EH.Net operates the Economic History Services web site and several electronic mailing lists to provide resources and promote communication among scholars in economic history and related fields. EH.Net is supported by the Economic History Association and other affiliated organizations: the Business History Conference, the Cliometric Society, the Economic History Society, and the History of Economics Society.

The Public Benefits Resource Center (PBRC) untangles the complexities of the government benefit system by providing technical assistance to social service professionals and direct assistance to families and individuals seeking help. PBRC maintains information on over 70 government benefit programs for diverse populations, including the elderly, the poor, and those with disabilities. We disseminate this information through training, publications, and client services, ensuring that the most vulnerable New Yorkers secure the needed public benefits for which they are entitled.

Almost everyone overeats on occasion, perhaps having seconds or thirds of a holiday meal or scarfing down an entire bag of chips while watching a scary movie. You feel stuffed for a few hours and then resume your normal, healthy eating habits. For some people, though, overeating like this doesn't just become a way of life, it takes over their life. It's called binge-eating disorder, and although people with this condition feel embarrassed and ashamed about gorging themselves for what could be hours on end and resolve to stop doing it, they also feel a compulsion to continue.

The National Institute of Mental Health funded the Sequenced Treatment Alternatives to Relieve Depression (STAR*D) study, a multi-level look at different ways to treat people who are suffering from depression but whose symptoms persist after undergoing initial medical treatment. This is the largest study to examine the effectiveness of several different treatment strategies in patients whose symptoms are considered "treatment resistant." The results from this study will give patients and doctors sound information on what steps to take if a patient does not get better initial treatment. This will help doctors and patients better customize treatments to address individual needs.

Welcome to Liber8*, an economic information portal. Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis librarians designed this site with university and government document librarians, students, and the general public in mind. Economic information can, at times, be difficult for the non-economist to find and understand. We hope this site will provide a single point of access to the economic information that the Federal Reserve System, other government agencies, and data providers have to offer. We specifically selected non-technical sources that would be simpler to use and easier to understand.

In this paper we review the research evidence on the effects of affirmative action in employment, university admissions, and government procurement. We consider effects on both equity (or distribution) as well as efficiency. Overall, we find that affirmative action does redistribute jobs, university admissions, and government contracts away from white males toward minorities and females, though the overall magnitudes of these shifts are relatively modest. We also find that affirmative action shifts jobs and university admissions to minorities who have weaker credentials, but there is little solid evidence to date of weaker labor market performance among its beneficiaries. While those students admitted to universities under affirmative action have weaker grades and higher dropout rates than their white counterparts at selective schools, they seem to benefit overall in terms of higher graduation rates and later salaries. Affirmative action also generates positive externalities for minority and low-income communities (in terms of better medical services and labor market contacts), and perhaps for employers and universities as well. More research on a variety of these issues is also clearly needed.

There is an abundance of literature examining dynamics and durations of poverty, but little research has examined the dynamics of specific forms of material hardship. This paper addresses the following research questions: Within a welfare sample, how common are experiences of material hardship over time? Are some forms of material hardship more common than others? Do women experience multiple hardships? I analyze data from five waves of the Women’s Employment Study on six different forms of material hardship (food insufficiency, telephone disconnection, utility disconnection, unmet medical needs, improper winter clothing, and housing problems). I find that although the cross-sectional reports of material hardship were comparable to those found in other studies, the level of women ever reporting each form of hardship was substantially higher. Furthermore, women were likely to experience multiple forms of hardship over the observation period, suggesting that overall quality of life within these households was quite low at some point(s) during the transition from welfare to work.

The Food Stamp Program (FSP) is intended to help low-income households afford a nutritionally adequate diet. Since 1990, the FSP caseload has varied widely—rising sharply in the early 1990s, dropping sharply in the late 1990s, and then rising again in the early 2000s. Welfare and food stamp policy changes, as well as the changing economic climate, are plausible candidates for explaining the path of the caseload over time. We estimate the effect of these three factors on the total caseload and on two of its components: persons in households combining cash assistance with food stamps, and persons in households where some or all are not receiving cash assistance. We find that welfare reform and the improving economy explain all of the FSP caseload decline during the late 1990s, and that policies aimed at increasing access to the FSP and the weakening economy explain about half of the FSP caseload increase in the early 2000s. Results analyzing the disaggregated caseloads are not as clear-cut, apparently because of measurement issues during the period when Temporary Assistance for Needy Families programs were implemented.

Under the fiscal year 2006 federal budget (called the “Deficit Reduction Act of 2005”), states will need to meet revised federal work participation rate requirements for their Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) programs. . . . . As states develop their strategies in light of the new requirements, it is important to look at current participation levels, and examine the extent to which certain activities can count toward the federal participation rates.

The National Treatment Outcome Research Study (NTORS) provides information about the pre-treatment behaviour, problems and social circumstances of a cohort of drug misusers admitted to addiction treatment services. It also includes information on self-reported offending following treatment, operational characteristics and interventions, and client outcomes. NTORS, the first national prospective study of treatment outcome among drug misusers to be conducted in the UK, began in 1995 and 54 treatment agencies in England participated in the study

The negative impacts of the illicit drug trade touch every society in the world. This year's World Drug Report estimates that 200 million people, or 5% of the global population age 15-64, have consumed illicit drugs at least once in the last 12 months. The drug trade is pernicious and large. UNODC estimates its retail value at US$ 321bn. It impacts almost every level of human security from individual health, to safety and social welfare. Its consequences are especially devastating for countries with limited resources available to fight against it.

The World Drug Report 2005 provides one of the most comprehensive overviews of illicit drug trends at the international level. In addition, this year it presents the work of UNODC in two new areas of research. Both aim to provide tools to enrich our understanding of an immensely complex situation: an estimate of the financial value of the world drug market, and the preliminary steps towards the creation of an illicit drug index. The analysis of trends, some going back 10 years or more, is presented in Volume 1. Detailed statistics are presented in Volume 2. Taken together these volumes provide the most up to date view of today's illicit drug situation.

As GAO testified in 2005, there has been a wide disparity between the level of staff and financial resources that CMS has expended to support and oversee state activities to control fraud and abuse and the amount of federal dollars at risk in Medicaid benefit payments. In fiscal year 2005, CMS dedicated an estimated 8.1 full-time equivalent employees to support states in their anti-fraud-and-abuse operations. In contrast, the federal government spent over $168 billion for Medicaid benefits in fiscal year 2004. Further, resource shortages severely limited two efforts that had shown potential to help states prevent and detect fraud, waste, and abuse. In addition to devoting limited staff and financial resources, CMS lacked a strategic plan to direct its anti-fraud-and-abuse efforts.

