spending federal tax dollars on an abstinence education program that promotes
Christianity.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/16/AR2005051601224.html
Mobilizing Communities for Children of
All Abilities
For its 75th Anniversary, the W.K. Kellogg
Foundation has created a statewide effort to help Michigan communities
build integrated, universally accessible playgrounds, and to demonstrate the
value of allowing children of all abilities to play, learn, and develop together.
The Able to Play Project seeks to build barrier-free playgrounds in up to
20 communities across Michigan, slated for completion in 2005.
http://www.ascribe.org/cgi-bin/behold.pl?ascribeid=20050519.112116&time=12%2034%20PDT&year=2005&public=1
**Community Development
Cuts to Community Development
According to the National Priorities Project
the President's budget request for fiscal year 2006 proposes eliminating 18
different community and economic development programs and replacing them with
one program called the 'Strengthening America's Communities Grant Program.'
Under this proposal, funding for community and economic development would
be cut by 30%, or $1.6 billion, nationally. The largest program to be eliminated
under this proposal is the Community Development Block Grant which currently
awards $4.7 billion in support for community development to cities, counties
and states across the country.
http://www.nationalpriorities.org/budget/comdev.html
Preserving the Strengths of the Housing
Choice Voucher Program
According to The Urban Institute the Housing Choice Voucher
program plays a critical role in our nation's housing policy. One of its greatest
strengths is that it allows families to choose the type of housing and neighborhood
that best meets their needs. Social science research clearly shows that living
in a distressed, high-poverty neighborhood undermines the well-being of families
and the long-term life chances of children. When families are able to move
to healthier communities, their lives improve measurably. The proposed State
and Local Housing Flexibility Act of 2005 threatens to restrict choice and
mobility for voucher families.
http://www.urban.org/Template.cfm?Section=Home&NavMenuID=3&Template=/TaggedContent/ViewPublication.cfm&PublicationID=9266
HUD Launches "Owning
Your Future" Fairs to Celebrate National Homeownership Month
The Department of Housing and Urban Development
announced that HUD will bring together 12 federal agencies, members of the
business community and nonprofit organizations at five city fairs during June
to showcase the tools and resources families need for self-sufficiency and
homeownership. HUD's "Owning Your Future" program is a holistic
outreach that will include informational booths and educational programs on
subjects such as job training, educational resources, health and nutrition
assistance, transportation vouchers, tax credit and preparation services,
as well as housing counseling programs, credit information and reverse mortgage
information.
http://www.hud.gov/news/release.cfm?content=pr05-067.cfm
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HOPE VI Revitalization
Grants Awarded
The HOPE VI program, also known as the Urban
Revitalization Demonstration, was created in 1992 as a result of a report
by the National Commission on Severely Distressed Public Housing, which found
approximately 86,000 public housing units in the U.S. needed revitalization.
To date, more than 100,000 aging public housing units have been demolished
under HOPE VI and other HUD programs.
Allentown Gets $20 Million
HOPE VI Grant
El Paso Gets $20 Million
HOPE VI Grant
Greenville (SC) Gets $20
Million HOPE VI Grant
Philadelphia Gets $17
Million HOPE VI Grant
Springfield (Ohio) Gets
$20 Million HOPE VI Grant
Tucson Gets $9.8 Million
HOPE VI Grant
Tuscaloosa (Ala.) Gets
$20 Million HOPE VI Grant
http://www.hud.gov/content/releases/hopevigrantsawarded.cfm
LISC Commits Additional $300 Million to
Preserve Affordable Housing
Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC)
is pledging to invest $300 million over the next three years to preserve affordable
apartments for low-income families at risk of losing their homes. This represents
a major expansion of LISC's investment in its Affordable Housing Preservation
Initiative, launched in 2001. The goal is to preserve 30,000 affordable apartments
by the end of 2007. Today, many affordable housing properties throughout
the country are at risk of becoming market-rate apartments as original affordability
agreements expire or mortgages are prepaid. LISC's expanded preservation investment
is timed to help protect the homes of families and other individuals impacted
by this crisis.
http://www.lisc.org/whatsnew/press/releases/2005.05.16.0.shtml
Transportation Breakdown
In an op-ed article in the Boston Globe analysts
from the Brookings Institution find that two years in the making, the federal
transportation bill that was lumbering through the Senate this week toward
a House-Senate conference has not aged well. In March, House members congratulated
themselves for coming to a bipartisan agreement to advance their version of
the bill. In voting for it, 417 House members echoed the conventional wisdom:
praising the bill as a jobs-creating, economy-boosting, and congestion-easing
panacea. There's only one problem: The conventional wisdom is wrong. The
truth is the current bill takes an antiquated, anachronistic, and ultimately
wasteful approach to transportation policy. It represents the result of a
policy-free approach that is totally out of touch with the nature of the real
transportation issues facing the country.
