Federal child care subsidies have the potential to support parents’ employment and children’s development. A growing body of research tells us who is more likely to use these subsidies, for what types of child care, and to what extent the hassles to obtain subsidies deter use. This issue is explored in a Research Brief, a Literature Review, and a Table of Methods and Findings, accompanied by an Introduction to the field.

Science tells us that all low-income babies, toddlers, and families benefit from child development and family support programs like Early Head Start. But there is also a group of babies, toddlers, and parents who face so many risks that even these programs alone may not be enough. This issue brief highlights 10 program and community strategies that can help these most vulnerable families and promote early school success even in the face of multiple demographic, economic, and parental barriers like depression and trauma that so impact young children. It is based on a meeting that brought together policymakers, researchers, practitioners, and advocates to explore the challenges and opportunities for focusing more attention on these families while at the same time working to expand access to supportive programs for all families with very young children.

After nearly a decade of decline, the number of children living in low-income families has been steadily increasing, a pattern that began in 2000. This data book provides national and 50-state trend data on the characteristics of low-income children over the past decade: parental education, parental employment, marital status, family structure, race and ethnicity, age distribution, parental nativity, home ownership, residential mobility, type of residential area, and region of residence.

The Child Support Agency (CSA) was launched on the 5 April 1993, as an executive agency of the then Department of Social Security. The CSA was given the role of implementing the 1991 Child Support Act and subsequent legislation with purpose of ensuring that parents who live apart both maintain their children, whenever they can afford to do so. The agency is responsible for tracing Non-resident Parents, calculating how much they should pay and, if required, collecting and enforcing payments.

Children and young people have highlighted the pressures they face while caring for someone in their family with a long-term illness or disability. This report provides vital information for councils as providers and commissioners of services for young carers.

The White Paper 'Our health, our care, our say: A new direction for community services', explains in detail the improvements the Government is going to make to health and social care services, why it feels these changes are necessary and the steps it's taking to make sure they happen. This document provides a snapshot of the developments expected over the next five years.

This consultation sets out proposals for a national minimum allowance for foster carers, inviting comments on the proposed method for setting the level. It also sets out a framework for good practice in payment systems for foster carers.

Homeless adults had a substantially higher death rate than the general NYC population. The leading killers were heart disease and cancer, the same as the overall population. However, substance abuse and HIV/AIDS accounted for nearly one-third of all deaths, compared with less than 5% in the general NYC adult population. Homeless people also suffer from many conditions that diminish their health but are not necessarily fatal, creating higher rates of illness than in the non-homeless population.

An unfortunate trend in cities around the country over the past 25 years has been to turn to the criminal justice system to respond to people living in public spaces. This trend includes measures that target homeless persons by making it illegal to perform lifesustaining activities in public. These measures prohibit activities such as sleeping/camping, eating, sitting, and begging in public spaces, usually including criminal penalties for violation of these laws.

The concept of chronic poverty is discussed, and the case for drawing on qualitative and quantitatve methods is made. The paper then presents an analysis of chronic poverty in Rwanda, based upon a combination of participatory poverty assessment and household survey data. The authors conclude with some policy recommendations.

While it is well-recognised that the "worst forms of child labour" are pervasive throughout Cambodia, the full dimension of urban child labour remains elusive, in part because of the wide range of implicated sectors (both formal and informal), the broad geographic reach and disparities depending on location, the hidden nature of particular forms of labour (domestic labour, illegal drug trafficking, underground commercial sexual exploitation, etc.), the fluidity of child labour trends and patterns, and the scarcity of up-to-date comprehensive data on child labour in Cambodia.

The report argues that half of Asia’s families are failing to benefit from economic growth and globalisation. This is largely due to a combination of the pressure of population growth on scarce resources; lack of access to education, healthcare, clean water and sanitation; caste discrimination and dominance by social elites; as well as weak governance and corruption. The report identifies some major challenges that children in poverty will face, in line with future trends.

This paper is one of a series of Young Lives Project working papers, an innovative longitudinal study of childhood poverty in Ethiopia, India (Andhra Pradesh State), Peru and Vietnam. Between 2002 and 2015, some 2000 children in each country are being tracked and surveyed at 3-4 year intervals from when they are 1 until 14 years of age. In addition, 1000 older children in each country are being followed from when they are aged 8 years.

Community-led action and 'people power' will have an increasing impact in stamping out bigoted attitudes, First Minister Jack McConnell said today as he launched the Executive's Action Plan on Tackling Sectarianism in Scotland. The Plan sets out how the Executive will support and expand a wide range of local and national initiatives that have emerged from the ground-breaking National Summit on Sectarianism held last year.

Despite employment growth, high levels of worklessness persist for some people and in some places. Substantial investment has been made to raise the skills levels of those who are most disadvantaged and skills policy is being embedded in regional and local economic development strategies. This study, by Anne Green and David Owen of the University of Warwick, analyses statistics from the 2001 Census on access to work for people with poor skills in the context of important changes in the industrial and occupational profile of employment and the location of jobs.

Since it first “went national” in 1998, the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign (the Campaign) has aired a slew of anti-drug messages in paid and donated advertising across a full range of media. But while a multiyear evaluation showed that the Campaign raised exposure to anti-drug media messages among youth, it also showed that the Campaign had no favorable effect on marijuana use — one of its key targets. But what happens when exposure to the Campaign is combined with a school-based drug prevention curriculum?

Sales pitches for alcoholic beverages are everywhere: at the grocery store, in magazines, on television, and at concession stands. Kids can’t avoid them, even though alcohol ads are supposedly aimed at adults. Researchers have long suspected a connection between alcohol advertisements and underage drinking, but positive correlations to date may have been due to other factors like peer and family influences that affect both drinking and ad exposure. Researchers with the RAND Corporation have now made a much stronger connection, taking a new look at alcohol ads and youth drinking with studies designed to avoid the pitfalls of earlier ones. Furthermore, they tested to see if participation in a school-based drug prevention program can counteract the impact of alcohol ads.

Parents, policymakers, business leaders, and the general public increasingly recognize the importance of the first few years in the life of a child for promoting healthy physical, emotional, social, and intellectual development. Yet many children face deficiencies in the years leading up to school entry in terms of emotional support, intellectual stimulation, or access to resources — due to low income or other factors — that can impede their ability to develop to their fullest potential. As part of a recent study to examine the role of early childhood interventions, RAND researchers identified what is known from the research literature about the number of children at risk of school failure and the consequences for their performance in school and subsequent life outcomes. We summarize those findings here.

