In June 2005 the British government launched the Extended Schools Agenda to complement and add value to the Every Child Matters Framework. Every Child Matters is the British approach to collect and align multiple efforts by organizations such as hospitals, schools, volunteer groups, and afterschool programs for youth up to the age of nineteen to…

Practice in working with parents is changing and communicating with parents is increasingly a part of teachers' responsibilities. Besides focusing on supporting their children's learning, many schools now involve parents in education for themselves. Yet despite the expectation that they will work to engage parents in their children's learning, in…

This article is excerpted from the authors' "The Community-Based Doula: Supporting Families Before, During, and After Childbirth", published in 2006 by "ZERO TO THREE." In the U.S., many new parents are socially isolated and lack access to ongoing caring and support because of poverty, immigration, language barriers, or the growing mobility and…

Multiple perspectives regarding the definition of quality child care, and how child care quality can be improved, were examined using a focus group methodology. Participants were representatives from stakeholder groups in the child care profession, including child care center owners and directors (3 groups), parents (3 groups), child caregivers (3…

In spite of the need for pre- and post-adoption support, studies indicate low levels of services utilization among adoptive families, particularly those involving children with special needs. This study examines the relationship between utilization of adoptions services and adoptive child and family characteristics, pre-adoptive risk history, and…

Research consistently shows that addressing diverse families' needs early in life will reduce risks and increase protective factors surrounding the complexities of families' lives. For decades, prevention and early intervention has been described in many forms, from child centred and client centred to family centred and family focused, yet all…

This report describes the 3 year outcomes of three different variants of the Triple P-Positive Parenting Program, a behavioural family intervention. Families were randomly assigned to one of three intervention conditions or to a waitlist condition. At 1 year follow-up there were similar improvements on observational and self-report measures of…

Raising a child with disabilities impacts the ability of parents to participate in life situations. This paper describes the development of a new instrument, Life Participation for Parents, to measure outcomes of pediatric therapy on parental participation. Items were reviewed by six occupational therapists with experience in pediatrics and…

Background: Previous research has reported on the effectiveness of the Signposts program for supporting families of children with an intellectual disability and difficult behaviour (Hudson et al., 2003; Hudson, Cameron, & Matthews, 2008). This paper reports on an investigation of the extent to which child characteristics moderate the…

The nation's child protection system (CPS) has historically focused on preventing maltreatment in high-risk families, whose children have already been maltreated. But, as Jane Waldfogel explains, it has also begun developing prevention procedures for children at lower risk--those who are referred to CPS but whose cases do not meet the criteria for…

This volume explores whether the nation's early childhood programs are boosting child development and preparing children for schooling and proposes reforms that would improve the programs. The volume contains contrasting papers on the success of Head Start, Early Head Start, and home-visiting programs and on policies that would improve these three…

Consistent with results of previous needs assessments for urban American Indian and Alaska Native populations, a needs assessment in the Portland, Oregon metropolitan area for the Native American Rehabilitation Association Northwest revealed high levels of co-occurring conditions for American Indian and Alaska Native clients, often combining…

Objective: To investigate the effectiveness of behavioral parent training (BPT) as adjunct to routine clinical care (RCC). Method: After a first phase of RCC, 94 children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) ages 4-12, all referred to a Dutch outpatient mental health clinic, were randomly assigned to 5 months of BPT plus concurrent…

The international literature on parents with intellectual disabilities (ID) has focused on concerns about their ability to parent and strategies to enable them to develop parenting skills. Traditionally, the views and experiences of parents themselves have not been the focus of studies. With this in mind, the authors talked to a cohort of 30…

Background: The purpose of this study was to investigate the demographic, social and psychological factors associated with moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) among a sample of secondary school students (N = 402). Methods: Students completed a questionnaire which examined their level of participation in MVPA and sedentary behaviours…