The four-fold increase in incarceration rates in America over the past 25 years has had farreaching consequences. In 2003 alone, more than 656,000 state and federal prisoners returned to communities across the country, affecting public safety, public health, economic and community well-being, and family networks. The impact of prisoner reentry is further compounded by the returning jail population with its unique set of challenges and opportunities. Research in the last decade has begun to measure the effect of reentry on returning prisoners, their families, and communities. Two-thirds of released prisoners are rearrested within three years of release. One and a half million children have a parent in prison. Four million citizens have lost their right to vote. Men and women enter U.S. prisons with limited marketable work experience, low levels of educational or vocational skills, and many health-related issues, ranging from mental health needs to substance abuse histories and high rates of communicable diseases. When they leave prison, these challenges remain and affect neighborhoods, families, and society at large. With limited assistance in their reintegration, former prisoners pose public safety risks to communities, and about half will return to prison for new crimes or parole violations within three years of release.

The workforce development body for adult social care, Skills for Care, has issued its response to two landmark reports on care provision for older people published this week, namely the Wanless Review and the ‘Living well in later life’ report.

More than one million older people (aged 65 and over) use publicly funded social care services in England. In light of criticism and controversy about the funding of these services, the King’s Fund commissioned Sir Derek Wanless to undertake a review of social care. The review sought to determine how much should be spent on social care for older people in England over the next 20 years and what funding arrangements need to be in place to ensure that this money is available and will produce high-quality outcomes. This report of their findings will make a significant contribution to the debate on the future of social care.

The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) provides food, nutrition education, and health care referrals to close to 8 million low-income pregnant and postpartum women, infants, and young children each year. About a quarter of these participants are served using rebate savings from contracts with infant formula manufacturers. WIC is administered by the Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service (FNS).

As demographic shifts and declining rates of employer-sponsored insurance coverage cause Medicaid to grow, the program faces the same cost pressures that employers and employees are experiencing. Yet, Medicaid enrollees—who have extremely limited incomes—cannot absorb increases in out-of-pocket health costs as readily as the working population. Three approaches have gained currency as ways to cut costs without simply shifting the burden to program enrollees: 1) care management, which focuses on utilization and costs; 2) consumer engagement, intended to encourage or require enrollees to play a greater role in organizing and financing their care; and 3) employer engagement policies, such as premium assistance, which attempt to combine employer, employee, and Medicaid dollars to provide coverage to low-income working populations. In addition to efforts focused on greater program efficiency, broader health system reform will likely be needed to believe the pressures causing the program to grow faster than state or federal tax revenues.

The systematic review was undertaken to answer the question: What conditions and strategies influence the retention of staff in public child welfare? Conditions include both personal and organizational factors, and strategies are actions taken by some entity that are targeted to retain staff. A synthesis of results across studies can provide lessons learned that can be used by practitioners, researchers, educators, policy makers, and administrators to take steps to increase the retention of a competent child welfare workforce.

Of the 154 studies and reports found, 25 research studies specifically focused on child welfare populations and examined retention as the dependent variable. Of those research reports, seven focused on
a specific strategy – Title IV-E Education for Child Welfare Practice — in examining retention outcomes. This Brief provides information about the Title IV-E Education for Child Welfare Practice program and examines the findings of those seven studies. This can both inform the field about the outcomes of Title IV-E
supported educational opportunities as well as effective retention strategies.

To determine effective retention strategies that child welfare agencies can implement, the Institute for the Advancement of Social Work Research (IASWR) in
collaboration with the University of Maryland School of Social Work’s Center for Families and Institute for Human Services Policy, and with support from the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Human Services Workforce Initiative, undertook a systematic review of research and outcome studies to answer the question: What conditions and strategies influence the retention of staff in public child welfare? Conditions include both personal and organizational factors, and strategies
are actions taken by some entity that are targeted to retain staff. A synthesis of results across studies can provide lessons learned that can be used by practitioners, researchers, educators, policy makers,
and administrators to take steps to increase the retention of a competent child welfare workforce.

As one effort to determine what are effective recruitment and retention strategies that child welfare agencies can implement to address these important problems, the Annie E. Casey Foundation provided support to the Institute for the Advancement of Social Work Research (IASWR) in collaboration with the University of Maryland School of Social Work’s Center for Families and Institute for Human Services Policy to undertake a systematic review of research and outcomes studies related to recruitment and retention in child welfare. Although there have been numerous literature reviews that report that there are organizational and personal factors that affect recruitment and retention, there has been no systematic review of research studies to more fully examine “what works” in regard to recruitment and retention in child welfare and to illuminate the specific methodology and definitions used to frame those studies. It is hoped that by synthesizing
the results across studies, practitioners, researchers, educators, policy makers, and
administrators in the child welfare field may use lessons learned to take steps to increase the retention of a competent child welfare workforce.

RAND Health is developing a web-based tool to determine and enhance the usefulness of community health assessments (CHAs) throughout the United States. CHAs identify and describe community health problems, gaps and strengths in services provided, and interventions to improve the health of the community. The authors performed a literature review to identify factors and criteria for a useful CHA process and then examined individual CHA processes throughout the United States to compile common characteristics for use in the development of their Web-based CHA tool.

Once individuals develop problems with drug or alcohol use and recognize a need for treatment to deal with those problems, their willingness to seek treatment and success in obtaining it often depend on their ability to pay, either from their own resources or through private insurance coverage or public funding sources. Research on treatment facilities suggests that public funds (i.e., Medicaid, Medicare, or other public payment) are the primary expected sources of payment for treatment for the largest number of clients, followed by client self-payment and health insurance. The National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) asks respondents aged 12 or older if they had received treatment for alcohol or illicit drug use problems during their lifetime and the past year. Individuals who ever received substance use treatment were asked how they paid for their last or current treatment.

Inhalant use (i.e., the deliberate inhalation of volatile substances to induce a psychoactive or mind-altering effect) is a serious problem among adolescents. Research suggests that inhalants are the third most widely used class of illicit drugs among adolescents. The National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) asks respondents aged 12 or older questions related to their use of inhalants during their lifetime and in the past year. Inhalants are defined as "liquids, sprays, and gases that people sniff or inhale to get high or to make them feel good." The categories of inhalants asked about in the survey are (a) amyl nitrite, "poppers," locker room deodorizers, or "rush"; (b) correction fluid, degreaser, or cleaning fluid; (c) gasoline or lighter fluid; (d) glue, shoe polish, or toluene; (e) halothane, ether, or other anesthetics; (f) lacquer thinner or other paint solvents; (g) lighter gases, such as butane or propane; (h) nitrous oxide or "whippets"; (i) spray paints; and (j) other aerosol sprays.

Suicide in adolescence is a major public health problem. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 9 percent of students in public and private high schools in 2003 had attempted suicide in the past year, and 3 percent of students reported needing medical treatment after their suicide attempt. Given approximately 15.6 million high school students in the United States, this translates to over 1.3 million suicide attempts, thousands of which would have been handled in hospital emergency departments (EDs). Therefore, EDs are an important setting for interventions, as well as for referrals and medical treatment of suicidal adolescents. This report uses 2004 data from the Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN) to examine the outcome (i.e., disposition) of ED visits caused by drug-related suicide attempts by persons aged 12 to 17.