View image of State by state income ratios
In most states, the gap between the highest-income families and poor and middle-income families grew significantly between the early 1980s and the early 2000s, according to a new study by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and the Economic Policy Institute. The study is one of the few to examine income inequality at the state as well as national level. The incomes of the country’s richest families have climbed substantially over the past two decades, while middle- and lower-income families have seen only modest increases. This trend is in marked contrast to the broadly shared increases in prosperity between World War II and the 1970s.

Older Workers in Direct Care: A Labor Force Expansion Study, a new research report from the Better Jobs Better Care (BJBC) project, looks at people aged 55 and older as one potential solution to the direct-care worker shortage. Researchers Karen Kosniewski of Operation ABLE of Michigan and Melanie Hwalek of the research firm SPEC Associates conducted telephone interviews with 615 nursing home representatives, 410 home health agencies, and 696 lower-income job seekers 55 years and older in seven states. They found many mature workers interested in the profession, with 43 percent reporting an interest and 60 percent wanting to work at least 30 hours a week. More than half said they would attend a 75-hour certification training program.

This new report, A Sure Start to Later Life: Ending Inequalities for Older People, examines how to tackle exclusion in later life. The experience of exclusion is not unique to older people - it affects people of all ages. However, exclusion can be particularly acute in later life for three reasons. First, it is all to rare that people who are excluded in mid-life are able to break the cycle of exclusion in later life, indeed it can often become more acute. Secondly, the impact of key life events, such as bereavement, can lead people to become excluded in later life. Thirdly the impact of age discrimination on both the aspirations of individuals and the environment within which they operate can lead to exclusion. Too often this exclusion is compounded by the failure of services to react to the complexity of exclusion in later life. This is why we need a more responsive model for services for older people that addresses these needs.

This updated issue brief provides a review of how Medicaid works for people with long-term care needs and describes the fiscal challenges that states currently face and that Medicaid may face in the future as the population ages.

As policymakers are considering options to reduce Medicaid spending, by changing asset transfer rules and increasing penalties for certain asset transfers, this snapshot presents key facts on who relies on nursing home services and highlights research findings on asset transfer.

This new narrated slide tutorial provides an overview of the financing of long-term care in the U.S., explaining issues related to the cost of long-term care, how families pay for long-term care services, and the role of the Medicare and Medicaid programs.

The lifetime prevalence of depression among adolescents is currently estimated to be 14.0 percent. Recent studies have shown associations between adolescent depression and the onset of cigarette smoking, alcohol use, and drug use. The 2004 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) includes questions for adolescents aged 12 to 17 to assess lifetime and past year major depressive episode (MDE). In the survey, MDE is defined using the diagnostic criteria set forth by the 4th edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV),4 which specifies a period of 2 weeks or longer during which there is either depressed mood or loss of interest or pleasure and at least four other symptoms that reflect a change in functioning, such as problems with sleep, eating, energy, concentration, and self-image.

View Figure 1. Race/Ethnicity of Adolescent Admissions, by Psychiatric Diagnosis Status: 2003

People are said to have co-occurring disorders when they have “one or more disorders relating to the use of alcohol and/or other drugs of abuse as well as one or more mental disorders. A diagnosis of co-occurring disorders occurs when at least one disorder of each type can be established independent of the other and is not simply a cluster of symptoms resulting from the one disorder.”. . . This report compares adolescent admissions with co-occurring disorders to all other adolescent admissions, that is, those with a substance abuse problem only. Among adolescent admissions, 21 percent (more than 16,000) had a psychiatric problem in addition to an alcohol or drug problem. For comparison, 19 percent of adult TEDS admissions had co-occurring disorders.

This report presents results from the Treatment Episode Data Set (TEDS) for 2003, and trend data for 1993 to 2003.1 The report provides information on the demographic and substance abuse characteristics of the 1.8 million annual admissions to treatment for abuse of alcohol and drugs in facilities that report to individual State administrative data systems. . . . Five substances accounted for 96 percent of the 1,840,275 TEDS admissions in 2003:1 alcohol (42 percent), opiates (18 percent, primarily heroin), marijuana (15 percent), cocaine (14 percent), and stimulants (7 percent, primarily methamphetamine)

Science tells us that all low-income babies, toddlers, and families benefit from child development and family support programs like Early Head Start. But there is also a group of babies, toddlers, and parents who face so many risks that even these programs alone may not be enough. This issue brief highlights 10 program and community strategies that can help these most vulnerable families and promote early school success even in the face of multiple demographic, economic, and parental barriers like depression and trauma that so impact young children. It is based on a meeting that brought together policymakers, researchers, practitioners, and advocates to explore the challenges and opportunities for focusing more attention on these families while at the same time working to expand access to supportive programs for all families with very young children.

A broad survey of measures to combat patriarchal violence and oppression, particularly acts committed in the name of honour directed at women, homosexuals, bisexuals and transgender persons.

This report examines changes in the level of funding for domestic discretionary programs, both between 2005 and 2006 and over the past five years. It is widely believed that domestic discretionary programs have grown sharply over the past five years. The Center’s analysis finds, however, that as a result of Congressional action completed in late December, funding for these programs fell significantly in 2006, is now back down to 2001 levels in real per capita terms, and is below 2001 levels as a share of the economy.

This report investigates how and when differences in work behaviour between men and women develop, focusing on the evolution of the gender gaps immediately after childbirth and during the initial years of family development.

This is the Children's Rights Director's report. It contains the views of children and young people on the Government's guidelines for sharing confidential information about them.

The concept of patient-centered care—care delivered in accordance with the needs and desires of patients—is starting to gain traction in health care, including the field of long-term care. When Congress passed the Omnibus Budget and Reconciliation Act of 1987, new standards for nursing home quality were put in place, giving resident-centered care a statutory basis and stimulating a handful of providers and long-term care professionals to think creatively about how nursing homes could be transformed.

The Commonwealth Fund's Program on Quality of Care for Underserved Populations focuses on improving health care for minority and low-income patients—groups whose health may be compromised by a lack of care that is responsive to their particular needs, concerns, and cultural background. The program's primary goals are to improve quality of care and reduce disparities related to race, ethnicity, and income

This sets out the direction that NHS research and development will take to ensure a vibrant, world-class environment for conducting and using NHS health research.

