Compared small rural hospitals with long-term care units to those without units. Found both hospital and community differences. Hospitals with such units were smaller and differed in length of stay, personnel, and expenses. Their counties were smaller in population and less urban, but did not have proportionally more elderly or different…

In December 1994, the American Indian Community House celebrated 25 years of offering services to Indians living in the New York City area or just passing through. Services and activities include health services, prevention education, job training and placement, transitional housing, cultural activities, and support for the arts. (SV)

Presenting concept of service to self and others as important life principle gives high school additional formula for success and achievement. Leadership class at Cornwall (New York) Central High School is full-year course open to all students, staff, and parents. Program's chief commitment is serving others' needs through values clarification…

Identifies and describes strategies used throughout Texas for overcoming barriers to service use among low-income minority elderly persons. Describes strategies addressing lack of knowledge (use of influential groups, working with significant individuals, media use), lack of access (transportation, affordability, availability), and lack of intent…

Advocates sending news reporting students off campus and into the community to expand their horizons, interests, courage, and possibilities. Describes the use of such experiential learning in a broadcast reporting class, where students left the cameras at home as they experienced the police or social services sector, and wrote an in-depth story…

Developed Community Service Attitude Inventory (CSAI) to provide a measurement tool to further understanding of community service use by family caregivers of dementia patients. Testing of CSAI revealed five distinct components of family attitudes toward use of community services. (Author/NB)

Sought to determine whether student service volunteers (n=45) differ from other students (n=136) who are involved in extracurricular activities not of a service nature, and from those students (n=104) who are not involved at all. Students involved in volunteer community service activities displayed different demographic characteristics and…

South Dakota's Rural Schools and Community Development Project was based on the belief that rural schools and communities are tightly linked and highly interdependent. School success is too often measured by how many graduates leave to pursue education or job opportunities elsewhere. (MLH)

Teachers at a laboratory middle school in Evanston, Illinois, reconceptualized and revitalized an ailing student council according to some meaningful goals: empowering and involving all students, creating an atmosphere for cooperative action, and offering opportunities for service. There are three main arms to this action council (service,…

Service-utilization data for 133 infants and toddlers with developmental delays were gathered over four months. For each service encounter, the duration, location, and type of service, was recorded. Findings revealed that families received an average of 1.7 hours per week of services. Thirty-four percent of services occurred in community-based…

The University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing has established a community-based practice based on a model of socially responsible care and designed to meet the complex care needs of frail elders. The LIFE program is culturally relevant, involves the community in governance, and includes a research agenda and health-information network. (JOW)

Examines the caregiving arrangements of 214 disabled, elderly Puerto Ricans living in Springfield, Massachusetts. Results indicate that although these elderly were severely disabled, they had limited sources of informal care and rarely used formal services. Discusses the need for a structural adaptation approach and for social services that are…

The Australian state of Victoria has adopted a privatization approach to human services that is destroying the infrastructure of community services. Without a dynamic community services core, it is difficult for social citizenship to flourish. (SK)

The Make a Difference model transforms community service from free labor and low-level tasks to efforts yielding genuine community improvement and enhanced academic performance. Students study the organization they work for and/or the chosen problem. California middle-school students conducted interviews, located primary sources, and created a…

Recommends bringing practitioners and researchers together to strengthen future service learning research, suggesting a more empirically based approach to practice and more practical approach to research. The empirically based approach would help practitioners strengthen programs and influence the direction of research. The practice oriented…