Some work is performed offshore in the majority of states for the four state-administered programs we reviewed, but no work is performed offshore for the two federally-administered student aid programs. Offshoring occurred in one or more programs in 43 of 50 states and the District of Columbia, most frequently in the Food Stamp and TANF programs. However, expenditures for services performed offshore in the four state-administered programs appear to be relatively small. The services states most frequently reported as being performed offshore in the Food Stamp and TANF programs were functions related to customer service, such as call centers, and in the Unemployment Insurance and Child Support Enforcement programs functions were related to software development.

The MWC report identifies weaknesses in the management of risk by the professionals providing care and supervision to the patient, notably that basic risk assessment and management was not in place. The consequence of this and other governance and management failings was that when the patient relapsed appropriate action was not taken. Traditionally the care of individual patients has been the responsibility of individual professionals and the Mental Welfare Commission report correctly identifies flaws in this approach. The systems of clinical governance and the requirements of the Memorandum of Procedure on Restricted Patients were ineffective in addressing these deficiencies.

Tighter safeguards on the management of restricted patients are to be introduced following the Mental Welfare Commission Inquiry into care and treatment that was set up following the conviction of a conditionally discharged patient for culpable homicide in March 2005.

Over the course of about 15 months, Jobcentre Plus randomly assigned over 16,000 people, making the ERA evaluation the largest random assignment test of a social policy's effectiveness in the UK to date. What did it take to implement this methodology within local offices? How well did the random assignment process work? And what lessons does the ERA experience hold for the application of this technique to future social policy evaluations in Britain? This report, based on a special case study undertaken as part of the overall ERA evaluation, addresses these questions.

The number of people receiving welfare in BC has been on the decline since 1995. Despite this, in 2002, the provincial government introduced dramatic policy changes designed to further shrink the welfare “caseload.”Some of these changes were unprecedented in Canada. Many of them dealt with how people access welfare—the eligibility rules and application processes that people must navigate in order to receive assistance. The government has declared its policies a success. According to the Ministry of Employment and Income Assistance, the reduced caseload is a result of moving people from “dependency” on welfare to jobs and self-sufficiency. This study set out to test the government’s claim. It is the first evaluation of its kind. It sought to find out why the number of people receiving welfare has dropped so steeply, what the experiences have been of those seeking assistance, and what has happened to some of those denied help.

The mission of The Children's Advocacy Project is to help bridge the gap between the many quality social service agencies in a city and the families that need their help the most. To bridge this gap, we aim to empower and to inform those that care for the children of a city through this web site. The CAP will provide health care professionals and social service providers with the tools necessary to connect families to the appropriate social service agencies which will help to meet their needs. In doing this, our ultimate goal is to foster the self-empowerment of families, by educating them about their own rights.

This guide to staying healthy is brought to you by the National Women's Health Information Center (NWHIC) because we understand women's needs for quick and trustworthy information to help their constantly changing bodies and minds. Your health needs nurturing to live long and well throughout the years, which requires a holistic approach throughout the "health span"- the quality years you can have in addition to just your years of life. This approach to life-long health begins with healthy behaviors to prevent and manage the many health conditions that can affect you. Although there are genetic risks that you cannot control for many diseases, there are some risks that you can overcome by following key preventive steps.

The web-based tool helps users organize family history information and then print it out for presentation to the family doctor. In addition, the tool helps users save their family history information to their own computer and even share family history information with other family members.

The DNPA State-based Physical Activity Program Directory site provides information about physical activity programs involving state departments of health. Use this site to research programs, gather ideas, and share information.

A commitment to join forces to tackle violence in Scotland was made today by more than 250 senior representatives from police, health, education, social work and other organisations. A strategic conference - An Alliance for a Safer Future - was held in Glasgow with the aim of increasing public awareness of the need for violence reduction and launching a 12-month anti-violence campaign under the banner of Safer Scotland. An Action on Violence website also went live today, providing best practice examples of violence reduction initiatives from around the country.

The facts and fallacies of growing old are scrutinized in this AARP/University of Southern California study of how much adult Americans know - or think they know - about aging. While the people surveyed are moderately knowledgeable, the study found that many still have misconceptions about aging and older people. . . . For the 2004 survey, 1,202 telephone interviews were conducted with random samples of U.S. adults and an over-sampling of 314 African Americans and 318 Hispanics.

The Crime and Disorder Act 1998 places all those working in the youth justice system under a statutory duty to have regard to a principal aim of preventing offending by children and young people. This framework document sets out what this new aim, shared across the youth justice system, means for the operation of that system and the work of those individuals and agencies that work within it.

Positive Futures is a national sports-based social inclusion programme, managed up to the end of March 2006 from within the Home Office Drug Strategy Directorate. It is currently delivered through local partnership projects located throughout England and Wales. This report lists its key achievements and looks at what the future holds for the next phase for Positive Futures.

This report aims to develop a strategy for helping people, especially the vulnerable and socially excluded, to more easily obtain independent advice to resolve problems they face and disputes in which they become involved. It uses new evidence to provide a better understanding of the damaging effects of unresolved problems and disputes on people's lives and people's experiences of trying to resolve them.

Transition from children’s to adult health services has become an important issue in recent years for several reasons. Children are now surviving into adult life with conditions which previously would have been lethal in early childhood. Many of these are rare and obscure and until recently have been unfamiliar to those working predominantly in adult practice. Often these children and young people require the input of many medical and surgical specialists and general paediatricians play an important role in coordinating care and taking a holistic view of their needs and those of their family-but it is sometimes difficult to identify anyone willing to take on that role after transition to adult services.

The study . . . examines the experience of 943 residents of permanent supportive housing in Philadelphia during the years 2001 to 2005. The characteristics of their permanent housing, circumstances of leaving, and the post-permanent housing careers of leavers were identified. The study also focused on the impact of factors associated with leaving permanent housing and post-permanent housing careers, such as the length of the period of homelessness and the degree and nature of disability. The results will be of interest to policymakers and service providers who design, administer, and/or operate permanent housing programs that promote residential stability and self- sufficiency.

This catalog of information about cancer is made possible by cooperation from The American Cancer Society (ACS) and the Asian American Network for Cancer Awareness, Research, and Training (AANCART). ACS and AANCART have developed this Web tool to permit cancer education materials in Asian and Pacific Islander language to be electronically retrievable from participating organizations. This tool provides links to participating Web sites that have Asian or Pacific Islander education materials on their Web sites. The materials referenced here have been screened by the participating Web sites for medical accuracy and cultural relevance. Those agencies remain solely responsible for the content of their material. Please note that all materials remain copyrighted and property of the agencies providing them. They are made available to you here as a convenience.

