San Francisco's Mission Promise Neighborhood (MPN) is a federally-funded Promise Neighborhood initiative that supports community-based organizations, schools, and other public agencies to work in defined neighborhoods and build integrated supports for children and youth from cradle to college and career. Since 2013, the Gardner Center has…

Against the background of a European-wide strategy of governance aimed at improving support for parents and families, the following report details the conceptualization and evaluation of a federal state program in Baden-Württemberg (Germany) which was launched in 2008 to encourage family and parent education. Two program components, a voucher…

This report presents findings from a review and analysis of literature on the importance, effectiveness, and availability of support services for participants in job training programs in the United States. It assesses current knowledge about these services by examining reports on training and education programs, as well as literature on the…

Provides overview, background, vision, and goals of a report from the Advisory Committee on Services for Families with Infants and Toddlers. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala pledged to use the guidelines presented to help establish "Early Head Start," a new support and services program for families with…

This introductory article provides an overview of the national evaluation conducted within the original 22 grantee communities funded from 1993 to 1999. The history and underlying foundations of the evaluation are presented. Specific evaluation questions and components are outlined, and issues that evolved out of the evaluation process are…

This fact sheet describes the Comprehensive Community Mental Health Services for Children Program overall and includes descriptions of 22 specific programs. The program was authorized by Congress in 1992 and provides federal funds through demonstration grants to states, communities, and Native American tribes. The program currently administers 22…

Discusses guidelines for providing quality direct services to Head Start families. Suggests that nonjudgmental attitudes, empathy, instruction, reinforcement, shaping, removal of barriers, contracting referral, advocacy, and other helping skills permit effective direct services. Proposes FNA (family needs assessment) as a valuable tool with which…

A study compared practice-level variables between two sites that have been implementing system-of-care (SOC) principles for at least 5 years and two traditional service systems. Overall, SOC sites scored significantly higher than non-SOC sites in the child-centered and family-focused, community-based, and cultural competence domains. (Contains…

Project Even Start is an intergenerational literacy project that promotes adult literacy, trains parents to support the educational growth of their children, and prepares children for school. The program is designed to facilitate joint participation by parents and children. It includes home-based instruction and child care, and it is integrated…

Culled from the National Center for Education in Maternal and Child Health reference collection, this list contains 102 materials concerning guidelines or standards for any aspect of care for children with special health needs. Each listing contains a brief description of the resource and information for obtaining the materials. Topics include:…

In the past decade, there has been a sharp increase in awareness of how interventions that address multiple risk factors and target both children and their families can help ensure that children grow up healthy and able to learn. In 1995, the National Center for Children in Poverty (NCCP) undertook a project to "map" state initiatives…