Despite robust GDP growth in 2005, labour market performance worldwide was mixed, with more people in work than in 2004 but at the same time more unemployed people than the year before. Overall the global unemployment rate remained unchanged at 6.3 per cent after 2 successive years of decline. At the end of 2005, 2.85 billion people aged 15 and older were in work, up 1.5 per cent over the previous year, and up 16.5 per cent since 1995. Given that unemployment is just the tip of the iceberg, the focus in developing economies should not be solely based on unemployment alone, but also on the conditions of work of those who are employed. In 2005, of the over 2.8 billion workers in the world, nearly 1.4 billion still did not earn enough to lift themselves and their families above the US$2 a day poverty line – just as many as ten years ago.

Nature is, or can be, a route out of poverty. Ecosystems and the goods and services they provide are an important and under-valued aspect of the livelihoods of the poor. Three quarters of the world's poor live in rural areas, and are disproportionately affected by enviromental degradation. But programs to reduce poverty often fail to account for the important link between environment and the livelihoods of the rural poor. As a consequence, the full potential of ecosystems as a wealth-creating asset for the poor -- not just a survival mechanism -- has yet to be effectively tapped.

This guide aims to support local health and social care organisations with the principles and practice of reimbursing and paying service users (public/patients) for their involvement. It aims to provide some consistency of approach and ensure that service users are treated fairly and appropriately according to their circumstances.

Recent research points to public schools as the major providers of mental health services for school-aged children. The current study, School Mental Health Services in the United States, 2002–2003, provides the first national survey of mental health services in a representative sample of the approximately 83,000 public elementary, middle, and high schools and their associated school districts in the United States.

Presented here are the first two waves of findings from the Midwest Evaluation of the Adult Functioning of Former Foster Youth, a longitudinal study of youth aging out of foster care and transitioning to adulthood in Iowa, Wisconsin and Illinois. The study is based on survey data that will be collected at three points in time from a sample of youth who were in foster care for at least one year prior to their 16th birthday. The majority of these youth were placed in the care of the state child welfare system due to abuse and neglect.

During three days at the end of April 2005, approximately 3,000 residents of the community of Makoko in Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital, were forcibly evicted from their houses. Bulldozers came in and started demolishing houses, churches, and medical clinics. Amnesty International visited Makoko on 5 May 2005 and spoke with dozens of evictees. None had been supplied with adequate alternative housing and many were deprived of schooling or means of earning a living. Those evicted claimed that they had neither been given prior notice nor consulted on the planned evictions. Some of them, including children, had been beaten up by the law enforcement officials and suffered injuries as a result of the disproportionate force used, others had had all their belongings and houses destroyed by the government forces.

Our approach has been based on the principle that the best welfare policy of all is work and throughout this process of reform we have sought to match rights with responsibilities. These reforms have made a huge difference. Britain now has the highest employment rate of any G8 country. Youth unemployment has virtually been eradicated. The number of people claiming incapacity benefits is falling after decades of rapid increases. There are now a million fewer people of working age on benefits. The progress we have been able to make has depended on a strong economy and a dynamic labour market. Both have been achieved and sustained since 1997, but there is more to do. Our economy and society are changing fast. Our welfare state must help us respond to these changes. It must focus its energy on tackling poverty and social exclusion. Society has a responsibility to support those unable to support themselves. It should help support people in acquiring the new skills they need for the jobs of the future.

As part of the Assuring Better Child Health and Development (ABCD II) program, the National Academy for State Health Policy (NASHP) surveyed Medicaid, maternal and child health, and children's mental health agencies in all 50 states and the District of Columbia to gather information on how states are addressing the healthy mental development of children ages birth to three. The objective of the survey was to identify critical issues, common approaches to addressing them, and innovative approaches that might be useful

"Nonstandard" workers—those employed on a part-time, temporary, or contractual basis—are far more likely than regular, full-time employees to lack health care coverage, experience gaps in their coverage, or depend on public insurance programs, according to this Fund report.

Efforts to address racial and ethnic disparities in health care face a major hurdle: accurately collecting data on patients' race, ethnicity, and preferred language, which are crucial in designing and implementing disparity-reduction programs. Providers are often reluctant to risk alienating patients by collecting this potentially sensitive information. Some patients, meanwhile, have concerns about why such information is needed.

The Commission's Chairman, the Rt Hon Lord Macfadyen, said the package of proposed reforms represented an opportunity to bring much-needed clarity and transparency in sentencing - but he warned that the proposals were not intended to increase the severity of sentencing and should not be regarded as a 'back door' opportunity to make Scotland a more penal society.

Interventions to Reduce Violence and Promote the Physical and Psychosocial Well-Being of Women who Experience Partner Violence: A systematic review of controlled evaluations

This report aims to evaluate the effectiveness of interventions relevant to health care for the reduction of violence or improvement of the physical and psychosocial well-being of women who have experienced or are experiencing partner violence.

This report evaluates the feedback from 65 out of a possible 142 councils in England on the annual performance assessment (APA) of childrens' services in 2005. The views of all types of councils were represented in the survey results, and there was a suitable geographic spread. The questionnaire focused on a range of issues, including the impact and cost of, and potential improvements to, the APA, along with more general evaluative questions.

The original and current NICE guidance on the use of donepezil, galantamine and rivastigmine for Alzheimer's disease issued in 2001 recommends the use of these drugs for all patients, with treatment stopping as soon as they no longer have an effect. NICE's review of this guidance initially concluded that there was not enough evidence to support the use of these drugs for all patients as recommended in the original guidance.

Planning Your Recovery
This brochure provides tips to help patients get more involved in their care, and gives them information they need for the best possible recovery.

Fall Prevention at Home
This brochure offers suggestions for helping you prevent falls at home.

Methadone Interaction Wallet Card
This wallet card, developed in conjunction with methadone prescribers and pharmacists, can be used for quick reference by patients and professionals.

Assessment and management of chronic pain
Institute for Clinical Systems Improvement (ICSI). Assessment and management of chronic pain. Bloomington (MN): Institute for Clinical Systems Improvement (ICSI); 2005 Nov. 77 p. [139 references]

Depressive disorder in adolescents - F32#* (Clinical term: Depressive episode Eu32) * The current ICD-10 classification does not distinguish between adults and adolescents. Depressive disorder in pre-adolescents is very rare and difficult to distinguish from the intense emotional reactions and misery that are common in small children. All cases of suspected depressive disorder in pre-adolescents should be referred. This guideline is concerned with depressive disorder in adolescents.

The guideline offers best practice advice on the identification and treatment of depression in children (5-11 years) and young people (from the age of 12 up to 18th birthday). The guideline addresses the following aspects and degrees of depression: detection and risk profiling, recognition, mild depression, moderate and severe depression, severe depression with psychotic symptoms.