This resource manual is for use in those areas that are developing a specialist domestic violence (DV) court system as part of the specialist domestic violence court programme. It is referred to as a system because, although it has the court processes at its heart, it also refers to early identification of DV incidents, particularly policing, health and social care interventions through to specialised and generic victim support.

Results of the nation’s largest depression study show that one in three depressed patients who previously did not achieve remission using an antidepressant became symptom-free with the help of an additional medication and one in four achieved remission after switching to a different antidepressant. The study, funded by the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), shows that people whose depression is resistant to initial treatment can achieve remission — the virtual absence of symptoms — when treated with a second strategy that either augments or switches medications. This is the first study to examine the effectiveness of different treatment strategies for those who did not become symptom-free after initial medication.

This report details the findings from the first phase of a multiyear study examining the prevalence, nature, and predictors of placement instability in substitute care. By combining administrative data analyses of the placement histories of over 200,000 children in care in Illinois with findings from a web-based survey of 1,192 child welfare caseworkers, this study represents one of the most comprehensive efforts to date to examine the issue of placement instability. The findings reveal that placement movement was due to a mix of factors and circumstances. Workers reported that over three-quarters (75.9%) of children's most recent placement moves were due, at least in part, to foster parents' inability or unwillingness to continue fostering. Among those moves attributed to foster parents, the reason most commonly cited was foster parent's inability to tolerate children's behavioral or emotional problems (27.6%). The study also found that, while placement in relative foster homes and placement with siblings significantly reduced the likelihood of subsequent placement instability, a large percentage of prior moves had been attributed to efforts to move children to these types of placements. Taken together, these findings suggest that the average number of placements children experience while in care could be effectively reduced by placing them with relatives at entry to care, which would afford children the stability of relative homes without requiring them to endure a subsequent change in placement.

This report highlights children’s gains in reading and mathematics over their first 6 years of school, from the start of kindergarten to the time when most of the children are completing fifth grade. It also describes children’s achievement in reading, mathematics, and science at the end of fifth grade. Comparisons are made in relation to children’s sex, race/ethnicity, family characteristics (e.g., family type, poverty status, primary home language), the types of schools attended (i.e., public or private), and residential and school mobility.

The U.S. health care system is experiencing a slow and subtle shift from a professionally driven approach toward one that is “patient centered”or “consumer centered.” This stems from a growing recognition that incorporating an individual patient’s perspectives and greater involvement in his/her care results in better health outcomes and satisfaction. But certain populations such as low-income individuals, uninsured persons, immigrants, racial and ethnic minorities, and the elderly—who are typically underserved by the health system—face even greater barriers to patient/consumer centered care (PCC).1 This report focuses on how patientcentered philosophies can be incorporated into health care delivery models targeting the underserved.

About a quarter of American families with children work regularly but remain low-income. Parents balance the stress of a low-paying job, often with inflexible hours and few benefits, against the demands of raising children. They face greater risks with fewer cushions than their middle-class counterparts. Many exist one step away from catastrophe: a sick child or absent child care provider could trigger the loss of a job and the onset of poverty. About 6 in 10 low-income families (those with incomes below twice the federal poverty level) contain at least one adult who works year round and full time. Yet more than one-quarter of these families experience food and housing insecurities, and over one-third lack health insurance. Low-income families working less than full-time experience these hardships at much higher rates. Not surprisingly, children living in working families struggling to meet basic needs often lag behind others on a range of measures.

Concern, and anger, over gentrification has grown in communities across the country as housing rental and sales prices have soared. Housing markets strengthened during the 1990s along with the national economy, and have remained strong even while the economy began to slow down in the spring of 2000, one of the few sectors to do so. Decreases in affordable housing units have accompanied the higher prices in many places, and there are numerous reports of resident displacement from neighborhoods long ignored that now attract higher-income households. Increased housing prices themselves are not a problem per se. It is when costs increase in predominantly lower-income neighborhoods where residents' incomes do not keep pace that displacement can occur. As housing prices increase, lower-income households are at risk of being pushed out or prevented from moving into certain geographic areas because of the prohibitive costs and limited household earnings. It is this geographic component, along with restricted economic opportunities, that makes gentrification-related displacement a problem.

The telephone-based survey elicited responses from 1,169 U.S. adults in the areas of public perceptions of crime seriousness, risk behaviors, white collar crime victimization, and reporting behaviors.
The types of victimization measured included: frauds involving product
pricing, “free prizes,” and auto repair; 800/900 number scams; unauthorized pin number use; unauthorized credit card use; Internet fraud; and financial planning fraud. In keeping with the ever-changing scope and methods of white collar crime commission, the present survey expands upon the original by working with a broader view of this phenomenon and assessing the impact of white collar crime at both household and individual levels. Rather than confining white collar crime to offender status or offense characteristics alone, the current research approaches this topic from a more inclusive viewpoint. Though the bases of white collar crimes continue to be deception and absence of physical force, the modes with which these crimes are committed and the individuals responsible have evolved.

A new analysis looking at links between marriage, fertility and other socioeconomic characteristics was released today by the U.S. Census Bureau, providing the first-ever state-by-state analysis of median age at first marriage. The analysis of the multi-year marriage and fertility data from the American Community Survey (ACS) also shows how socioeconomic characteristics such as mother’s income, age, work status and language spoken at home are correlated with birth rates. The report . . . found that states with a high estimated median age at first marriage tended to have higher proportions of unmarried-couple households and lower proportions of married-couple households.

This report provides a portrait of the American Indian and Alaska Native population in the United States and discusses the largest
specified tribal groupings, reservations, Alaska Native village statistical areas (ANVSAs), and areas outside reservations and ANVSAs
(outside tribal areas) at the national level. It is part of the Census 2000 Special Reports series that presents demographic, social,
and economic characteristics collected from Census 2000. In Census 2000, 4.3 million people, or 1.5 percent of the total U.S. population,
reported that they were American Indian and Alaska Native. This number included 2.4 million people, or 1 percent, who reported only American Indian and Alaska Native as their race.

The number of elementary school-age children (ages 5 through 13) declined by 381,000 while the number of their high school-age counterparts (ages 14 through 17) increased by 329,000 between 2003 and 2004, according to estimates released today by the U.S. Census Bureau. Arizona had the largest numerical increase of children between the ages of 5 and 13, and California had the largest numerical increase of those between ages 14 and 17. Both the number of adults in the 18 and older and 65 and older categories also showed increases nationally over the period, led by Texas and California, respectively.

Portland State University, Research and Training Center on Family Support and Children's Mental Health.

This paper outlines the methodological issues relating to imputation for longitudinal household surveys. A brief review of the imputation methods adopted by major longitudinal surveys is reported. The main objective of this paper is to develop an appropriate imputation methodology for use in longitudinal surveys, by evaluating alternative imputation methods and to adopt the best method in the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey.
This paper describes a methodological evaluation framework for assessing a good imputation method and presents a quantitative comparison of the performance of alternative imputation methods, using HILDA data.