http://www.brookings.org/views/op-ed/katz/20050514.htm
HUD Inspector General Confirms Breakdown
in Lead Safety and Healthy Homes Grants Process
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's
Office of the Inspector General issued an interim audit report detailing problems
with the Office of Healthy Homes and Lead Hazard Control' s FY 2004 grant
administration process. In the report, the OIG found that OHHLHC inappropriately
awarded its FY04 grants. While the OIG's full audit continues to delve more
deeply into the problems, the OIG recommends that the Department "take
immediate action to ensure the FY 2005 grant award process is completed according
to the notice of funding availability requirements and HUD's established grant
processing procedures."
http://www.ascribe.org/cgi-bin/behold.pl?ascribeid=20050517.124356&time=13%2041%20PDT&year=2005&public=1
**Economic Security
Alternatives to Strengthen Social Security
Testimony by the Urban Institute before the
U.S. House Committee on Ways and Means explained that since Social Security
was first enacted, vast changes have occurred in the economic and social circumstances
of the nation. The testimony addresses Social Security reform and related
budget pressures and presents an array of observations and recommendations
dealing with labor force participation, inequities and inefficiencies in the
Social Security program, automatic and unsustainable federal spending growth,
and private retirement and employee benefit systems.
http://www.urban.org/Template.cfm?Section=Home&NavMenuID=3&Template=/TaggedContent/ViewPublication.cfm&PublicationID=9262
Summit to Explore Strategies for Economic, Social Inclusion
for Low-Income, Working Families in America
Over 1,000 people from across America have registered to attend the Advancing Regional Equity: The Second National
Summit on Equitable Development, Social Justice, and Smart Growth at the Pennsylvania Convention Center,
in Philadelphia,
May 23-25. "The people coming to the summit," says Angela Glover
Blackwell, founder and CEO of PolicyLink, summit co-sponsor, "are ready
to share experience, knowledge, and information to help build true inclusion
in America by challenging
50 years of neglect and sprawling development patterns that have been supported
by vast public and private investments."
http://www.ascribe.org/cgi-bin/behold.pl?ascribeid=20050518.140837&time=15%2022%20PDT&year=2005&public=1
New Jobs in Recession and Recovery: Who
Are Getting Them and Who Are Not?
The Urban Institute finds that recent employment
gains by immigrants did not lead to declines among native-born Americans.
Over the long term, immigration has modest negative effects on less-educated
workers but other positive effects on the economy--and the latter will grow
much stronger after baby boomers retire. Workers are thus best served by policies
designed to stimulate job growth in the short term, and their own skills and
incomes over the long term, rather than by policies to curb immigration drastically.
http://www.urban.org/Template.cfm?Section=Home&NavMenuID=3&Template=/TaggedContent/ViewPublication.cfm&PublicationID=9264
**Education
Gates Foundation Puts $2.3B Into Education
Bill Gates raised some hackles with his withering
assessment of American high schools, but at least the billionaire founder
of Microsoft is putting his money where his mouth is. The Bill and Melinda
Gates Foundation has invested $2.3 billion since 2000 in new visions of education,
with smaller schools and more personalized instruction to prepare young people
for the working world and post-high school learning.
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050515/ap_on_bi_ge/gates_on_education
New Government Report Backs CDF in Questioning
Reliability and Validity of NRS Test Given to Children in Head Start
The Government Accountability Office confirmed
what the Children's Defense Fund and other early childhood experts have maintained
for the past two years, that the National Reporting System is not a reliable
or valid method to assess the progress of young children. The Government Accountability
Office (GAO) released these findings in a new report titled, “Head Start,
Further Development Could Allow Results to Be Used for Decision Making.”
http://www.childrensdefense.org/pressreleases/050517.aspx
'NCLB - Let's Get It Right'; Union Announces National Campaign to Educate Public and Elected
Leaders on Improving the NCLB Law
The American Federation of Teachers announced
the launch of a national education and advocacy campaign aimed at improving
the No Child Left Behind federal education law. The campaign includes extensive
radio and print advertising and a coordinated mobilization of AFT members
at the national and grassroots level. "The stakes are too high. We can't
wait for the 2007 reauthorization of this law to begin talking about how to
fix it," according to the AFT President.
http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=47614
Policy Brief: All Together Now: State Experiences
in Using Community-Based Child Care to Provide Pre-Kindergarten
This brief from the Center for Law and Social Policy studies the
emergence of the mixed delivery model, in which pre-kindergarten is delivered
in community-based settings and schools. This policy brief, the fifth in
the Child Care and Early Education Series, describes principal approaches
to state implementation of the mixed delivery model but does not provide examples
of state policies. See the full report for details about state policy choices.
