In 2004, 12.5 percent of births in the United States were preterm; that is, born at less than 37 completed weeks of gestation. This rate has increased steadily in the past decade. There are significant, persistent, and very troubling racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic disparities in the rates of preterm birth. The highest rates are for non-Hispanic African Americans, and the lowest are for Asians or Pacific Islanders. In 2003, the rate for African-American women was 17.8 percent, whereas the rates were 10.5 percent for
Asian and Pacific Islander women and 11.5 percent for white women. The most notable increases from 2001 to 2003 were for white non-Hispanic, American Indian, and Hispanic groups. Infants born preterm are at greater risk than infants born at term for mortality
and a variety of health and developmental problems. Complications include acute respiratory, gastrointestinal, immunologic, central nervous system, hearing, and vision problems, as well as longer-term motor, cognitive, visual, hearing, behavioral, social-
emotional, health, and growth problems. The birth of an infant preterm can also bring considerable emotional and economic costs to families and have implications for public sector services, such as health insurance, educational, and other social support systems.
The greatest risk of mortality and morbidity is for those infants born at the earliest gestational ages. However, those infants born nearer to term represent the greatest number of infants born preterm and also experience more complications than infants born at term. Preterm birth is a complex cluster of problems with a set of verlapping factors of influence. Its causes may include individual-level behavioral and psychosocial factors, neighborhood characteristics, environmental exposures, medical conditions, infertility treatments, biological factors, and genetics. Many of these factors occur in combination, particularly in those who are socioeconomically disadvantaged or who are members of racial and ethnic minority groups.

Teaching Cultural Competence in Health Care: A Review of Current Concepts, Policies and Practices
The purpose of this report is to synthesize findings regarding the concepts, policies, and teaching practices with respect to culturally competent health care. The information prescribed provides family physicians with a context and rationale for cultural competence; information specifically relating to the three main Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services (CLAS) themes--culturally competent care, language access services, and organizational supports--and information related to pedagogical issues of curricula and training.

This fact sheet explains how child maltreatment is defined in federal and state laws. Distinctions between the federal Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act and state civil and criminal statutes are highlighted. Operational definitions of physical abuse, child neglect, sexual abuse, and emotional abuse also are included.

This fact sheet summarizes Child Maltreatment 2004, a publication that provides child abuse statistics submitted by states to the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS) during 2004. Highlighted topics include reports of child abuse and neglect; victims of maltreatment; perpetrators; fatalities; and services.

The first step in helping abused or neglected children is learning to recognize the signs of child abuse and neglect. This fact sheet lists general signs that may signal the presence of child abuse. It also includes signs associated with specific types of abuse such as physical abuse, neglect, sexual abuse, and emotional maltreatment.

The child welfare system is a group of services designed to promote the well-being of children by ensuring safety, achieving permanency, and strengthening families to successfully care for their children. Child welfare systems are complex, and their specific procedures vary widely by State. The purpose of this fact sheet is to give a brief overview of the purposes and functions of child welfare from a national perspective. It discusses what happens when a report of possible abuse or neglect is made, what happens when a report is screened in, and what happens in substantiated cases. It also discusses what happens to people who abuse children, and what happens to children who enter foster care.

The impact of child abuse and neglect is often discussed in terms of physical, psychological, behavioral, and societal consequences. In reality, however, it is impossible to separate them completely. Physical consequences (such as damage to a child's growing brain) can have psychological implications (cognitive delays or emotional difficulties, for example.). Psychological problems often manifest as high-risk behaviors. Depression and anxiety, for example, may make a person more likely to smoke, abuse alcohol or illicit drugs, or overeat. High-risk behaviors, in turn, can lead to long-term physical health problems such as sexually transmitted diseases, cancer, and obesity. This fact sheet provides an overview of some of the most common physical, psychological, behavioral, and societal consequences of child abuse and neglect, while acknowledging that much crossover among categories exists.

Find resources to support and preserve families through a respectful, strengths-based approach that views the family as central to the child's well-being. This section includes information on specific family-centered practice approaches, such as family group decision-making. Also included are resources on cultural competence, casework practice, and providing and evaluating family-centered services.

The report "Migrant, Minorities and Housing" is based on information supplied by the EUMC’s national focal points. It shows that across the EU15 similar mechanisms of housing disadvantage and discrimination affect migrants and minorities, such as denying access to accommodation on the grounds of the applicant’s skin colour, imposing restrictive conditions limiting access to public housing, or even violent physical attacks aimed at deterring minorities from certain neighbourhoods. The report also documents instances of resistance by public authorities to address such discrimination. One theme which emerges from this report is that the idea of ‘integration’ of minorities in neighbourhoods can become heavily politicised. The report can find little solid evidence that could justify seeing involuntary spatial mixing as an appropriate route towards social integration.