Published by the Electoral Commission and Hansard Society, the third annual Audit of political engagement points to an utterly disengaged minority, made up mainly of people from lower social economic groups, who know little about politics and care even less:
- 14% of the UK population are not at all interested in politics
- 17% do not want to have a say in how the country is run
- 12% would not be willing to do anything to influence or protest against a decision by a local or national government body

The findings also suggest that new forms of direct participation are most likely to be used by those already politically active predominantly the better educated, professional social groups - further marginalising the utterly disengaged.

In July 2003, 35.9 million people were aged 65 and older in the United States, or 12 percent of the total population. Among the older population, 18.3 million people were aged 65 to 74, 12.9 million were aged 75 to 84, and 4.7 million were 85 and older. • The U.S. older population grew rapidly for most of the 20th century, from 3.1 million in 1900 to 35.0 million in 2000. Except during the 1990s, the growth of the older population outpaced that of the total population and the population under age 65. The older population is on the
threshold of a boom. According to U.S. Census Bureau projections, a
substantial increase in the number of older people will occur during
the 2010 to 2030 period, after the first Baby Boomers turn 65 in 2011. The older population in 2030 is projected to be twice as large as in 2000, growing from 35 million to 72 million and representing
nearly 20 percent of the total U.S. population at the latter date.

How does being a woman or a man, being young or old, or from an ethnic minority community affect mental health? How do poverty and deprivation affect well-being? What effect does having a mental health problem have on the chances of being discriminated against? This recently published research paper considers the issues.

In 2004, CLASP surveyed states with mixed-delivery pre-kindergarten programs to understand the policy choices, opportunities, and challenges of including community-based child care providers in their pre-k programs. . . . This site provides individual detailed descriptions of each of the 28 states’ responses to the CLASP survey on the state policies used to integrate pre-kindergarten into community-based child care settings. The data reflect state pre-k programs as of 2004, when the survey was administered.

This policy brief profiles the Early Head Start program—which serves low-income children under age 3, pregnant women, and their families with comprehensive early education and support services—using the latest data from the Program Information Reports that all Head Start grantees must submit to the U.S. Department of Health. Major changes in 2004 included more children with access to a continuous source of dental care and fewer families receiving TANF benefits. The proportion of home visitors and teachers with degrees also increased, although teacher salaries remained stagnant.

New radio adverts and funding for projects tackling racist attitudes and behaviour were unveiled today, the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. Five new radio ads for the One Scotland Many Cultures campaign have been developed to highlight the impact of racism.

This discussion paper is for national policy leads, social services directors, chief executives and councillors of local councils with social care responsibilities in England, health care professionals and social care stakeholders. The paper raises a number of questions to add to the debate about the practicalities and potential difficulties of introducing a national scheme of brokerage to an increasingly diverse population of older people, who have increasingly higher expectations of public services.

The purpose of the audit was to gain a picture of how local authorities meet the needs of children with special educational needs, explore gaps in services support and provision, and determine how these gaps are being addressed.

Over the last several decades, there has been a substantial increase in interest among the pediatric health policy and practitioner communities in moving beyond narrow medical models of health to promote more broadly the development of very young children including their social, emotional, intellectual, and physical well-being. In this report, we review existing national data sources in terms of their capacity to inform child health policy and practice in their efforts to promote early child development. The body of the report provides an overview of existing areas of strength, identifies gaps, and makes recommendations for future data development. Some 26 national surveys and administrative data sources are assessed for their collective ability to support research and for their adequacy as sources of descriptive social indicator data.

Most patients can see the importance of collecting and tracking data on race and ethnicity, but many are uncomfortable disclosing their information to administrators or clerks. Having doctors and nurses collect the information can help ease patients' concerns.

The researchers interviewed 14 senior health professionals and managers taking part in a quality improvement collaborative organized by the Institute for Clinical Systems Improvement in Minnesota, asking them to identify difficulties or successes they had experienced using patient feedback or survey data. While the respondents described more barriers than successes, they also tapped into the potential secrets of success: focusing on system changes, rather than assigning individual blame, and developing cultures that support patient-centered care by emphasizing physician leadership, technical expertise, and organizational capacity.

A crucial first step to addressing disparities in the receipt and quality of health care is the routine collection of information on patients' race, ethnicity, and language, which can then be linked to measures of health care quality. Many providers, however, do not systematically collect this information, and more than half of those that do rely on registration desk clerks to record their personal impressions of patients' racial and ethnic backgrounds. The result is a hodgepodge of missing data and inaccurate classifications.

There are to be changes in entitlements to social security benefits for hospital inpatients from April 2006. This letter is to inform chief executives of how those changes will affect people detained in hospital under sections 45A or 47 of the Mental Health Act 1983. It contains important information for mental health providers, PCT commissioners and social services authorities.

A front page article in the New York Times (Story 2005) recently reported that women at Yale University are planning to quit their jobs when they enter their thirties and have children. Both Time (Wallis 2004) and the New York Times Magazine (Belkin 2003) have recently featured cover articles arguing that some mothers—especially older, highly educated new mothers—are increasingly likely to stop working when they have kids. These articles reflect the popular notion that women are increasingly “opting out” of employment when they have children. The basic argument is that mothers are choosing to stay at home in greater numbers due to
the stresses of living in two-earner families or making it in the labor market. Such news stories may lead people to believe that there is a growing trend toward this sort of “opt out” by highly educated mothers. However, economic data provides no evidence to support these anecdotal accounts. In 2004, the latest year for which a full year of data is available, the impact of having children in the home
on women’s labor force participation (the “child penalty”) fell compared to prior years.

Union membership last year grew at roughly the same pace as overall job growth, leaving the share of U.S. workers in unions in 2005 unchanged at 12.5 percent.
The BLS distinguishes between workers who are union members and workers who are covered by unions at their workplace but not actually members of a union. In 2005, the union-coverage rate fell slightly, by 0.1 percentage point, to 13.7 percent of the workforce. Union membership increased from about 15.5 million in 2004 to about 15.7 million in 2005; workers covered by unions was basically unchanged at 17.2 million workers.

Between 1983 and 2004, the share of African-American workers who were either members of a union or represented by a union at their place of employment fell substantially, from 31.7 percent of all black workers in 1983 to 16.6 percent in 2004. In 2004, African-Americans were still more likely to be in a union (16.6 percent) than whites (13.9) and Hispanics (11.4 percent). Nevertheless, the decline in union membership for black workers between 1983 and 2004 was sharper for blacks (down 15.1 percentage points) than it was for whites (down 8.3 percentage points) and Hispanics (down 12.8 percentage points).

