Background: The purpose of this study was to detect and document common themes among success stories, along with challenges, as related by participants in the Michiana Coordinated School Health Leadership Institute. Four-member teams from 18 Michigan and Indiana school districts participated in semiannual Institute workshops over a 3-year period…

The Network for a Healthy California (Network) employs a Geographic Information System (GIS) to identify the target audience and plan program activities because GIS is a powerful tool for assisting in data integration and planning. This paper describes common uses of GIS by Network contractors as well as demonstrating the possibilities of GIS as a…

During the past three decades, there has been an increase in knowledge about early childhood development. Early experiences can function as either risk factors or protective factors for a child's future health and development. This has led to concern about how current health systems contribute to the quality of the earliest experiences of life.…

Perspectives are provided to help evaluators of health promotion programs. Eight papers present critical issues in such evaluations, including: (1) conceptual themes of program theory and context; (2) topics related to measurement, data analysis, and research design; and (3) reports of evaluation studies. (SLD)

Reviews the current state of mental health services to children, youth, and families. The development of a continuum of care coordinated across the mental and non-mental health systems that naturally occur in all children's lives may vastly improve mental health services to children, youth, and families. (Author/BJV)

The Center for Studies of Child and Family Mental Health has made an assessment of national programs during the last decade, and found that the Nation took the course of child-centered intervention programs for mental health. There were many startling and promising programs developed during that time such as Head Start. However, many of the…

The seven articles of this special section explore evaluation in South Africa. Particular emphasis is placed on policy development in the areas of health, education, and housing and on efforts to alleviate the legacy of apartheid. Participative and quantitative efforts are described. (SLD)

This report of a 1974 conference on child care and public policy provides an overview of an attempt to establish a rational dialogue between public policymakers interested in the problems of child care and researchers who study the problems of child development. In Part I, a description of the historical context of issues relating to public…

Noting that Minnesota has developed many innovative services for parents and infants, but does not yet have an organized way to attend to infants' emotional development and mental health needs, this report details a study to ascertain the need for infant mental health services and examined the current level and types of services available. Data…

Proceedings of a 1984 workshop on the roles of U.S. colleges in community health care are presented. The objective was to identify common aspects of the experiences of a sample of U.S. colleges that might be relevant to providing health service programs that are in accord with the World Health Organization (WHO) initiative of Health for All by the…

The purpose of this report is to provide the Center for Excellence (CfE) in Early Childhood Development with a set of recommendations regarding how to measure school readiness in Ventura County. This report defines school readiness according to the National Education Goals Panel (NEGP) which identified the following three important components of…

The UCLA Center for Healthier Children, Families and Communities (CHCFC) has developed the School Readiness Critical Pathways (SRCPs) as an evidence-based conceptual model that links related outcomes and strategies. This helps to organize an array of broad and diffuse evidence regarding the strategies that produce school readiness outcomes for…

These proceedings contain an introduction and 26 papers arranged in five sections: (1) People's Republic of China and Taiwan (Republic of China); (2) Hong Kong, Singapore, and Thailand; (3) Korea; (4) Japan and the Western Pacific; and (5) United States. Paper titles and authors are as follows: "Recent Social Security Policies and…

The federal Maternal and Child Health Bureau has launched a five-year initiative that will support state efforts to build comprehensive early childhood service systems. This initiative--the State Early Childhood Comprehensive Systems Initiative (SECCS)--provides two year planning grants followed by three year implementation grants to the 50 state…

If early childhood systems are to be effective at the population level then they must be able to provide family-centered care to all the racial, ethnic and cultural groups that they serve. Despite major policy driven and technological advances in healthcare, health disparities across different races and ethnicities persist. For example, the infant…