Much attention has been focused on the importance of providing physical and mental health services to students in educational environments in recent years. Millions of students receive school-based health services, and for many students, schools are their first and only option to receive health care. State policymakers have a lot to consider in…

Scalable interventions remain effective across a range of real-world settings and can be modified to fit organizational and community context. "Smoke-Free Homes: Some Things are Better Outside" has been effective in promoting smoke-free home rules in low-income households in efficacy, effectiveness, generalizability, and dissemination…

Latino families face several challenges when they immigrate to the United States. School-based early childhood programs involving families with a holistic approach indicate effectiveness toward integrating both children and families into the school community. This paper explores, through informal conversations with administrators, teachers, and…

Making Connections was the Annie E. Casey Foundation's signature place-based, community-change initiative of the 2000s. It sought to build on previous work and launch an effort focused firmly on the framework of family strengthening. The Foundation started Making Connections in 22 places, focusing eventually on first 10, then seven sites. It…

Good schools are essential, but not sufficient for the long-term academic, economic, and civic success of our nation's young people. Rather, an integrated set of supports is needed in families, in all facets of communities, and in schools. Research, community wisdom, and common sense tell us that families, schools, and the broader community need…

Describes efforts in South Florida to address school safety in eight troubled urban schools. The Coalition for Community Empowerment offered at-risk youth and their families a community-based program focused on strengthening family-support systems and maximizing the use of community resources through effective partnerships. (SLD)

This 2-page resource describes the benefits of afterschool programs for children, youth, and families, including evidence of improved school attendance and engagement learning, improved test scores and grades, and students at greatest risk showing the greatest gains. Additional benefits of afterschool programs include keeping kids safe, healthy,…

This is the fifth and final report of a longitudinal study examining the use of a comprehensive system of prevention and early intervention services in Palm Beach County, and how its use relates to the outcomes of children and families living in four targeted geographic areas (TGAs) with high rates of poverty, teen pregnancy, crime, and child…

Best preschool programs provide both developmentally appropriate curricula and school-based family support services. This article describes four exemplary, innovative, and low-cost early education programs in Kentucky, Colorado, Iowa, and Florida that integrate family support, day care, and health and social services. These districts had visionary…

This booklet, part of a series of profiles on family support and education programs across the United States, contains profiles of five diverse programs designed to improve the future of children through family-focused and comprehensive service delivery. Programs examined are North Dakota's Child Welfare Reform Initiative, Iowa's Decategorization…

For more than a decade, Florida's Palm Beach County has been building an infrastructure of prevention and early intervention services to promote and support the healthy development and school readiness of children from birth to age 8. The county began this effort with a set of programs focused on serving families in four targeted geographic areas…

This conference paper discusses the results of a study that investigated the effectiveness of the Total Family Strategy (TFS), a home-based family support program funded by the Juvenile Welfare Board of Pinellas County, Florida. The program was initiated as a means of introducing a family empowerment model of early intervention into the array of…

According to statistics compiled by the National Center for the Study of Adult Learning and Literacy (NCSALL), more than 40% of working-age adults in the United States lack the requisite skills and education to succeed in life (Merrifield, 1998). In the field of adult education, however, there is much debate about how programs can best serve…