The Current Population Survey (CPS) is the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) most important labor market survey. In additional to providing monthly data on employment and unemployment rates, the CPS also provides widely used data on income, poverty, and health insurance coverage. Because of its importance, BLS devotes considerable efforts to researching potential problems and sources of bias in the survey. One potential source of bias is the decline in the coverage rate of the CPS. The percentage of the population who are missed as a result of people not responding to the survey has risen from less than 4 percent in the seventies to more than 10 percent in the last 2 years. If the people who do not respond to the survey are systematically different from the people who do respond (for example, if they are less likely to be employed), then non-response may be a serious source of bias in the CPS. This problem could be more severe for the sub-groups with the lowest coverage rates. For example, BLS estimates that the CPS does not cover 34.0 percent of the black men between 20-29, and 18.9 percent of the black women in this age group.

Link-Age in Wales aims to encourage development of joined up services, and identifies projects already under way in Wales. It draws attention to specific initiatives involving all levels of government and the voluntary sector. It seeks confirmation that the development of a Link-Age concept with its joined up services, is given immediate priority. We wanted to involve people in how we take forward these important issues and therefore sought views on the way ahead so that we might begin to make a significant difference to the lives of our older people. The consultation document was launched on 4th July 2005, and coincided with a press release. The consultation period ended on September 30th 2005, and the purpose of this document, Link-Age In Wales – The Consultation Report, is to share the findings of the consultation exercise, with all stakeholders.

The context for this study is the commitment by the Welsh Labour Party in its 2003 Manifesto to introduce free home care services for disabled people in Wales. Following this commitment, in 2004, an expert group – the Free Home Care for Disabled People Task and Finish Work Group (FHCTG) - was convened to consider options for implementation. This group examined the definitions of disability and types of service that might be eligible under the scheme. Following its report, the Minister for Health and Social Services announced that
a final scheme would be determined in 2006/07 with pilot schemes in 2005/061. At the same time the Minister announced his intention to commission research on the costs of the scheme. This study addresses the issue of costing.

This paper is the written version of a lecture that draws principally on the author's research on safety nets and on the operational experience with the implementation of safety nets, drawing heavily on the crisis safety net programs in Indonesia from 1998 to 2000. As such it provides more views than reviews of the literature on the principal issues in the political economy of targeted safety net programs. Five major issues are reviewed. First, the implications of some simple models of electoral politics which make the budget allocated to programs endogenous to their targeting design highlight the dangers in ignoring political economy. Second, the political economy of "safety net" versus "safety rope" programs is reviewed. Third, some of the literature on the perception of fairness of the targeting criteria is reviewed. Fourth, the issue of local versus central targeting of programs is discussed. Fifth, the political economy of program implementation that considers the fit between program targeting and the organizational culture of the implementing organization is considered.

The purpose of this paper is to compare and contrast the experiences from four major recipients of food aid (India, Bangladesh, Ethiopia and Zambia) in normal time and after a natural disaster and draw implications for the design of effective food aid and food security policies in Africa. The study summarizes the food and agricultural policies and medium-term outcomes regarding food production, trade, markets, consumption and safety nets, as well as the policy responses to food emergencies. The experiences of the study countries suggest that food aid that supports building of production and market enhancing infrastructure, is timed to avoid adverse price effects on producers, and is targeted to food insecure households can play a positive role in enhancing food security. However, food aid is not the only, or in many cases, the most efficient means of addressing food insecurity.

• Fact Sheets on Child Poverty in British Columbia, 2005
• Report Card on Child Poverty in Saskatchewan
• Where There's a Will There's a Way: If Not Now, When? Manitoba Child and Family Report Card 2005
• Putting Children First - 2005 Report Card on Child Poverty in Ontario
• The Nova Scotia Child Poverty Report Card 2005

Millions of children across the world have already lost their mothers to AIDS. Millions more are caring for their sick mothers, knowing they will die soon.With proper support within their communities, mothers can be cared for in their homes, and continue to care for their children. Until now, support for children affected by AIDS has
focused on orphans. In Missing Mothers: Meeting the needs of children affected by AIDS, Save the Children argues that we should also be targeting mothers.The more care a mother gets, and the longer she can be supported at home, the better her children’s chances of survival.

A sweeping assessment of the world's most vulnerable children, whose rights to a safe and healthy childhood are exceptionally difficult to protect. This Executive Summary provides an overview of the report, which describes in detail how these children - poor, exploited and abused - are being ignored, growing up beyond the reach of development campaigns and often invisible in everything from public debate and legislation to statistics and news stories.

There is growing interest and investment in housing schemes for older people that combine independent living with relatively high levels of care. This review looks at UK evidence around issues of independence, social integration, and the capacity of housing with care to meet a range of care needs. It focuses on primary research and service evaluations, drawing out key messages for service providers and commissioners. The evidence base is small. However, it provides valuable insights into how well housing with care serves current policy objectives, and whether it meets the needs and aspirations of older people. The evidence supports the idea that housing with care promotes independence, and generates high levels of resident satisfaction; messages around other key areas are more ambivalent, however.

This gives links to the quarterly statutory homelessness statistical release, which is published in March, June, September and December. It provides statistics of households in England defined as homeless in the 1985 and 1996 Housing Acts.

The Forced Marriage Unit sees around 250 cases a year. "There used to be confusion between forced and arranged marriages," explains a member of unit staff. "They were seen as being part of a certain culture. But that's changing now. Forced marriage is not a religious or cultural issue - it is a global human rights abuse". Forced marriage means just that - where a victim (one was 13 years old) is told they have to get married and they don't want to.

This leaflet explains how people with a serious long-term condition are now being offered the chance of support from a community matron - a senior nurse who will not only provide nursing care but will also plan and co-ordinate ways of meeting patients' health and social care needs.

The book presents both a theoretical view of preventing high-risk drinking as well as insiders’ perspectives on designing and conducting prevention programs. With content divided into two parts – Best Practices and Lessons Learned – the book features contributing authors who are nationally recognized in the fields of prevention and higher education. Best Practices topics include the history of substance abuse in higher education, environmental management, community coalitions, the alcohol skills training program, social norms, and evaluation. Lessons Learned features how to get attention from top administrators, campus-wide collaboration in prevention, partnering with law enforcement, faculty involvement and training, and targeting students in transition from high school.

This paper addresses the perception that poverty reduction strategy (PRS) processes in Latin America and the Caribbean have not grappled effectively with politics, and have not engaged successfully with political actors and institutions. The authors draw upon evidence from documents and interviews on how this situation has arisen and how it might be confronted. It is based on experience in three Latin American highly indebted poor countries (HIPCs): Bolivia, Honduras and Nicaragua.

Rural poverty is often associated with vulnerability to environmental conditions. By relating population distribution to environmental characteristics, the underlying causes of poverty can be better understood and addressed. Population distribution is therefore one of the key variables that, if carefully assessed and analysed, can help to target governmental interventions to reduce poverty and improve living conditions. In this report, existing global population datasets and their data sources are reviewed, and new methodologies that might provide a consistent way of distinguishing between urban and rural populations, and determining the spatial distribution of rural people are described.