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) - F42 (Clinical term: Obsessive compulsive disorder Eu42)

This guideline addresses the nature of both obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) and body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) and considers the psychological and medication-based interventions available for treatment of these conditions, including the stepped-care model of practice.

We have searched the evidence for systematic and rigorous answers to the clinical questions and situations below, focusing on the outcomes that matter most to patients and clinicians. We have then categorised each treatment or intervention according to its harms and benefits in those situations.

This webpage gives information about drug laws and classifications, drugs licensing, and the work of the Advisory Council for the Misuse of Drugs.

This report considers the necessity of inclusion of khat under the Misuse of Drugs Act based on its harmfulness or other legislative changes that may be appropriate. It is based on a detailed scrutiny of the relevant scientific literature. It considers the current level of khat use in the UK, the health risks from using khat, and the harms to society as a consequence of khat use.

Explains how new powers will soon allow people to appoint attorneys to deal with issues surrounding their medical treatment and care, should they lose the mental ability to make such decisions themselves.

This paper employs the American Housing Survey (AHS) between 1993 and 2001 to compare owned manufactured housing to rental housing and traditional owned housing as a tenure alternative for low-income households. This comparison for the three tenure types is made along several dimensions. Initially, a general comparison is made regarding the quality ranking of the structures and neighborhoods, housing cost, and housing affordability. Subsequently, regression models are used to determine the factors that affect the households’ neighborhood and structural quality rankings and changes in those rankings over time. Separate equations are estimated for each tenure type.

International charitable organizations make up only 2 percent of organizations and 2 percent of revenue of the charitable nonprofit sector in the United States, but their influence both at home and abroad is far-reaching in three areas addressed by this study: international understanding, international development and relief assistance, and international affairs. They provide important humanitarian aid, secure financial support for institutions and causes abroad, build cross-national understanding through the international exchange of ideas and people, and conduct research for policy development on foreign policy, trade, security, and other issues with global consequences. International organizations are also part of a global activist agenda that includes human rights, women's rights, workers' rights, AIDS, environmental protection, and other transnational issues.

Rett syndrome is a childhood neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by normal early development followed by loss of purposeful use of the hands, distinctive hand movements, slowed brain and head growth, gait abnormalities, seizures, and mental retardation. It affects females almost exclusively.

The overwhelming majority of people who have mental illnesses are capable of living independently in their own homes. Unfortunately, millions of people who have mental illnesses stand little chance of obtaining safe, decent and affordable housing. Many factors contribute to this situation including low incomes, high rents, stigma and discrimination, and lack of accessible and appropriate support services. In fact, in the United States, approximately 60,000 people with mental health-related illnesses live in psychiatric institutions; another 312,000 live in state correctional acilities; and, as many as 175,000 are homeless on any given night. Moreover, research shows that an unstable living situation is a primary precipitant of psychiatric hospitalization, and a significant factor leading to extended lengths of hospital stays.

Equal justice under the law is a fundamental concept of American jurisprudence, but for youth with in the juvenile justice system, human rights protections are typically inadequate. Even when rights do exist in statute, regulations and case law, loopholes, vague language or lack of enforcement often weakens them. Why does this occur? Unfortunately, fear, misunderstanding and stigma dominate the perception of juvenile crime in this country. Americans have long been ambivalent about the purpose of the juvenile justice system and many states are opting for a more punitive approach to addressing criminal behavior. This trend, coupled with increasingly overcrowded facilities and a
lack of sufficient resources, has resulted in the frequent violation of the rights of juveniles.

For many persons with mental illnesses receiving services through the public mental health system, the concept of self-determination bears little relevance to their daily existence. However, as states are implementing recovery-oriented services, selfdetermination or self-directed care is becoming a vital component to recovery. The President’s New Freedom Commission’s Final Report (2003) recognizes the need for a change towards more self-determined care programs in the mental health system. This issue brief outlines the origins of the self-determination movement, discusses the major components of the self-determination movement, and makes suggestions for the implementation and funding of self-determined programs.

Due to current military engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan, there has been a renewed interest in Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and its presentation in military personnel. This bibliography lists citations for books, documents, articles, audiovisuals, and Internet sites related to this topic. Specifically, the cited items focus on PTSD resulting from combat exposure in current and past military engagements and peacekeeping operations.

The 2005 FBI Computer Crime Survey addresses one of the highest priorities in the Federal Bureau of Investigation . These survey results are based on the responses of 2066 organizations . The purpose of this survey is to gain an accurate understanding of what computer security incidents are being experienced by the full spectrum of sizes and types of organizations within the United States . The 23-question survey addressed a wide variety of issues including: computer security technologies used, security incident types, and actions taken, as well as emerging technologies and trends such as wireless and biometrics . The survey was conducted in four states including Iowa, Nebraska, New York, and Texas and was performed by the corresponding FBI offices in those areas. The survey was conducted in such a way that recipients could respond anonymously.

Multi-agency working is an effective, challenging way of supporting children and families with additional needs and securing real improvements in their life outcomes. The Change for Children programme paves the way for more multi-agency services delivering a range of early intervention and preventive work in and close to schools and early years settings. This online resource is for frontline managers and practitioners in a range of settings, who are starting to work with children and families in these new ways. It contains specialised toolkits to support their work.

This webpage gives further context to local authorities and practitioners about who has parental responsibility for a child when they are cared for by a friend or a member of the family.

Since 2003 a number of pioneering local authorities, housing associations and charities have established dedicated anti-social behaviour rehabilitation projects to provide support for families with children who are at risk of homelessness or eviction owing to anti-social behaviour displayed by themselves or visitors to their homes.

The guidance helps to prepare health, social care and prison staff for the transfer of responsibility of prison health to the NHS by April 2006. It summarises existing policy and provides examples and best practice in line with the NHS Plan and National Services Framework for Mental Health.

Despite the growing understanding of part-time employment, what has not been fully explored and explained by existing research is why significant proportions of the women who work in low paid, part-time jobs do so even though they have the potential to work in more skilled, higher status, better paid jobs. This study uses linked, locality-based research to examine the choices that low paid, part-time workers make and the constraints they experience. The study is based on interviews with managers and women employees in participating workplaces. As such, it represents a snapshot in time of their views and experiences.

In December 2005, the Executive published A Vision for the Voluntary Sector - The Next Phase of Our Relationship in response to calls from the sector for a Ministerial statement about its role and what the Executive wanted. The document was written after social researchers carried out a survey of 200 senior managers and conducted focus groups to establish the extent and range of the Executive's dealings with the voluntary sector which is seen as having a vital role in service delivery, policy development, community cohesion and as an agent of change.