In the absence of federal requirements that states develop child welfare disaster plans, many states have not done so. In addition, states that have developed disaster plans do not always address the dispersion of children and families. The lack of plans for dealing with the dispersion of children may result in confusion at a time when families are under strain and need services most. Without minimum requirements on what states should include in their child welfare disaster plans, some states may be unable to ensure the continuity of services within and across state lines for the children under their care.

The Atlas of Global Inequality explores aspects of inequality using online, downloadable maps and graphics. All materials can be reproduced without charge if they are attributed to the UC Atlas of Global Inequality. Global inequality has grown dramatically over the last 300 years. At the end of the Twentieth Century global income inequality was greater than ever before. There is debate amongst academics, between street protestors and global institutions, and elsewhere, about the whether inequality is rising or falling. This Atlas seeks to shed light on that debate and to broaden discussion to include aspects of inequality beyond income measures and beyond aggregated national statistics. The Atlas already includes sections on Health, Gender and Economic Crises. And it will be expanding in the future.

Four interlinked expert seminars/focus groups, organised by a Steering Committee linked to the 1997 Toronto Group, discussed user involvement in research. Participants were a mix of academics, service users, user-researchers, people with direct experience of poverty, funders and policy-makers: 147 people participated in all with approximately 20 per cent attending two or more seminars. A number of key themes were discussed (user involvement in conventional research; peer review; involving people from black and minority ethnic communities in research; participatory approaches). Summary conclusions were carried forward to subsequent meetings.

During the last few decades, one of the major demographic, social and cultural changes within the UK has been the development of a diverse range of minority ethnic communities. In contrast to the latter’s high profile in major multicultural cities, a number of communities in predominantly white majority regions remain culturally 'invisible'. This research, by Mairtin Mac an Ghaill and Chris Haywood of Newcastle University, focuses on one such group, providing an insight into young Bangladeshi people’s experience of growing up in Newcastle. It also compared these experiences with those of young white people to show similarities and differences between their transitions to adulthood.

The tendency for policy and practice to focus on the individual with the drug problem has eclipsed consideration of the severe and enduring impacts of problem drug use on many families. The influence of a child's drug problem on any younger brothers or sisters has been overlooked, despite evidence that such siblings are at higher risk of developing drug problems themselves.

Of the 66.3 million U.S. women of reproductive age, 34.4 million were in need of contraceptive services and supplies in 2004, because they were sexually active and able to become pregnant, but did not wish to become pregnant. In turn, about half of these women–17.4 million–were in need of publicly funded contraceptive services and supplies, an increase of one million women since 2000, according to new Guttmacher Institute data analyzed with support from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Nationwide, the number of women in need of publicly funded contraceptive services–those who are in need of contraceptive services and supplies and either have incomes below 250% of the federal poverty level or are younger than 20–increased by 6%. Meanwhile, the number of women of reproductive age and the total number of women in need of contraceptive services each rose by only 1%, indicating that the broader economic trends of the period, rather than population growth, drove the change.

Virtually any statement about welfare is no longer universally true across the country. While welfare benefit levels have always varied tremendously, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA) gave states autonomy to set eligibility rules and to determine how participants will meet federal work and time limit requirements. In addition, states may now choose to use state funds for certain recipients who would not be covered by federal funds, furthering local options. As a result of this flexibility and the ensuing diversity of state policy choices, it is difficult to summarize clearly and briefly the national picture of state welfare policy. This brief reviews the multiple ways a family can get on welfare, stay on, and leave (or lose) assistance. It uses the Urban Institute's Welfare Rules Database (WRD) to examine the variation in key policies. Details are offered on how each state defines its program as of 2003. We include some discussion of how states' TANF programs differ from the program TANF replaced in 1996, Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), to highlight the changes that have occurred over the past decade.

The Food Stamp Program is the leading program to help prevent hunger among low-income people in the United States. It is the largest of 15 domestic food and nutrition assistance programs administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA's) Food and Nutrition Service (FNS). In the District of Columbia, the Income Maintenance Administration (IMA) of the Department of Human Services administers the Food Stamp Program, managing a caseload of more than 45,000 households. This caseload adds up to more than 15 percent of all residents in the District of Columbia. The District of Columbia, which has been recognized by FNS as having one of the highest participation rates in the country, managed food stamp benefits for more participants than nine states in 2004. Despite the size of the District of Columbia's Food Stamp Program, no studies have taken a focused look at the characteristics of the city's food stamp population.