Why are people perceived as being 'happy' when their circumstances would often seem otherwise? This paper explores this idea by drawing on primary quantitative and qualitative dataand existing literature on happiness and objective wellbeing in Bangladesh. A relatively new research area, well-being is here examined through the construction and experience of happiness and life satisfaction in contexts of extreme and persistent economic poverty. The paper identifies and offers insights into the personal as well as social or relational values and goals that people in Bangladesh consider important to achieve happiness in life. This, the authors argue, leads to a better understanding of the role of social and cultural context in the construction of people's happiness.

Indigenous and tribal peoples represent about 5 per cent of the world's population, but over 15 per cent of the world's poor. The incidence of extreme poverty is higher among them than among other social groups and they generally benefit much less than others from overall declines in poverty. This paper reports on an ethnic "audit" of 14 PRSPs (poverty reduction strategy papers) in 14 countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Its goal is to ascertain whether and how the rights, needs and aspirations of indigenous and tribal peoples have been taken into account and whether they have been involved in the consultations leading to the formation of the PRSPs.

This paper looks at the relationship between infrastructure, economic growth, and poverty reduction in Asia. It examines the policies required to stimulate the necessary investment and ensure it is employed in the most effective ways to promote poverty reduction.

Asia's impressive poverty reduction in recent years owes much to rapid growth. But the story is uneven: remarkable average growth rates across the region mask significant variation within and between countries, as well as over time. Experience shows that growth alone is not sufficient to ensure sustained poverty reduction, and that rapid growth may itself create threats to social stability and cohesion that can in turn undermine sustainability. Nor does growth guarantee that gains are equitably distributed or that the extreme poor or excluded will benefit.

Economic growth and poverty reduction have occurred unevenly across, and even within, Asian countries. This paper focuses on the chronic nature of poverty, and explores why social exclusion makes it more difficult for some sections of the poor to take advantage of the opportunities generated by economic growth. Social exclusion therefore presents a particular challenge to achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in Asia. This paper provides evidence that a person's social identity (e.g. caste, religion or ethnic group) can make them chronically poor - poorer than others, or poorer for longer periods of time.

This paper offers a common framework for addressing Asia's varied human-development challenges by observing that, for the most part, they stem from a systematic failure in the delivery of services--health, education, water, sanitation, and electricity--especially to poor people. It argues that the reason for poor service delivery is a failure of accountability at different points in the service-delivery chain.

This webpage contains links to the latest in a series and some earlier reports of the Pensioners' Income Series. These reports contain estimates and interpretation of trends in the levels and sources of pensioners' incomes, based on two household surveys. Information on the latest year (and the eight preceding years) is based on the Family Resources Survey, while historical trends are examined using the Family Expenditure Survey.

This is the report of an independent review of the Alcohol Education and Research Council (AERC). The AERC, whose members include experts on the care and treatment of alcohol problems, manages a £10 million fund which finances UK-based education and research projects.

The New Deal for Disabled People (NDDP) is the major employment programme for people on incapacity benefits. It is a voluntary programme that aims to help people with a disability or health condition move into sustained employment. Over 65 job brokers, who are a mix of public, private and voluntary sector organisations, have delivered the programme. As part of a comprehensive evaluation, the survey of the eligible population has been conducted to obtain information about people who were eligible and invited to take part in NDDP. The survey aims to establish the characteristics of this population, their work aspirations and their awareness of, attitudes to and involvement with NDDP.

As many as 2.5 million disabled men and women are without work in Britain. The number claiming benefits has increased three-fold since the 1970s. These figures are commonly represented by policy commentators as a major cost in terms of benefit payments. Alternatively, they are interpreted as a substantial underutilization of the nation's potential stock of labour. But many non-working disabled people are in poverty. The exclusion of disabled people from the labour market is at least as much a problem for their own living standards and social participation as it is for the macro-economy. The main aim of the research has been to unpack the large group of 'disabled people', to show that they are not all in the same labour market position.

The Equality Act 2006 included a power that allows the Government to prohibit discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation in the provision of goods, facilities and services, in education and in the exercise of public functions. The Government intends to use this power to make regulations that take effect in October 2006. This consultation paper describes the approach proposed for the regulations. They are intended to bring protection from sexual orientation discrimination into line with existing legislation that prohibits discrimination on the grounds of race, sex and for reasons related to disability.

About a quarter of American families with children work regularly but remain low-income. Parents balance the stress of a low-paying job, often with inflexible hours and few benefits, against the demands of raising children. They face greater risks with fewer cushions than their middle-class counterparts. Many exist one step away from catastrophe: a sick child or absent child care provider could trigger the loss of a job and the onset of poverty. About 6 in 10 low-income families (those with incomes below twice the federal poverty level) contain at least one adult who works year round and full time. Yet more than one-quarter of these families experience food and housing insecurities, and over one-third lack health insurance. Low-income families working less than full-time experience these hardships at much higher rates. Not surprisingly, children living in working families struggling to meet basic needs often lag behind others on a range of measures.

This webpage provides a series of policy briefs, published by ODPM since 2002, covering homelessness topics, including homelessnesss prevention, domestic violence, employment, health and hostels.

A consultation begins today on how Scotland needs to adapt over the coming decades to harness the contribution and experience of older people and ensure services meet their needs. The Executive is looking for views to feed into a Strategy for a Scotland with an Ageing Population which will be published later this year.

What does it take to help people who hold low-wage jobs climb the economic ladder while simultaneously meeting labor market demand and employer needs for more skilled workers? MDRC's Work Advancement and Support Center (WASC) demonstration will test an innovative approach designed to achieve both these goals by fostering employment retention and career advancement for a broad range of low-earners, including reemployed dislocated workers (those who, because of industry restructuring, now work in significantly lower-paying jobs than they previously did).

This assessment addresses the status and outlook of the drug threat to the United States. It covers the trafficking and abuse patterns of cocaine, methamphetamine, marijuana, heroin, MDMA, pharmaceutical drugs, and other dangerous drugs.

The Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) was established in 1984 to provide leadership and services in grant administration and criminal justice policy to support local, state, and tribal justice strategies to achieve safe communities. BJA’s overall goals are to reduce and prevent crime, violence, and drug abuse and to improve the functioning of the criminal justice system. To achieve these goals, BJA programs emphasize enhanced coordination and cooperation of local, state, and federal efforts. In fiscal year (FY) 2004, BJA continued to support diverse programs that facilitated local criminal justice strategies that bring safety to our communities.

Although infection with HIV is serious, people with HIV and AIDS are living longer, healthier lives today, thanks to new and effective treatments. This booklet will help you understand how you can live with HIV and keep yourself healthy.

Get immediate access to the survey data – plus resources and assistance for interpreting and reporting your findings. Use the interactive data query to search and compare survey results for your state, the nation, or different groups of CYSHCN (children and youth with special health care needs).

The Data Resource Center (DRC) on Child and Adolescent Health website puts national, state and regional survey findings right at your fingertips!

