The Social Innovation Fund (SIF), a program of the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS), supports the growth of effective programs, and the development of innovative approaches to solve the country's most intractable problems. The SIF directs resources towards efforts in the areas of youth development, economic opportunity, and…

The Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) is a federal agency that annually engages millions of Americans in service and volunteering at more than 50,000 sites across the country. Senior Corps and AmeriCorps members play a vital role in helping communities design and implement locally determined, results-driven, cost-effective…

The "President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities 2009-2016: A Legacy of Action" highlights the results of the synergy of collaboration the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities (PCAH) forged with the private sector and each of the cultural agencies--National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the…

AmeriCorps engages more than 80,000 men and women in intensive service each year at more than 21,000 locations including nonprofits, schools, public agencies, and community and faith-based groups across the country. AmeriCorps members help communities tackle pressing problems while mobilizing millions of volunteers for the organizations they…

Genuine worldwide movements for social change are rare in human history. Even more rare is the phenomenon of a worldwide movement for social change through art, with teaching artists at the forefront. This article presents the evolution of such a movement now, in the global blossoming of "El Sistema," a program that seeks to change the…

As a participant-observer, the author relates observations, interviews, and surveys from her experience in a Cuban Escuela al Campo ("School to the Countryside," or EAC) camp located on a collective farm outside of the city of Havana. The Pioneers, the youth section of the official Cuban Communist Party, organize the EAC program…

"Service Without Guns"--by Donald J. Eberly and Reuven Gal with a guest chapter by Michael Sherraden--notes the many similarities between military service and civilian National Youth Service (NYS) and concludes that NYS can and should become as large and influential in the 21st Century as military service was in the 20th. The book…

Both economic and sociological analyses of the "youth problem" tend to segregate young people into two classes: those who will make it through the system as it exists, and those who will need help to make it. The resulting programs for those who need help often have the effect of further stigmatizing the participants. By contrast, a program which…

This National Council on Disability (NCD) annual progress report to the President and Congress covers the period December 2005 through December 2006. The report is divided into 13 chapters, each dealing with a major area of public policy. These subject-specific chapters are preceded by an introductory Major Trends section that identifies…

This research brief highlights studies of nationally- and locally-based youth mentoring programs. The programs were evaluated on an experimentally based design which compared a group of youth randomly assigned to a mentoring program with a group of youth who were not so assigned. The study found overall that mentoring programs can be effective…

In January 2004, the National Collaboration for Youth approved a list of core competencies needed by entry-level youth development workers for effective youth development practice. This chapter provides an overview of these competencies, explaining why and how the list was created, outcomes, and recommendations for next steps. (Contains 13 notes.)

This document consists of a 1996-97 final report of Youth Works*AmeriCorps (YW*AC) and a supplemental report with information collected by the Minnesota Department of Children, Families, and Learning. The final report provides information on the third year of collaboration among the Minnesota Commission on National and Community Service,…

This publication provides examples of diverse local initiatives that represent approaches to serving young people, particularly disadvantaged African Americans and Latinos. This report includes a forward emphasizing the background and current need for the types of programs highlighted, and an introduction that argues for the effectiveness of…

A detailed profile of the largest fresh-air education program in the country for disadvantaged youth -- Sea Ventures -- is provided in this document. Created entirely through the effort of volunteers, Sea Ventures provides learning opportunities that go beyond occupying youngsters. This multi-racial/lingual juvenile delinquency prevention program…

An overview of the National Program for Selected Population Segments (NPSPS), a group of eighty-two projects funded during fiscal year 1977 by the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act, Title III, is presented in this report. Chapter I provides an introduction to NPSPS. Chapter II reviews the administrative models used by the eighty-two…