In recent years, policymakers and practitioners have become aware of the importance of research in determining 'what works' in correctional programming. They have begun to use information regarding 'evidence-based' practices to make decisions about the programs that they should implement. Thus, the likelihood that research may actually be the basis for criminal justice practice has never been greater. This attention to developing correctional programs based on sound principles and rigorous evaluation is long overdue. It has been more than 30 years since Martinson's famous article (Martinson, 1974) and 27 years since the National Academy of Sciences' (NAS) Panel on Research on Rehabilitative Techniques called for "research on criminal rehabilitation [with] rigorous [attention to] experimental design, theoretical rationale, and monitoring of integrity and strength of treatment" (Sechrest et al., 1979:10). Over a decade ago, the discussion focused on identifying the principles of effective correctional treatment programs that are critical to successful outcomes (Andrews, 1995; Andrews et al., 1990; see also Petersilia, 2004). More recently, the criminal justice field has been captivated by the call for "evidence-based programs" that federal policy makers are increasingly attentive to (Coalition for Evidence-Based Policy, 2006).

Welfare reform in 1996 was accompanied by an increased focus on policies that help low-income parents find and keep employment and support their families as many moved into low-wage jobs with few benefits. The core supports that assist families while they are working include the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), health insurance, food assistance, and child care subsidies. Unemployment Insurance (UI) provides the core support for unemployed families, paying a cash benefit that partially substitutes for lost earnings. The core supports for working families (those with some paid work during the year) underwent many changes in the period leading up to welfare reform and subsequently. The EITC was expanded substantially in 1993; the 1996 reforms increased federal money for child care and gave states more flexibility to enhance working families' access to benefits through administrative changes; and Congress enacted the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), a broad expansion of health insurance coverage for children, in 1997. In contrast, UI has remained relatively unchanged during this period.

The passage of welfare reform law in August 1996 signaled the end of "welfare as we know it." The legislation transformed Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) into the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, dramatically changing the nation's approach to supporting needy families with children. Reform was intended to end dependence on government cash assistance by promoting job preparation and work. Benefits now carry a time limit and most recipients must meet work activity requirements. The 1996 law gave states new flexibility to implement their welfare programs, while creating incentives to encourage work and the formation of two-parent families and penalties to reduce out-of-wedlock childbearing. It also changed numerous other safety net programs, such as child care and child support. During the period just before and just after welfare reform, other federal programs that affect the work and earnings of low-income families were enacted or modified as well, including the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), food stamps, and Medicaid.

Writers and critics of the landmark 1996 welfare reform bill took part in an Urban Institute roundtable event with federal officials, state and local human service practitioners, researchers, and analysts to mark the legislation's approaching 10th anniversary.

Medicaid health plans are uniquely situated to improve asthma care, particularly for youth in low-income and minority families. Since publishing its first asthma best practices toolkit in 2002, CHCS has worked with numerous health plans and states across the country to develop cost effective methods to improve asthma management. This toolkit, made possible by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, includes strategies for improving asthma care tested by a diverse group of health plans and states serving Medicaid consumers. Plans engaged in CHCS initiatives have demonstrated innovative techniques to improve member asthma care.

State Medicaid programs are increasingly exploring managed care options to improve the quality and control the costs of health care for consumers with disabilities. In response, the Center for Health Care Strategies developed the Managed Care for People with Disabilities Purchasing Institute (MCPD PI) initiative to help states strengthen existing programs and/or expand managed care programs for this complex population. Through the MCPD PI, participating states have agreed to share best practices and resources, drawn from their experience in developing and implementing programs for SSI-eligible populations. This web page is designed to facilitate the sharing of key tools used by MCPD PI states. These downloadable sample documents include requests for proposals, contracts, health assessment tools, and other administrative resources developed by several of the participating MCPD PI states.

The Cognitive Relaxation Coping Skills (CRCS) program has been adapted to work with middle school students to help them increase control over their own emotions. Participants are taught methods for relaxation and attitude change and how to use those skills to control their feelings of anger when dealing with frustrating situations. Evaluation results show the program is effective at reducing a range of negative outcomes, including anger, anxiety, depression, general deviance, and deviant behavior at school.

This is a consultation on draft regulations making amendments to rail vehicle accessibility regulations exemptions procedure and defining turnover for enforcement purposes. It also includes a draft code of practice on the setting of penalties.

This briefing aims to: identify all relevant systematic reviews, syntheses, meta-analyses and review-level papers on public health interventions to prevent accidental injury to young people aged 15 to 24; and review these papers and highlight effective ways to prevent accidental injury in this population and particularly those in disadvantaged and vulnerable groups.

Bullying hurts and you don't have to endure it. If you are on the receiving end of bullying, there are many things that can be done to make your life easier. This web site is intended to show pupils, their families and teachers how to tackle a problem that has gone on for far too long. It is packed with new ideas, practical techniques and the valuable experiences of those who have been bullied, or have even bullied others, to demonstrate that you need not Suffer in Silence.