The Mental Health (Care and Treatment) (Scotland) Act 2003 became law in October 2005. As one of a number of initiatives set in place to support the implementation of the new legislation, the Scottish Executive has established a dedicated programme of mental health law research. The Mental Health Law Research: Update and Agenda 2005-2007, was published in December 2005 and summarises the areas within which research will be conducted to assess the impact of the new Act and encourages stakeholders to contact the research team and become involved.

Scotland has the most progressive homelessness legislation in the world. A key target is to ensure that by 2012 every unintentionally homeless person will be entitled to permanent accommodation. This will be achieved by abolishing the distinction between priority and non-priority homeless households currently employed by local authorities in their assessment procedures. Housing and Planning Research Team has produced an analysis of responses to the Executive's consultation paper on the abolition of priority need to inform the Ministerial Statement on that subject.

Government across the UK is promoting 'mixed and balanced' communities, and mixed income new communities (MINCs) are now being built in most cities, either to regenerate low-income areas or to ensure social housing is provided alongside market-rate homes in new private developments. Better-off families have an important role to play in renewal, particularly if the goals include improving schools and other opportunities for low-income children. This study, by the Institute of Education and the London School of Economics, examined four inner city MINCs: two in low-income areas (Glasgow and Manchester) and two on regenerated brownfield sites (London). It investigated whether families were living in private sector homes and their motivations for doing so.

Many low-income working families today live one health crisis or job setback away from catastrophe. Some barely make ends meet despite "playing by the rules." Children in these families often lag behind children in better-off families on a range of measures. Over 9 million working families with children lead this precarious existence. Yet, we know little about their dynamics, such as how many families spiral into poverty on the heels of a single crisis. We're just now starting to see strategies that might bolster economic stability. Only careful study rooted in family needs, the workplace, and public programs can germinate bigger ideas. For the past decade, Urban Institute's Assessing the New Federalism (ANF) project has charted new territory-by asking new questions and by zeroing in on state budget and policy priorities.

Social Security is a critical program for African Americans. Some 4.8 million African Americans currently receive Social Security benefits, and African Americans benefit disproportionately from many of Social Security’s features, including a progressive benefit structure and survivors and disability benefits. Proposals to scale back the traditional Social Security system and replace a portion of it with private accounts are unlikely to maintain these protections for African Americans to the same degree. As a result, such a shift is likely to have an adverse effect on the African American community.
This analysis first examines how the current Social Security system affects African Americans. It then analyzes the impact that some private accounts proposals would have on them.

CMS’s nursing home survey data show a significant decline in the proportion of nursing homes with serious quality problems since 1999, but this trend masks two important and continuing issues: inconsistency in how states conduct surveys and understatement of serious quality problems. Inconsistency in states’ surveys is demonstrated by wide interstate variability in the proportion of homes found to have serious deficiencies—for example, about 6 percent in one state and about 54 percent in another. Continued understatement of serious deficiencies is shown by the increase in discrepancies between federal and state surveys of the same homes from 2002 through 2004, despite an overall decline in such discrepancies from October 1998 through December 2004. In five large states that had a significant decline in serious deficiencies, federal surveyors concluded that from 8 percent to 33 percent of the comparative surveys identified serious deficiencies that state surveyors had missed. This finding is consistent with earlier GAO work showing that state surveyors missed serious care problems. These two issues underscore the importance of CMS initiatives to improve the consistency and rigor of nursing home surveys.

The current conference agreement of the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 contains provisions reauthorizing the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program. Among the provisions is a program of grants to promote healthy marriage and responsible fatherhood. This publication examines the funding and its uses and requirements. The House is expected to vote on the Act on February 1, 2006

The growing ranks of overweight and obese individuals in industrialized countries are expanding the market for some types of medical treatments while complicating the administration of others. Pharmaceutical companies and surgeons are offering multiple new treatment options for people who are overweight or obese. Meanwhile, some oncologists are questioning whether they should increase the doses of chemotherapy for overweight or obese women who suffer from breast cancer.

Economic analyses of early childhood interventions have shown that effective programs can repay the investments through government savings, social benefits, and individual benefits. Such favorable economic returns have been demonstrated for programs that use various approaches to early intervention, including those that focus on home visiting or parent education, as well as those that combine home visiting or parent education services with early childhood education.

Well-designed early childhood interventions have been found to generate short- and long-term benefits to participating children and families in multiple domains of well-being.

This volume brings together information from a variety of sources to present a broad picture of education and learning in Scotland. It encompasses all post-compulsory education - with chapters devoted to schools, to further education and to higher education - plus training and wider learning activity. The report makes use of management information and survey data to give a perspective of lifelong learning activity that is as rounded as possible. The figures suggest that about 1.2 million people - more than one third of the working age population - were engaged in some education or training in the course of the year.

The Executive's National Programme for Improving Mental Health and Well-being launched its new website on December 19, 2005. Backed by a national billboard advertising campaign the site received nearly 2,500 visitors during the festive period. It aims to raise awareness and understanding, promote sharing of information, knowledge, research, and training in mental health improvement amongst not only mental health professionals but with policy makers, the media, local government, businesses, the voluntary sector, the general public and of course with people experiencing mental health problems.

This handbook gives practical guidance to healthcare professionals on working with patients who may have experienced or are experiencing domestic abuse.

National Alliance on Mental Illness
Suicide: Helping Patients and Their Families After an Attempt
The purpose of this brochure is to provide healthcare professionals with some quick tips to enhance care in the emergency department (ED) for people who have attempted suicide, while also providing information on the Health Insurance Portable and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), patient discharge, and resources about suicide for medical professionals, patients and their families. This brochure can also be distributed to patients.
Suicide: Taking Care of Yourself After an Attempt
This brochure offers information to help patients recovering from a suicide attempt move ahead after their treatment in the emergency department. and provides resources for more information abut suicide and mental illness.

This site, washingtonpost.com's U.S. Congress Votes Database, is a deep database of every vote in the United States Congress since the 102nd Congress (1991). It lets you browse votes in a variety of ways -- both in aggregate and for individual members of Congress. Browse the database by drilling down to a particular Congress (e.g. 109th Congress) or particular member (e.g. 109th Congress senators). This site publishes an RSS feed of recent votes by each member of ongress, and a feed of the most recent votes in both chambers. See the RSS page for full details. This site is generally updated every day, although there is a delay between a vote in Congress and its appearance on the official Congress Web sites.