PDF: http://www.clasp.org/publications/cc_brief5.pdf
Remaking Career and Technical Education
for the 21st Century: What Role for High School Programs?
A report from Jobs for the Future and the
Aspen Institute Education and Society Program summarizes what we know (and
don't know) about the value of high school career-focused education--and it
proposes a reform agenda for high school career and technical education.
REMAKING CAREER AND TECHNICAL EDUCATION is one of a series of DOUBLE THE NUMBERS
publications from JFF. The DOUBLE THE NUMBERS Initiative is designed to deepen
support for state and federal policies that can dramatically increase the
number of low-income young people who enter and complete postsecondary education.
http://www.jff.org/jff/kc/library/0252
**Health
Gates Foundation Adds $250 Million to Health
Program
Bill Gates, the billionaire founder of Microsoft
cum global health crusader and philanthropist, said that his foundation would
dedicate an additional $250 million to solving some of the world's knottiest
health problems. The new money brings to $450 million the amount that Bill
Gates has committed to his "Grand Challenges in Global Health" program,
an effort to find solutions to health problems.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/17/national/17gates.html?ex=1273982400&en=3cc553d92255fdd4&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
Barriers Prevent Many Hispanics from Participating
in Research Studies
Researchers from the University of
Michigan Health System found that many Hispanic people would be more willing to participate
if the researcher spoke Spanish, if they felt like the process would have
a health benefit to them, if the research had a direct benefit to the Hispanic
community and if they could do their part on weekends rather than weekdays.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-05/uomh-bpm051205.php
Black Children More Likely to Die From
Traumatic Injury than White Children
A new study from Ohio State University of
nearly 6,000 children suggests that black youth are more than twice as likely
to die from a traumatic injury as are white children. As a group, black children
tend to have more serious injuries and are also two to three times more likely
to be admitted to the hospital because of a traumatic injury.
http://www.ascribe.org/cgi-bin/behold.pl?ascribeid=20050512.115054&time=12%2047%20PDT&year=2005&public=1
African Americans and People Living in
Southeast U.S More Likely to Have a Stroke
Two studies issued by the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention show that racial and regional disparities in stroke
prevalence and stroke-related deaths still continue to exist in the United
States, particularly among African Americans. In the first
study, researchers found that the years of potential life lost due to stroke
by African Americans before age 75 was more than double that of all other
races. The second report provides further evidence that the prevalence of
stroke is higher in the Southeast, also known as the "Stroke Belt,"
and is most significant among African Americans.
http://www.cdc.gov/od/oc/media/pressrel/r050519.htm
The Atlas of Heart Disease and Stroke Among
American Indians and Alaska Natives 2005
The Atlas of Heart Disease and Stroke Among
American Indians and Alaska Natives documents geographic disparities in heart
disease and stroke mortality and risk factors among American Indians and Alaska
Natives. The county-level maps of heart disease and stroke death rates indicate
that, for American Indians and Alaska Natives, there is a nearly five-fold
gap between counties with the highest and lowest rates of heart disease and
stroke. High stroke death rates were found primarily in Northwestern counties
and Alaska, while high heart disease death rates were located largely
in the counties of the northern plains.
http://www.cdc.gov/od/oc/media/pressrel/fs050517.htm
First National Conference on Cardiovascular
Disease and Diabetes Among American Indians and Alaska
Natives
A coalition of leading health organizations
announced the first national conference to address cardiovascular disease
and diabetes within the American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) communities.
The AI/AN conference will focus on increasing the knowledge of healthcare
providers, tribal community members and leaders, and urban community health
leaders on the link between diabetes and cardiovascular disease (CVD) and
how to integrate treatment and prevention of these closely related diseases.
http://www.ascribe.org/cgi-bin/behold.pl?ascribeid=20050512.094906&time=10%2026%20PDT&year=2005&public=1
**Hunger and Nutrition
Leaving Money
(and Food) on the Table
A report from Brookings examines the dollar
value and use of food stamps among the eligible population, finding that,
in 97 large metropolitan areas across the country, $9.1 billion was disbursed
to 9.8 million individuals. However, only about half of eligible households
participated, leaving an estimated $4.9 billion unclaimed.
http://www.brookings.org/metro/pubs/20050517_foodstamps.htm
**Substance Abuse
Integrated Chemical-Dependency and Mental-Health
Treatment best for Adolescents
A researcher with the Kaiser Permanente Northern
California division finds that adolescents with alcohol- and drug-use disorders
often have co-occurring mental-health disorders. "Dual-diagnosis"
patients - those with co-occurring substance-abuse and mental-health problems
- tend to have less successful chemical-dependency (CD) treatment outcomes.
Findings indicate that dual-diagnosis adolescents in private, managed-care
CD treatment who receive psychiatric services have better CD-treatment outcomes
than those not receiving these services.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-05/ace-ica050805.php