‘Rebalancing the Criminal Justice System In Favour Of the Law-Abiding Majority’ examines the functions of the criminal justice system from policing through to courts to prison and probation. The plan outlines the progress to date, sets out clear proposals, and begins a debate to ask what more can be done to redress the balance within the Criminal Justice System. The document says that we currently have a system where those from certain ethnic groups are disproportionately more likely to be arrested, to be convicted of a serious crime, and to be imprisoned. The document makes clear that part of rebalancing must be in favour of the law-abiding, but also ensuring that there is no built-in unfairness based on race, creed or colour.

Higher education expenditure on R&D (HERD) in Australia in 2004 was $4,283 million. This represented an increase of 24.9% in current price terms over 2002 and 18.0% in chain volume terms.

The Code provides statutory guidance on local authority housing and social services statutory functions in respect of people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness. The Code is issued by the Secretaries of State under section 182 of the Housing Act 1996, and local authorities must have regard to the Code, by law.

In recent years, increasing national attention has been focused on the need to find adoptive homes for children in foster care. The Adoption Promotion Act (the Act), passed in 2003, supported these efforts by reauthorizing the Adoption Incentive Program, a key outcome-focused tool for promoting adoption, and also introduced a special focus on the need to find adoptive homes for children ages 9 and older. Congress included in the Act a requirement for a report that presents the strategies and promising approaches being undertaken to achieve permanency outcomes for children in foster care. In keeping with the legislative requirement, this report addresses not only adoption, but also the achievement of other permanency outcomes for children, with a special focus on older children. The challenges faced in attempts to achieve these outcomes are summarized, along with strategies for addressing these challenges. Many examples of Federal leadership are presented, as are State and foundation-led initiatives. The report concludes with a summary of the progress that has been made in addressing these issues and the strategies that show promise of improving outcomes for children in foster care.

To carry out their responsibilities of protecting children at risk of maltreatment, CPS caseworkers must effectively engage families that often both present and face great challenges. These can include substance abuse, mental health problems, economic stress, unemployment, separation and divorce, inadequate housing, crime, and incarceration. Figuring out how best to work with and engage these families, always with the safety of and permanency for the child as the goal, is not easy. This manual also speaks to both the opportunities and challenges presented by one participant in the family sagas that CPS caseworkers deal with everyday: the father.

This response sets out the Department's proposals for the overarching aims of reform, more money to more children, increasing parental responsibility and tackling child poverty.

This report sets out how the Commisson has carried out its functions in 2005-06. It also highlights their key achievements and reports on the progress made in relation to their strategic goals.

The Food Stamp Program (FSP) helps low-income individuals purchase food so that they can obtain a nutritious diet. One important measure of a program’s performance is its ability to reach its target population, as indicated by the fraction of people eligible for benefits who actually participate. Of the 38 million individuals who were eligible for food stamp benefits in an average month of 2004, 23 million individuals (60.5 percent) chose to participate. There were over 15 million eligible individuals who did not participate in 2004. Although the FSP served more than 60 percent of all eligible individuals, it provided over two-thirds (70.6 percent) of the benefits that all eligible individuals could receive. This is because the neediest individuals, who are eligible for higher benefits, participated at higher rates than other eligible individuals. The rate of participation by demographic and economic subgroups continued to follow historical patterns in 2004. Rates were relatively high for individuals in households below the poverty line, in households with children, and for recipients of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) or Supplemental Security Income (SSI), with at least three-quarters of all eligibles from these groups participating. On the other hand, less than a third of eligible elderly adults, nondisabled childless adults, and individuals living in households with incomes above the poverty line, and only slightly more eligible noncitizens, participated in the FSP in 2004. Participation rates for eligible individuals in households with earnings and citizen children living with noncitizens were also lower than average, just over 50 percent. Nationally, the participation rate among individuals increased by just under 5 percentage points between 2003 and 2004, the third annual increase after declining for 7 years. Almost every demographic and economic subgroup experienced a rise in participation rates, with particularly large increases in the participation rate of children, of individuals in households with very low income, and of individuals receiving the maximum benefit.

The Personal Finance Research Centre at the University of Bristol was commissioned by the Department for Work and Pensions to provide independent evidence of parents’ views of possible policy options for reforming the Child Support Agency (CSA) under a tight deadline of just two months. In the report we summarise the views of 31 parents who attended one of five focus groups held in May and June of 2006. We also draw on other research and personal observations to discuss the wider implications of particular options.