This report is the National Coalition for the Homeless’ (NCH) fourth report on the criminalization of homelessness and the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty’s (NLCHP) eighth report on the topic. The report documents the top 20 worst offenders of 2005, as well as initiatives in some cities that are more constructive approaches to the issue of people living in public spaces. The report includes the results of a survey of laws and practices in 224 cities around the country, as well as a survey of lawsuits from various jurisdictions in which those measures have been challenged.

HUD commissioned an exploratory study to identify and document communities that have implemented effective and well-targeted community-wide homelessness prevention strategies and data to document their effectiveness. This study documents these approaches in six communities with the hope that other communities might learn how to carry out similar efforts. The study identified a number of elements that could contribute to homelessness prevention, as well as a number of promising prevention activities that could be used alone or in combination as part of a coherent community-wide strategy. The promising prevention activities include: (1) supportive services coupled with permanent housing, particularly when combined with effective discharge from institutions, especially mental hospitals; (2) mediation in Housing Courts; (3) cash assistance for rent or mortgage arrears; and (4) rapid exit from shelter.

A joint venture between the Center for Reproductive Rights, the Asian-Pacific Resource & Research Centre for Women (ARROW), and four NGO partners in East and Southeast Asia, Women of the World: East and Southeast Asia provides an extensive compilation of laws and policies influencing women’s reproductive health in five countries of the region – China, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam, and draws attention to specific issues that require legal and policy reform. It serves as a resource for those interested in advancing and protecting women’s reproductive health and rights through legal advocacy, and ensuring that states comply with their obligations to respect, protect and fulfill women's reproductive rights under international law.

This area of the Number 10 website contains news about the agenda aimed at tackling anti-social behaviour, including information on the Respect Action Plan.

The plan builds on the drive to tackle anti-social behaviour and reclaim communities for the law-abiding majority. It explains why there is a need to deepen the approach by tackling the underlying causes of anti-social behaviour, intervening early where problems occur and broadening efforts to address other areas of poor behaviour.

This presents information on the trends for: the number of students obtaining postgraduate and undergraduate qualifications (including foundation degrees), and the number and proportion of graduates by mode of study, gender, subject, and class of degree.

DiVA, the Digital Scientific Archive (Digitala Vetenskapliga Arkivet in Swedish) is a comprehensive description of a system developed at Uppsala University Library. A repository where the documents are archived is one part of the system. This is why we chose the name the Digital Scientific Archive. The DiVA system has been developed within the framework of the DiVA project which started in September 2000. The system is in full operation since January 2003. A common portal for the participating universities of the project has also been developed within the same project. Sometimes it is called the DiVA Portal.

Depression
University of Michigan Health System. Depression. Ann Arbor (MI): University of Michigan Health System; 2005 Oct. 20 p.
Carpal tunnel syndrome
Work Loss Data Institute. Carpal tunnel syndrome. Corpus Christi (TX): Work Loss Data Institute; 2005. 154 p.
Summary of recommendations for clinical preventive services
American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP). Summary of recommendations for clinical preventive services. Revision 6.0. Leawood (KS): American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP); 2005 Aug.

Job Corps stands out as the nation’s largest, most comprehensive education and job training program for disadvantaged youths. It serves disadvantaged youths between the ages of 16 and 24, primarily in a residential setting. It provides comprehensive services—basic education, vocational skills training, health care and education, counseling, and residential support. Each year, Job Corps serves more than 60,000 new participants in about 120 centers nationwide, at a cost of about $1.5 billion. The National Job Corps Study has been conducted since 1993 under contract with the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL). It is intended to provide Congress and program managers with the information they need to assess how well Job Corps attains its oal of helping students become more responsible, employable, and productive citizens.

VA’s reported overall nursing home care expenditures in its three settings increased from $2.3 billion to almost $3.2 billion from fiscal year 2003 through fiscal year 2005. VA officials attributed the expenditure increase from fiscal year 2003 to fiscal year 2005, in part, to a change in the cost accounting system used to develop expenditure totals for each nursing home setting. Based on VA’s reported expenditures, VA-operated nursing homes continued to account for about three-quarters of VA’s overall nursing home care expenditures in fiscal year 2005, as they did in fiscal year 2003. In fiscal year 2005, 77 percent of nursing home care expenditures were accounted for by VA-operated nursing homes, compared to 73 percent in 2003. VA spent the remainder on state veterans’ nursing homes and community nursing homes.

The organization's mission is to provide guidance, education and information in cost-effective and comprehensive ways and to reach diverse communities in need of help and hope; and to increase the visibility of professional social work in the public by demonstrating the value of the profession.

Meet outreach workers, volunteers and the people that depend on their services through a multimedia presentation about homelessness in Montana.

Households with “worst case needs” are defined as unassisted renters with very low incomes (below 50 percent of area median income—AMI) who pay more than half of their income for housing or live in severely substandard housing. This report is the ninth in a series of Worst Case Needs reports to Congress. The report is organized into four basic sections. Chapter 1 provides an introduction, including a discussion of terms and sources. Chapter 2 outlines the findings of worst case needs by various categories such as demographics and geography. Chapter 3 presents a new analysis using data from the Census Bureau’s Survey of Income and Program Participation to compare estimates of severe rent burden and examine the duration of those rent burdens. Chapter 4 assesses the supply of affordable rental housing.

The 2005 National Healthcare Disparities Report (NHDR) tracks disparities in both quality of and access to health care in the United States for both the general population and for congressionally designated priority populations. The 2005 NHDR uses the same measures of quality as its companion National Healthcare Quality Report (NHQR) to monitor the Nation's annual progress toward eliminating disparities in health care. This year’s report focuses on the same group of 46 "core" measures of quality tracked in the NHQR; additionally, the NHDR includes 13 core measures of access to care.

The 2005 National Healthcare Quality Report (NHQR) is a comprehensive national overview of quality of health care in the United States. The 2005 NHQR includes 179 performance measures that can be used to monitor the Nation's progress toward improved health care quality for all Americans. This year’s report focuses on a group of 46 "core" measures representing the most important and scientifically sound measures of quality.

Video on Tips for Taking Medicines Safely
This video addresses the following topics:
- Asking questions about your medicines
- Bringing all your medicines with you to your medical appointments
- Making sure your medicines are what your doctor ordered
- Asking about side effects of medicines
- Checking with your doctor and pharmacist as to whether you need laboratory tests

Recommended Screenings and Immunizations for Women at Average Risk for Most Diseases
This chart lists recommended screenings and immunizations for women at average risk for most diseases.