Hispanics and the Future of America presents details of the complex story of a population that varies in many dimensions, including national origin, immigration status, and generation. The papers in this volume draw on a wide variety of data sources to describe the contours of this population, from the perspectives of history, demography, geography, education, family, employment, economic well-being, health, and political engagement. They provide a rich source of information for researchers, policy makers, and others who want to better understand the fast-growing and diverse population that we call Hispanic. The current period is a critical one for getting a better understanding of how Hispanics are being shaped by the U.S. experience. This will, in turn, affect the United States and the contours of the Hispanic future remain uncertain. The uncertainties include such issues as whether Hispanics, especially immigrants, improve their educational attainment and fluency in English and thereby improve their economic position; whether growing numbers of foreign-born Hispanics become citizens and achieve empowerment at the ballot box and through elected office; whether impending health problems are successfully averted; and whether Hispanics geographic dispersal accelerates their spatial and social integration.

Youth Matters, the Youth Green Paper, was published on 18 July 2005 and the subsequent consultation ended on 4 November 2005. With over 19,000 responses from young people, this is one of the largest responses to a Government consultation from any one group. The Government response, Youth Matters: Next Steps was published on 8 March 2006 and sets out the vision for empowering young people, giving them somewhere to go, something to do and someone to talk to.
Young people will have more choice and influence over services and facilities that are available to them. We also want to encourage young people to volunteer and contribute to their local community.

Much is being said about immigration and asylum in the UK but little is actually known about the experiences and consequences of new immigration at the neighbourhood level. This review of the evidence by David Robinson and Kesia Reeve (from the Centre for Regional Economic and Social Research, Sheffield Hallam University) represents a first step toward understanding the hidden experiences of newly arrived immigrants who are experiencing social and economic disadvantage.

There is growing interest and investment from both the public and private sector in housing schemes for older people that allow independent living to be combined with relatively high levels of care. Reflecting the current emphasis on evidence-based policy and practice, researchers at the Centre for Housing Policy at the University of York conducted an extensive search for empirical research evidence published since 1999 relating to housing with care for later life. They found just eleven UK studies that sought to evaluate rather than describe schemes, encompassing 24 different schemes.

Despite the billions of dollars spent on development assistance each year, there is still very little known about the actual impact of projects on the poor. There is broad evidence on the benefits of economic growth, investments in human capital, and the provision of safety nets for the poor. But for a specific program or project in a given country, is the intervention producing the intended benefits and what was the overall impact on the population? Could the program or project be better designed to achieve the intended outcomes? Are resources being spent efficiently? These are the types of questions that can only be answered through an impact evaluation, an approach which measures the outcomes of a program intervention in isolation of other possible factors.

Poverty and social impact analysis (PSIA) implies an analysis of the distributional impact of policy reforms on the well-being or welfare of different stakeholder groups, with particular focus on the poor and vulnerable. PSIA has an important role in the elaboration and implementation of poverty reduction strategies in developing countries. It promotes evidence-based policy choices and fosters debate on policy reform options.

There are to be changes in entitlements to social security benefits for hospital inpatients from April 2006. This letter is to inform chief executives of how those changes will affect people detained in hospital under sections 45A or 47 of the Mental Health Act 1983. It contains important information for mental health providers, PCT commissioners and social services authorities.

This partial regulatory impact assessment provides the Government's considered early assessment of the likely impact of the policy initiatives set out in the 'Our Health, Our Care, Our Say: A new direction for community services' white paper, published on 30 January 2005.

The latest statistics show Scotland has met its first target towards eradicating child poverty by 2020, according to Communities Minister Malcolm Chisholm. Households Below Average Income data for 2004-05, released today by the Department for Work and Pensions and the Executive, shows the number of children in absolute and relative low income households has fallen over the last decade, meeting the target of reducing the number of children living on low incomes by 25 per cent.

This report demonstrates the progress made in raising aspirations and breaking the cycle of deprivation in Britain. It also shows how much more there is to do.

The code of practice provides guidance and information for those working with or caring for those who cannot make decisions for themselves, or who have a limited capacity to do so without assistance. This consultation paper invites comments on the style and content of the draft code.

In recent years the New York City Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) and its contract agencies have made tremendous strides to reduce the population of children in foster care in New York City. With less than 20,000 children in foster care in June of 2005, 28% of that population was Latino children. The Coalition for Hispanic Family Services (the Coalition), located in Bushwick Brooklyn, is the only Latino community based organization (CBO) that is licensed to provide foster care services to children and families in the City of New York.

The Children’s Aid Society has long been in the field of child welfare. In fact, most in the field would acknowledge that Children’s Aid, in a sense, began the foster care movement in America in the mid 1800’s with what was then called the “Free Home” movement. The Orphan Train movement (Free Home) responded to the over 100,000 New York City “street kids” who were abandoned by their parents during the Industrial Revolution. They were sent by train to the Midwest and Southwest where farm families accepted them into their homes and provided a safe, and in most cases, loving environment. The older children were expected to do their share of work, whether on the farm or at home. The program worked for many, not for all, but the results were primarily positive since a majority of the youngsters were legally adopted by their families.

These articles also demonstrate how professionally educated social workers bring about real change in people’s lives and contribute to the fulfillment of the mission of the organizations that employ them.
A closer reading will show that professional social work derives its effectiveness from several competencies, including the knowledge and skill in conducting comprehensive psychosocial assessments, as well as understanding the process of client engagement, with people who are often reluctant to trust the help of others. While the emphasis in the focus groups was on obtaining social work stories to illustrate how practitioners make a difference in people’s lives, the groups also surfaced serious challenges to providing effective services.

The methamphetamine epidemic in the United States, which began in the West and is moving East, having a devastating effect on our country. The increasingly widespread production, distribution use of meth are now affecting urban, suburban and rural communities nationwide. County governments across America are on the front lines in responding to the methamphetamine crisis. For counties, meth abuse causes legal, medical, environmental and social problems. County governments and their citizens must pay for investigating and closing meth labs, making arrests, lawbreakers in detention centers and then trying them, providing treatment for those addicted to drug, and cleaning-up lab sites. There are also many societal effects that must be considered. In an alarming number of meth arrests, there is a child living in the home. These children many times suffer from neglect and abuse.

Meth is one of the most powerful and dangerous drugs available, and one of the easiest to make. It can be “cooked” using common household or agricultural chemicals and simple cold medicines, following recipes easily available on the Internet. The drug is highly addictive and has multiple side effects, including psychotic behavior, physical deterioration, and brain damage. Death by overdose is a significant risk. Most meth comes from the so-called “superlabs” in California and northern Mexico, and Congress is currently exploring ways to address that growing problem. However, it is frequently the smaller, clandestine or “clan” labs that generate so much damage and misery for local communities. The amount of meth that is created at these smaller labs is relatively small, yet the impact the labs have on the community is staggering, due to the environmental damage and health risks that they create.