The challenge of higher education is to engage students actively in order to develop in them the capacity for continued intellectual learning. The problems of today are not likely to be the same problems that will confront these students and their societies in the future. While the content of a curriculum will most certainly change, the process of learning is likely to remain central to the mission of higher education. Toward this end, sociology contributes to students’ learning outcomes in several fundamental areas, including quantitative literacy, knowledge of society, multiculturalism and diversity, global awareness, critical thinking, civic engagement, communication, moral reasoning, and collaborative work. That sociology can articulate demonstrably its contribution to important areas of student learning is noteworthy. But sociology can and must do more to advance student learning. As a result of our work, we now know that sociology, while acknowledging the importance of these learning outcomes through reports such as Liberal Learning and the Sociology Major, has not assessed students’ performance in these areas either systematically or comprehensively. Much work remains to be completed in the areas of curriculum development and assessment of student outcomes in ways that attend to the relationship between sociology and general education. Toward that end, we offer six recommendations, which build upon the preceding and ground breaking efforts of earlier ASA Task Forces.

Facility-assessment: Checklists for Activities of Daily Living (ADL)

Facility-assessment: Checklists for Delirium

A Guide to Planning and Implementing Cultural Competence Organizational Self-Assessment

A Planner's Guide: Infusing Principles, Content and Themes Related to Cultural and Linguistic Competence into Meetings and Conferences

This section presents several examples of treatment approaches and components that have been developed and tested for efficacy through research supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). Each approach is designed to address certain aspects of drug addiction and its consequences for the individual, family, and society. The approaches are to be used to supplement or enhanceÑnot replaceÑexisting treatment programs. This section is not a complete list of efficacious, scientifically based treatment approaches. Additional approaches are under development as part of NIDA's continuing support of treatment research.

The specific purpose of this study was to conduct a national survey of State officials to identify methods that States use to monitor
residential facilities for adults with mental illness. Officials in departments of mental health, social services, and health and human
services responded to structured questions on facility characteristics and programs, licensing and oversight procedures, and sources of financing. The survey was fielded between November 2003 and March 2004. This report presents the results of the survey.

The Healthy Kids program was launched in Los Angeles County in July 2003 with funding from First 5 LA. The program aims to extend universal coverage to children in families with incomes below 300
percent of the federal poverty level by insuring children ineligible for Medi-Cal or Healthy Families. Initially designed to cover children under age 6, Healthy Kids obtained additional financing and
extended eligibility to children though age 18 in May 2004. As of December 2005, 7,833 children under age 6 and 34,780 children age 6 to 18 were enrolled in Healthy Kids (Sommers et al. 2006). Services under Healthy Kids are administered by L.A. Care Health Plan on a
prepaid capitated basis through a network that includes safety net and other providers.

The Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) commissioned the
University of Sussex, in partnership with the Evidence for Policy and
Practice Information and Coordinating Centre (EPPI-Centre), to
undertake a systematic review and practice survey of ‘partnership’ in
social work education. There were nine stated objectives in the commission, including clarifying the discourse of partnership, identifying the national and international evidence and best practice in partnership work, examining how stakeholders are involved, evaluating the most effective methods of teaching, learning and assessment and evaluating the evidence on the transfer of learning and impact on learners. On some of these issues, for example the transfer of learning, there was very little evidence in either the literature or the practice. The parameters of the study included focusing on partnership at pre-qualifying level in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. This Knowledge Review is the outcome of work undertaken during October 2004-May 2005. The regulatory framework for social work education in the UK has emerged from different sources and it is perhaps not surprising that there is a difference in whether partnership is with users and carers, other professions, or both, how it is defined and what is required.

This Position Paper is the result of work undertaken by the University of Sunderland and the Sunderland Carers’ Centre (part of the Princess Royal Trust for Carers). It is premised on the belief that carers are experts in their own lives, and that their participation in service planning and delivery should lead to improvement in those services. The Position Paper has been carer-led from the outset. Carers have had a key role in focusing on the methods adopted, formulating research instruments, reviewing the
progress of the work, undertaking matched interviews with carers and appraising draft copies of the document. Carers in both London and Belfast have been involved in showcasing the work as it developed. Partnership principles and a participatory research paradigm have been adopted as the basis of the study and a wider Position Paper.
In addition, the researchers wanted to establish the principles of carer participation through the research process.

There is little national information on the policies and procedures
used by States to regulate residential treatment facilities for children with mental illness. As a result, policymakers and program
administrators face major difficulties in determining both the effectiveness of current policies and the potential need for new policies that are responsive to emerging trends in child mental health care. Based on a survey of State officials, this report provides the most accurate national data available concerning methods that States use to license and regulate residential facilities for children with mental illness. The information in this report can help Federal and State policymakers improve procedures for monitoring the quality of care provided in these facilities.

The study shows little variation in credit card ownership by students’ family income (see Table 1). The only minor difference is that students with family incomes of $80,000 or more were slightly more likely to own a credit card than those with incomes of less than $40,000 (58 percent versus 54 percent, respectively). The likelihood of owning a credit card did increase as students progressed through their academic careers. Forty-three percent of first-year undergraduates owned credit cards, compared with 74 percent of fourth- and fifth-year students. Further, students became more likely to hold multiple cards as they advanced through college. In the first year of college, only 8 percent of all undergraduates owned three or more cards. By the fourth or fifth year, 24 percent of students held that many cards.

