Early childhood has long been known to be a formative time in a child's development-- a time when the brain produces more than 1 million neural connections every second during the first few years of a child's life. However, there are factors at the individual and community levels that impact the development process. In communities across America,…

A growing number of cultural, educational, and social service programs around the United States report success in reducing teenage school drop-out rates, unemployment, substance abuse, and pregnancy. Facilitators of these programs claim that long-lasting impact requires not only informing young persons about the real dangers of such behavior, but…