Recommended Screenings and Immunizations for Women with High Risk Factors
This chart lists screenings or tests women with high risk factors might need more often or at an earlier age.

GlobalHealthFacts.org, a project of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, provides free, up-to-date and easy-to-access data by country on HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and other key health and socio-economic indicators. The data are displayed in tables, charts, and color-coded maps and can be downloaded for custom analyses. GlobalHealthFacts.org is a companion site to GlobalHealthReporting.org, a project operated by the Foundation with major support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

This report provides an overview of the status of young adults ages 18 to 24, with particular attention to outcomes associated with the transition to adulthood including citizenship, educational achievement, disconnectedness, employment, and military service, as well as measures of family and household formation. We present national and state-specific estimates from the 2000 Census, including separate estimates at the national level for population subgroups defined by gender, race and Hispanic origin, age, and immigration status.

The members of the National Foster Youth Advisory Council (NFYAC) believe that every young person aging out of foster care is entitled to a wide array of supports, resources and services to ensure safe, stable and affordable housing upon discharge.

In 2004, the New Policy Institute reported on poverty and social exclusion in Scotland. The Institute has now updated this analysis for all the latest data. Overall levels of income poverty continue to fall, particularly among pensioners and children.

While it is recognised that heroin is a dangerous drug causing considerable damage to individuals and communities, there are some people who appear to be able to control their use of the drug. A study, by the Institute for Criminal Policy Research, King’s College London, focused on a population of non-dependent and controlled dependent heroin users who saw their use as relatively problem-free.

The New Policy Institute has produced its seventh annual report of indicators of poverty and social exclusion. Whilst comprehensive in its analysis, a particular theme this year relates to issues concerning disabled people.

The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (the WIC program) has promoted the health of low-income families for more than 30 years by providing nutrition education, supplemental food, and other valuable services. The program reaches millions of families every year, is one of the largest nutrition programs in the United States, and is an important investment in the nation s health. The U.S. Department of Agriculture charged the Institute of Medicine with creating a committee to evaluate the WIC food packages (the list of specific foods WIC participants obtain each month). The goal of the study was to improve the quality of the diet of WIC participants while also promoting a healthy body weight that will reduce the risk of chronic diseases. The committee concluded that it is time for a change in the WIC food packages and the book provides details on the proposed new food packages, summarizes how the proposed packages differ from current packages, and discusses the rationale for the proposed packages.

Household surveys are an important source of socio-economic data. Important indicators to inform and monitor development policies are often derived from such surveys. In developing countries, they have become a dominant form of data collection, supplementing or sometimes even replacing other data collection programmes and civil registration systems. The present publication presents the 'state of the art' on several important aspects of conducting household surveys in developing and transition countries, including sample design, survey implementation, non-sampling errors, survey costs, and analysis of survey data. The main objective of this handbook is to assist national survey statisticians to design household surveys in
an efficient and reliable manner, and to allow users to make greater use of survey generated data.

This leaflet explains what happens when the quality of childcare and/or nursery education is judged to be inadequate.

The impact of economic crises on child health has drawn much attention in recent years, especially in developing countries where the economic crises have carried the most adverse effects on household consumptions and public investment including health care infrastructure. Although studies have generally concluded that worsening household conditions, in particular household economic status (HES), environmental conditions, and access to primary health care are the most important household mediators of the health impact of macro shocks, this claim has received little empirical investigation. We show that declines in these specific factors mediated about 36 % of the total increase in childhood malnutrition in Cameroon during the 1990s economic crisis, and an additional 18% of increase was mediated by a higher concentration of children in impoverished settings.

A critical element in maintaining the safety and well-being of children in foster care is face-to-face contact (visits) between caseworkers and children. There is no Federal requirement regarding how often children in foster care are visited by caseworkers. However, the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) reviews caseworker visits as part of its Child and Family Service Reviews (CFSR). ACF reviewed all 50 States, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico between 2001 and 2004. During CFSRs, ACF determines whether the frequency of caseworker visits was sufficient to meet the child’s needs for approximately 50 child welfare cases (a combination of foster care cases and those receiving inhome services) in each State. ACF uses monthly visits as a minimum benchmark when assessing the frequency of visits; however, in some instances, more requent visits may be necessary to meet a child’s needs. If visits are less than monthly, States must present substantial documentation that the child’s needs were being met to receive a positive assessment for caseworker visits. On a national level, ACF summarized the CFSR results of the 35 States completed in 2002 through 2004. Twenty-seven of the States were cited as needing improvement in the area of frequency of caseworker visits.

Most high school seniors regard abortion as morally wrong and would severely limit a woman’s right to choose, according to a just-completed national poll carried out by researchers at Hamilton College. Also, members of the high school class of 2006 are twice as likely as adults to support legal recognition of gay marriages. The poll on “hot button”political issues also found that support for strong handgun control measures is almost universal among high school seniors. Though liberal on gay and gun issues, this year’s high school graduates are conservative on the issues surrounding abortion. Hamilton Sociology Professor Dennis Gilbert and his students collaborated with the polling firm Zogby International to conduct the national Hot Button Issues Poll.

Medicaid officials celebrated the program’s 40th anniversary in July, although the occasion didn't feel much like a birthday party. With the federal government drowning in debt and states just emerging from a service-choking recession, the program is at the center of a national debate over how to cut costs while maintaining the safety net for roughly 58 million Americans, including the disabled, lowincome children and their parents, pregnant women and seniors. As Drew Altman, president of the Kaiser Family Foundation, puts it, the Medicaid discussion is “about our beliefs about the role of government and our obligations to one another.”

Tackling human trafficking is a key priority for the UK Government's organised crime strategy. The Government is committed to drawing up a national action plan aimed at combating and preventing human trafficking. This consultation seek views on the proposed areas for action and specific initiatives that are proposed, as well as an opportunity to suggest other areas where a UK strategy should focus.

The purpose of this circular is to provide information on the administration of the 2005-06 Commission for Social Care Inspection Reimbursement Grant for councils with social services responsibility.

This report finds that African Americans are at special risk under this new provision. Roughly 49 million low-income Americans, including 12 million African Americans — and 800,000 elderly African Americans — would be subject to the new requirement between July 2006 and June 2007. Many elderly African Americans lack passports and do not have birth certificates in their possession. Medicaid applicants who have neither of these documents could find that their Medicaid coverage is denied or seriously delayed; current Medicaid beneficiaries who have neither of these documents could lose their Medicaid coverage.