This guide explores how to create attractive and well-managed places that meet the needs of all sections of the community. Drawing on the latest research, and featuring nine case study areas, it includes detailed guidance on:
- developing a strategy and negotiating the planning process;
good practice in masterplanning, design, layout and long-term financial viability;
- how stakeholders can collaborate effectively and ensure that local residents are fully involved at all stages;
- how barriers to the development of sustainable communities might be overcome.
The guide explores all types of mixed income communities, from the diversification of single-tenure inner-city estates to greenfield development on the urban fringe.

A new global measure of progress, the ‘Happy Planet Index’, reveals for the first time that happiness doesn’t have to cost the Earth. It shows that people can live long, happy lives without using more than their fair share of the Earth’s resources. The new international ranking of the environmental impact and well-being reveals a very different picture of the wealth, and poverty, of nations. The Happy Planet Index, an innovative new index from nef (the new economics foundation) launched on Wednesday 12 July 2006, is the first ever index to combine environmental impact with well-being to measure the environmental efficiency with which countries provide long and happy lives. The results are surprising, even shocking. The ranking unmasks a very different world order to that promoted by self-appointed global leaders, the G8. For example, the UK is a disappointing 108th and the USA fares still worse at 150th on the Index.

Whilst we recognise that moving home is usually desirable and positive and can bring benefits such as better work or a new start, we also know that some disadvantaged people who move frequently can find it difficult to access the services they need. High levels of mobility, particularly in areas of deprivation, can also be a barrier to community cohesion and pose particular challenges for service providers. The Moving On: Reconnecting Frequent Movers analytical report is the Government's first look at mobility as a driver of disadvantage and aims to put the link between exclusion and frequent moving on the policy map. It examines the impact of frequent moving on service providers, communities and vulnerable people.

The Government's teenage pregnancy strategy represents the first co-ordinated attempt to tackle both the causes and consequences of teenage pregnancy. The strategy's targets are outlined on this webpage.

This letter provides information about the second national survey of local councils with social services responsibilities. It reveals that the majority have established basic systems for the governance of social care research. The Department commends councils on their excellent progress and stresses the importance of high level support for the process.

This report concerns the frequency and severity of child abuse linked to accusations of 'possession' and 'witchcraft'. It identifies key features common to these cases, draws conclusions and makes recommendations. It is based on desk research and discussions with social workers, school teachers, police officers, voluntary workers and others who had knowledge of aspects of the subject.

Models of care for alcohol misusers (MoCAM) provides best practice guidance for local health organisations and their partners in delivering a planned and integrated local treatment system for adult alcohol misusers. It will be relevant to primary care trusts (PCTs) who will play a leading role, in partnership with other local agencies, to commission appropriate alcohol services. MoCAM is explicitly identified as a significant milestone towards achieving the second aim of the Alcohol harm reduction strategy for England (2004), ‘to better identify and treat alcohol misuse’, and is a direct commitment in the Choosing Health3 White Paper (2004). Alcohol misuse is associated with a wide range of problems, including physical
health problems such as cancer and heart disease; offending behaviours, not least domestic violence; suicide and deliberate self-harm; child abuse and child neglect; mental health problems which co-exist with alcohol misuse; and social problems such as homelessness.
The evidence base indicates that much of this harm is preventable. The introduction and development of comprehensive integrated local alcohol treatment systems considerably benefits hazardous, harmful and dependent drinkers, their families and social networks, and the wider community.

When new mothers experience depression—a common occurrence due to postpartum symptoms and the demands associated with parenting infants—their ability to safely and effectively care for their children may be impaired. According to a new Commonwealth Fund–supported study, mothers with depressive symptoms are less likely to engage in important developmental behaviors with their infant, like playing and talking, showing picture books, and following daily routines.

Young adults (ages 19 to 29) are one of the largest and fastest-growing segments of the U.S. population without health insurance: 13.7 million lacked coverage in 2004, an increase of 2.5 million since 2000. Young adults often lose coverage under their parents' policies, Medicaid, or the State Children's Health Insurance Program at age 19, or when they graduate from high school or college. Nearly two of five college graduates and one-half of high school graduates who do not go on to college will be uninsured for a period during the first year after graduation. Three policy changes could extend coverage to uninsured young adults and prevent others from losing it: extending eligibility for Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program beyond age 18; extending eligibility for dependents under private coverage beyond age 18 or 19 regardless of student status; and ensuring that colleges and universities require full- and part-time students to have insurance, and that they offer coverage to both.

