The Cleveland Central Promise Neighborhood (CCPN) initiative brings together Central neighborhood residents, community stakeholders and partners to create the kind of community where every child can have career and college success. Helping children achieve a bright future filled with opportunity is the cornerstone of the Promise Initiative. The…

The Cleveland Central Promise Neighborhood (CCPN) initiative brings together Central neighborhood residents, community stakeholders and partners to create the kind of community where every child can have career and college success. Helping children achieve a bright future filled with opportunity is the cornerstone of the Promise Initiative. The…

"Children's Budget 2017" captures and analyzes historical funding data and spending trends across a wide range of policy areas including child welfare, early childhood, education, health, housing, income support, nutrition, safety and training, tracking federal investments in nearly 200 different programs. For each program listed, this…

Succession planning is an important step for families owning woodlands and farms that wish to maintain the character of the land and continue the families' connection to it. We introduce Ties to the Land, an educational curriculum that helps families communicate more effectively about the fate of their land and how to transition to future…

Without a doubt, the economy is taking its toll on families, many of whom face reduced wages, unemployment, foreclosure, and decreased--or nonexistent--health care benefits. With this in mind, the Greendale Schools' director of pupil services and this author wondered whether they could offer the Employee Assistance Program (EAP), which is designed…

Respite care is one of a range of support services typically available to carers of people with dependencies who need a break from caring, and the factors that influence the need for respite care are generally similar irrespective of the nature of the dependencies. Hence, the expectations of families potentially have policy and service provision…

Outcomes measurement has become a contemporary requirement for non-profit, government, and private sector child, youth, and family service providers throughout North America as well as in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, and elsewhere. Cost-effectiveness, care planning, service evaluations, and fiscal audits are now commonplace…

Federal funding for early childhood education and care promotes three overarching policy goals: (1) increasing children's access to services; (2) raising the quality of early childhood programs; and (3) fostering greater coordination among the many providers--public schools, center-based child care, home-based child care, Head Start, and more--of…

In today's competitive job market, education is increasingly touted as necessary preparation for the workplace (Joyce, Hassall, Montano, & Anes, 2006). The literature suggests that one of the most important skill sets identified by both educators and practitioners is the need for numerical competency and analytical proficiency (Joyce et…

This dissertation consists of four individual, but related chapters. Chapter 1 provides an introduction to competitive employment for people with disabilities who have individualized support needs and the Family Employment Awareness Training ("FEAT"). This chapter also provides a general overview of the other chapters in this…

This project reports the results of two studies that investigated the impact on course evaluations of using partial credit iterative responding (PCIR) with the Immediate Feedback Assessment Technique (IF-AT) forms on summative course assessments. This project also quantifies grade inflation from utilizing different PCIR schemes and documents the…

Military families frequently display remarkable resilience in the face of significant challenges, and yet deployment and parental separation are significant stressors for parents, particularly those with infants and young children. The Strong Military Families preventive intervention is a multifamily parenting and self-care skills group that aims…

Both prior to and during the transition from early intervention (EI) to school, parents of children who are deaf or hard of hearing (d/hh) need crucial information about the transition process and school services. Given the ubiquitous nature of computers and Internet access, it is reasonable to assume that web-based dissemination of information…

Early Words Together is a National Literacy Trust programme that develops young children's communication, language and literacy through the support of families by peer volunteers. Over six weeks, the programme brings practitioners and volunteers together to enable target families to improve their home learning environment for children aged two to…

Within a learning family, every member is a lifelong learner. A family literacy and learning approach is more likely to break the intergenerational cycle of low education and inadequate literacy skills, particularly among disadvantaged families and communities. The selection of case studies presented in this compilation show that for an…