Strong mental and behavioral health supports on campus can improve the academic performance of students and increase their resilience and ability to handle stress, with reduced suicide rates, substance abuse, and eating disorders, but this study reveals that students with mental health disabilities continue to face barriers to accessing counseling…

Longitudinal impacts of a consumer-directed support program that provides families with an individualized budget were studied at three points in time over a 9-year period: Time 1 (1991), Time 2 (1995), and Time 3 (2000). At Time 3, families in the program were also compared with families on the waiting list. Over time, families in the program…

In this article, the authors describe Early Childhood Family Support Community of Practice (CoP), which was launched and facilitated by the Beach Center on Disability at the University of Kansas. A CoP is a group of people who share concerns or passions about a topic and who regularly interact based on their shared interests. The goal of Early…

One of the ways that Movement for Canadian Literacy (MCL) fulfills its mandate is by providing a forum where people from provincial/territorial and national organizations can work together to identify, discuss and address issues of common focus. This project, Mapping the Field of Family Literacy, reflects MCL's goal of building consensus, capacity…

The authors assessed the substance abuse counseling needs of women in the criminal justice system using interviews (n = 304) and surveys (n = 1,170). On the basis of the results, the authors call for gender-specific treatment as well as family-oriented support for women who are mothers.

Objective: To assess the cost-effectiveness of two alternate forms of Family Connections (FC), a child neglect prevention program, in relation to changes in risk and protective factors and improvements in child safety and behavioral outcomes. Methods: In the original FC study, a sample of 154 families (473 children) in a poor, urban neighborhood,…

Recent policy responses to the risks entailed in "fast-track" school-work transitions have targeted careleavers and young people identified as "not in education, employment or training" (NEET). However, this approach has been criticised as diverting attention away from the fragile circumstances of others who may receive little…

Family reunification is not always possible for children who have been removed from the care of their biological parents because of abuse or neglect. Concurrent planning puts into place a secondary plan for a permanent home should family reunification prove to be impossible. Working in four diverse communities around the country in an innovative…

Parents with intellectual disabilities, like all other parents, need support with child rearing. Often this support comes from family and friends, but in the case of parents with intellectual disabilities, they are more likely to have to rely on the service system. Research from a number of countries demonstrates that there is limited system…

This study examines the impact of intensive family preservation services (IFPS) on racial disproportionality of placement into out-of-home care. A large sample was partitioned on the basis of race, risk, and services received. The probability of placement is examined as a function of these variables. High-risk minority children receiving…

For families who might otherwise be isolated--socially, economically, and/or geographically--home visitation can be a highly beneficial family support service. Drawing on her experiences with Family Connections, a home visitation initiative serving families with children birth to age 5, in Fresno County, California, Bouhebent conveys best…

Using data from the National Early Intervention Longitudinal Study, this study provides a framework for characterizing the delivery of early intervention services based on the combinations of service providers who work with infants and toddlers with disabilities and their families. Five groups of providers were identified. Results showed that the…

The extent to which the influences of family-systems intervention practices could be traced to variations in parent-child interactions and child development was investigated by meta-analytic structural equation modeling (MASEM). MASEM is a procedure for producing a weighted pooled correlation matrix and fitting a structural equation model to the…

Although there is considerable research on student adjustment to college, to date no research has been conducted on the urban students' adjustment to a rural college environment. Through the use of focus groups that met three times during the semester, five females and five males from New York City discussed and shared their experience of…

Research Findings: Reports from the Early Head Start (EHS) Research and Evaluation Project (EHSREP) found that participation in programs that combined home-based and center-based approaches (i.e., mixed programs) had the broadest pattern of significant impacts on parents and children through age 3. Which program implementation characteristics…