GAO found that spending for low-income people for health and nonhealth services in nine states generally increased in real terms from 1995 to 2000 and from 2000 to 2004. Health spending, excluding spending for the elderly, outpaced nonhealth spending over the decade and now consumes an even greater share of total spending for low-income people, mirroring a nationwide expansion in health care costs. Spending increases were substantially supported by both federal and state funds in the health and nonhealth areas in each time period, reflecting the important federal-state partnership supporting these low-income programs. Overall, spending increases reflected changes in eligible populations and needs, increasing costs, as well as policy changes. While nonhealth spending increased in real terms, spending priorities shifted away from cash assistance to other forms of aid, particularly work supports, in keeping with welfare reform goals. The largest increases for noncash services occurred from 1995 to 2000, with smaller increases from 2000 to 2004, when some state officials cited challenges in maintaining services. By 2004, states used federal and state TANF funds to support a broad range of services, in contrast to 1995 when spending priorities focused more on cash assistance. However, reporting and oversight mechanisms have not kept pace with the evolving role of TANF funds in state budgets, leaving information gaps at the national level related to numbers served and how states use funds to meet welfare reform goals, hampering oversight.

This product contains a comprehensive collection of statistics covering the nation. It contains statistics on the United Kingdom's economy, industry, society and demography presented in easy to read tables and backed up with explanatory notes and definitions. It is compiled from 100 sources and has more than 10,000 series. It covers the following areas: area; parliamentary elections; overseas aid; defence; population and vital statistics; education; labour market; personal income, expenditure and wealth; health; social protection; crime and justice; lifestyles; environment, housing; transport and communications; national accounts; prices; government finance; external trade and investment; research and development; agriculture, fisheries and food; production; banking and insurance etc.

W.E.B. DuBois’s 1903 words are prophetic, as he proclaims the importance of an issue with which we are still grappling in the twenty-first century—race. As contributors to this volume, we were asked to focus on the relationship between race and mentoring. What do we learn about this important developmental relationship by examining the research on race and mentoring? Like DuBois, we believe that the analysis of race is fundamental within our society. Race continues to be a critical factor as we examine relationships in organizations, particularly if we are located in a U.S. based context. Race, is a socially embedded phenomenon that affects just about every aspect of our lives, and as such, provides a critical lens with which to examine the mentoring literature (Thomas & Alderfer, 1989).

Public and private leaders have a substantial, and widely overlooked, opportunity today to help lower income families get ahead by bringing down the inflated prices they pay for basic necessities, such as food and housing. In general, lower income families tend to pay more for the exact same consumer product than families with higher incomes. For instance, 4.2 million lower income homeowners that earn less than $30,000 a year pay higher than average prices for their mortgages. About 4.5 million lower income households pay higher than average prices for auto loans. At least 1.6 million lower income adults pay excessive fees for furniture, appliances, and electronics. And, countless more pay high prices for other necessities, such as basic financial services, groceries, and insurance. Together, these extra costs add up to hundreds, sometimes thousands, of dollars unnecessarily spent by lower income families every year. Reducing the costs of living for lower income families by just one percent would add up to over $6.5 billion in new spending power for these families. This would enable lower and modest-income families to save for, and invest in, incoming-growing assets, like homes and retirement savings, or to pay for critical expenses for their children, like education and health care. . . . This report, analyzing both national data and data from 12 major metropolitan areas across the country, is about this opportunity to put the market to work for lower income families.

This paper focuses specifically on how CJIT interfaces with a Drug
Rehabilitation Requirement (DRR) / Drug Treatment and Testing Order (DTTO)provision in England (where the drug treatment and testing component of a DRR is commissioned via the DAT and a central contribution is made to the Department of Health Pooled Treatment Budget PTB). . . . The attached Q&A’s are effectively an extract of key points from a more detailed guidance document being prepared by DIP, Probation, NOMS and NTA. It aims to offer immediate guidance on the CJIT / Probation interface in response to specific questions which have been asked in the context of the current commissioning and funding arrangements. It is not intended to deal with every possible scenario but gives principles which can be applied to a range of different circumstances.

This report provides information on the results of a joint study undertaken by the Department of Health's reducing burdens team and the Health and Social Care Information Centre on the wider impact of data collections, regardless of source, on NHS staff.

The new Post Qualifying framework for social workers comes into force on 1 September 2007. It builds on the new social work degree and takes into account all the changes that have taken place in social work practice in recent years. Service users and carers will be central to social work post qualifying education and training, as they are with the social work degree. Under the current system, funding for post qualifying training (PQ) is allocated to the General Social Care Council (GSCC) who distribute it via regional PQ consortia. Under the new system, funding will be allocated to Skills for Care in liaison with Children’s Workforce Development Council (CWDC), and managed by Regional Planning Networks for PQ (RPNPQ). RPNPQ’s will be fully integrated with Learning Resource Networks and manage training for both adults and children’s social services. The new framework will have a new organisational structure and the Department asked JM Consulting to review the current funding mechanisms and consider options for future funding arrangements.

