This hearing before the Senate Subcommittee on Family and Human Services of the Committee on Labor and Human Resources celebrates strengths of American families by receiving testimony from seven families participating in one of three panel presentations. The first panel explores both the barriers to adoption and their transcendence by adoptive…

The final report describes the development of a program to train neighborhood mothers as home visitors to families with a handicapped child under age 3. The following program aspects are detailed (sample subtopics in parentheses): population (referral sources, family and child characteristics); staff (changes in staffing pattern, hiring core…

This paper describes a unique, 2-day experiential program in sex education for adolescents and their families. The program is a highly focused, intense emotional experience wherein participants are presented, via a multimedia approach, with a planned sequence of explicit sexual material on all areas of human sexuality. (Author)

Describes a family-based program in Philadelphia, the Supportive Child Adult Network (SCAN), which offers a wide range of treatment approaches to strengthen high risk families. (Author/BB)

Describes OCTOPUS (Open Communication Regarding Teenagers or Parents Understanding of Sexuality), which was established as a forum for family discussion within a church setting. The program was designed to enhance communication skills, convey information, and help teenagers acquire appropriate morals and values. Feedback from four churches…

Parent Services Project (PSP), the first comprehensive program of resources and mental health activities for parents offered at child care centers in the San Francisco Bay Area (California), has expanded to centers in six states, serving over 19,000 families. This report describes the program's history, aims, and achievements, along with specific…

A close-up view of the Parent Child Training Center in Robbinsdale, Minnesota, one of a growing number of early childhood and family education programs in the state. (Author/MP)

Two programs providing diabetic patients and their families with information and instruction on diabetes, including self-care instruction are described. (JMF)

Summarizes the beginnings of family support programs for developmentally disabled children and their families; their present workings; and the direction they should be going. (BB)

Describes several innovative types of shared family-care arrangements that demonstrate promise in the protection of children and the promotion of family well-being. Emphasizes the shared-family foster-care model, whereby children and parents are placed with host families rather than separating them. Notes key elements of the model: funding and…

Educators at two elementary schools in Arlington, Virginia, have designed evening programs to help immigrant parents acclimate to U.S. schooling practices. One school has a program that orients parents and explains teachers' expectations while children learn socialization skills. The other school combines a similar program with parent volunteer…

This report provides three case studies illustrating the characteristics and general nature of selected family support programs in socially vulnerable communities. The profile of each program provides in-depth information about how the program operates. Fundamental barriers to program development and service provision are identified, and specific…

Introduces and defines the concept of the resource family in residential treatment of emotionally disturbed children; offers suggestions for implementing the concept under an agency structure; and describes the experiences of one agency which uses this approach. (ED)

Describes how a family community center in Milton, Vermont provides the "base" where rural families, formerly isolated from both agencies and each other by geography and economics, can gather and receive a variety of services under one roof. The program is illustrated with a case study. (Author/BB)

Describes a project that has enlisted community support and involvement, and produced culturally sensitive materials--booklets, educational curricula, video-tapes--on prevention of child sexual assault among Southeast Asian refugee families. (Author/BB)