The budget conference agreement that passed the Senate and the House in slightly different forms in December, and that the House of Representatives will vote on again on February 1, contains a little-noticed provision that would require all citizens applying or reapplying for Medicaid to produce a passport or birth certificate to prove they are U.S. citizens. This new requirement, which a recent study by the Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services shows to be unnecessary, would almost certainly create significant enrollment barriers for millions of low-income citizens who meet all Medicaid eligibility requirements. It also would increase Medicaid administrative costs. This analysis provides estimates of the number of Medicaid beneficiaries in each state who would be required to submit a passport or birth certificate between July 2006 (when the new requirement would take effect) and June 2007, and who would be cut off Medicaid if they are unable to do so.

Despite the efforts of the child protection system, child fatalities remain a serious problem.1 Although the untimely deaths of children due to illness and accidents have been closely monitored, deaths that result from physical assault or severe neglect can be more difficult to track. Intervention strategies targeted at resolving this problem face complex challenges.

Methamphetamine use is a growing problem for children and families across the country. To protect and support families, child welfare workers need to know what this drug is and how it affects users.

This paper is part of a series that addresses a widespread but often
hidden challenge: how to mobilize community and programmatic resources to provide responsive help to young children and families
affected by both domestic violence and poverty. Although these
children and families come into contact with many helping systems,
their problems with violence are often invisible, and the assistance that they need is therefore unavailable, uncoordinated, or unresponsive to specific family or cultural contexts.

This second annual Report on the Implementation of the “Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People” is the result of the commitments made by the Catholic bishops of the United States when we
adopted the Charter in June 2002. One of these commitments was to be publicly accountable for fulfilling the actions outlined in the Charter to help heal those wounded as young people by sexual abuse by clergy and to prevent such abuse in the future.

In presenting this first-ever Southwest Border KIDS COUNT Pocket Guide, the Annie E. Casey Foundation hopes to provide a set of benchmarks of child well-being that will illuminate the challenges and opportunities facing the families raising 1.8 million children along the Southwest border. By focusing on the Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Texas counties that border Mexico and the disparities that impact children who live there, we hope to raise awareness of the problems these families face and to identify new investments that will improve child well-being in this region.

Induction to work based learning and assessment – for organisations new to practice learning for the social work degree

This paper provides an analysis of the consultation responses received and indicates the key areas of support and concern. The Controlled Drugs Advisory Group (a working group of stakeholders) considered a summary of responses to the consultation and helped determine any necessary changes to the guidance.

The distribution of health expenditures is highly skewed—the top 10 percent of spenders account for about 70 percent of total expenditures in the country, while the bottom 50 percent of spenders account for only 3 percent of expenditures (Berk and Monheit 2001). As a result, private insurers in a voluntary, unsubsidized market have strong incentives to avoid enrolling highcost individuals. Insurers design plans—through benefits, cost-sharing, and provider networks—in an effort to enroll the most attractive health care risks. As medical costs escalate over time and particular plans become increasingly expensive because of the health risks of their enrollees, pressure mounts to modify costsharing and benefit packages so those in better health absorb less of the financial burden of those in worse health.

The first three years of life are critical to healthy child development. Unfortunately, many low-income children do not receive important developmental services during these early years, and those with developmental delays often go unnoticed until they reach school age. With support from the Commonwealth Fund, CHCS convened a Best Clinical and Administrative Practices (BCAP) workgroup, Enhancing Child Development Services in Medicaid Managed Care, to address these issues. The 11 participating health plans developed and piloted best practices for improving child development services and well-child care. This CHCS Network Exchange Call highlighted issues, experiences, and findings of this BCAP workgroup.

Coordinated care organizations (CCOs) are an emerging type of comprehensive managed care program within Medicaid for adults with disabilities and complex chronic illnesses. Yet definitive outcome measures are mostly absent for these complex needs populations. Based on the evaluations of seven CCO pilot programs in six states, this resource paper outlines recommendations for measuring quality of care and outcomes coordinated by CCOs. The proposed approach allows CCOs and state Medicaid agencies to benchmark improvements in care delivery and outcomes and to identify areas for improvement.

Based on interviews with experts and site visits, we identified four strategies that aimed to increase incomes for recipients of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF)—training, post-secondary education, self-employment, and financial asset building. Training strategies often targeted services to particular groups or job market needs. Other programs used post-secondary education to position clients for higher-wage jobs. Some programs we visited gave participants the tools to run their own businesses as a way out of poverty. Finally, asset building strategies aim to help clients save and invest money to pursue career goals and support their families. The 26 programs we visited used one or more of these strategies.

By 2015, mental wellbeing will be a concern of all public services. Undoubtedly there will still be people who live with debilitating mental health conditions, but the focus of public services will be on mental wellbeing rather than on mental ill health. The balance of power will no longer be so much with the system, but instead there will be more of an equal partnership between services and the individual who uses, or even chooses, them. Schools will include emotional literacy in curricula and will support students experiencing problems. Employers will compete to become ‘Wellbeing Workplaces’ which demonstrate good practice in supporting staff who experience problems and in positively recruiting those who have had mental health conditions. Mental health services will be integrated into ordinary health and other services: in libraries, GP surgeries and schools. People seeing their GP with mental health problems will be able to choose from a range of treatment options based on authenticated research evidence without facing long waiting times. For those with the most serious problems, acute care will be available in crisis houses or even ‘hotels’ as well as hospitals.

Colleges and universities are not always the safe havens they are thought to be; college women are at higher risk for sexual assault than their non-college-bound peers. Yet, many rapes and attempted rapes are unreported, perhaps because for the majority of these crimes, victim and assailant are acquainted. Schools vary widely in how they comply with Federal requirements to report and respond to sexual victimization. These are among the findings from the first major survey of the Nation's colleges and universities to inquire about sexual assault on campus and how schools are reporting and handling the problem. Many schools need guidance on how to comply with Federal requirements to disclose security procedures, report crime data, and ensure victims' rights. Promising practices in prevention, policy, victim support services, and other areas are discussed.

This guide is geared to parents and guardians of young people ages 10 to 14, to assist them in helping their children avoid alcohol.

This brochure for consumers addresses the harmful effects of drinking while taking certain medicines.

This booklet provides information about some of the problems that can be caused by moderate drinking.

This brochure, for people with a family history of alcoholism, addresses genetic and behavioral factors influencing risk for alcoholism.

This guide will tell you what to expect during the informed consent process, explain its importance to clinical research participants, and describe how it fits into a larger system that protects the welfare of people who take part in clinical trials.