Rising demand for early help services is currently taking place against a backdrop of closing or reduced services and shrinking public authority budgets across England. Complicating matters is the wide variety of service orientations and differences in assessments offered to vulnerable families. This can be confusing for them. Moreover, this is an…

Traditional approaches to disseminating research based programs and innovations for children and families, which rely on practitioners and policy makers to make sense of research on their own, have been found insufficient. There is growing interest in strategies that "make it happen" by actively building the capacity of service providers…

A rationale is presented for the use of many cases in policy analysis. Case study families were selected from nomination by early intervention professionals in three states with differing early intervention policies and procedures. Using rating scales, demographic data, and interview transcripts with 72 families of children receiving services, 7…

This report presents ethnographic case studies of the life circumstances and experiences of 18 low-income adolescents who participated in Project Redirection, a national program which provides educational and family planning services at the local level to pregnant teens and mothers. Information on the teens' family background, patterns of…

Marin City Families First (MCFF) is an intervention program providing intensive home-based support and services to at-risk families, through family advocates, to help them stabilize their lives and increase their ability to provide safe, healthy environments for their children. Comprised of case studies of three MCFF families and their family…

The research reported in this book develops a theme introduced in a previous work published by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, "Our Children at Risk" (1995), which noted the integration of services as a way to provide more effective services for families and children at risk of school failure. Part 1 of this…

The case studies contained in this document were developed as part of a national project to identify communities that have made substantial progress toward developing comprehensive, coordinated, community-based systems of care for children and adolescents with serious emotional disturbances and their families. After initial identification,…

This report, devoted to the ethnographic study component of the Child and Family Resource Program (CFRP) evaluation, consists of three major sections. The first section outlines the rationale for employing ethnographic research in evaluating the effects and effectiveness of CFRP and describes study methodology, including examinations of the…

This report synthesizes research findings with observations of three Pacific Northwest sites attempting service integration in rural settings. At case-study sites in Washington and Oregon, rural schools, communities, and service providers collaborate to deliver services to students and community members suffering from high unemployment, alcohol…

Describes organizational conditions and social processes related to family-school interactions that are necessary to promote school-linked social service systems. Case studies of two elementary schools with students of low socioeconomic status are used to compare school policies and procedures. Policy proposals are presented for expanding and…

This book gives practical advice to students and professionals for developing truly collaborative relationships with families. Long-term goals and proposed support models are outlined to help practitioners learn to address families' unique needs. Chapters of case examples highlight service integration problems. Section 1, "A Model for Practice,"…

Efforts to integrate the delivery of human service programs (HSP) in Colorado's El Paso County and Mesa County were examined through site visits and meetings with 34 members of HSP staff in both counties. The site visits confirmed that staff and management of HSP in both counties have implemented a series of client-centered processes to provide…

The Employment Retention and Advancement (ERA) project was undertaken to identify effective strategies for helping low-income parents work more steadily and advance in the labor market. The 15 ERA demonstration projects that were operating in nine states (California, Florida, Illinois, Minnesota, New York, Oregon, South Carolina; Tennessee, and…