We have reviewed the funding arrangements for the post-qualifying (PQ) training and education of social workers. This report describes the background to the review, current arrangements and issues surrounding future arrangements. Our work has led to eight main recommendations that:
1. recognise the importance of the Regional Planning Networks in creating good partnership arrangements, and to consolidate links with other networks in particular the Learning Resource Networks (LRNs);
2. acknowledge that the duty of a good employer is to provide training and staff development and to fund that training;
3. acknowledge the funding which statutory authorities have been given for PQ social work training and expect its use for this purpose;
4. ensure cost burdens on employers are not so high to discourage take-up, and to ensure that both partners (employers and HEIs) can bring funding to the table;
5. promote learning organisations and strengthen the overall training framework;
6. ensure that all candidates have opportunities for training;
7. support transitional arrangements for individuals;
8. ensure financial arrangements for the transitional period provide adequate support for current candidates; and facilitate a smooth change-over during a worrying time.

This updated report provides the latest data on the 37 key indicators selected by the Forum for its 2004 report to portray aspects of the lives of older Americans and their families. It is divided into five subject areas: population, economics, health status, health risks and behaviors, and health care.

Seven core areas of social concern form the chapters of each edition: population, family and community, health, education and training, work, economic resources, and housing. An additional chapter covers other areas of social concern or interest, such as culture and leisure, transport, crime and justice, and the environment. Occasionally an AST edition will focus on a theme. Past themes have included a regional issues theme (2003) and the wellbeing of older Australians (1999).

The Falls Management Program: A Quality Improvement Initiative for Nursing Facilities
The Falls Management Program (FMP) is an interdisciplinary quality improvement initiative. It is designed to assist nursing facilities in providing individualized, person-centered care, and improving their fall care processes and outcomes through educational and quality improvement tools.

Adapting Your Practice: General Recommendations for the Care of Homeless Patients
This tool provides general recommendations that specify what experienced clinicians know works best for patients who are homeless, with the realistic understanding that limited resources, fragmented health care delivery systems and loss to follow-up often compromise adherence to optimal clinical practices. These recommendations are intended to provide helpful guidance to health care professionals who work with individuals who are homeless or at risk of homelessness and to contribute to improvements in both quality of care and quality of life for these patients.

Mental Health Services Locator
The Mental Health Services Locator is a searchable database of mental health services and resources around the country.

In 2002, 4.7 million children lived apart from their mothers, up from 3.7 million in 1997. Understanding who these mothers are and how their children are faring is important for social policy in general and, specifically, for the child support program. Despite their large and growing numbers and policy relevance, nonresident mothers and their children have remained largely under the radar.1 Considerable research has been devoted to understanding nonresident fathers and their children, but this literature does not necessarily offer insight into nonresident mothers and their support of nonresident children. This brief provides a national portrait of nonresident mothers and their children, contrasting them with nonresident fathers and their children. The brief uses data from the 2002 National Survey of America's Families (NSAF), one of the few nationally representative surveys with data on nonresident mothers. It shows that nonresident mothers have demographic characteristics similar to nonresident fathers but differ in two important ways: nonresident mothers are more likely to be living with some of their children than nonresident fathers, and fewer nonresident mothers are working. Most children who live apart from their mothers do not receive child support, but these children tend to live in economically secure families. Children living apart from both their parents, however, experience relatively high rates of poverty and, depending on the circumstances of these arrangements, may benefit from increased child support enforcement.

Child care policy in the United States has focused primarily on helping working families (or parents preparing to enter the workforce) afford child care. As box 1 illustrates, a large portion of mothers, including mothers of the youngest children, were in the labor force in 2003. Those children experienced a wide range of child care settings, of widely varying quality. Support to help parents afford child care is delivered through two major programs: the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF), a block grant to states primarily designed to provide child care subsidies to low-income working families, and the Dependent Care Tax Credit, designed to give tax breaks to middle-class families to help them afford child care. This brief focuses primarily on the child care subsidy program. A significant portion of child care policymaking has become the responsibility of the state governments rather than the federal government. Federal block grants to states with federal guidelines, rules, and earmarks have delegated substantial authority and decisionmaking to the states. However, the federal government remains a key player in two ways: it provides the majority of overall funding and it sets the major policy parameters for child care funding. Funding for child care subsidies has grown dramatically since welfare reform efforts in the late 1990s, with increases in CCDF funding boosted by state discretionary use of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) funds for child care. Most states have operated their child care programs primarily within the policy and funding levels set for CCDF and TANF. Typically, states spend about 91 percent of state and federal funding on child care subsidies and about 9 percent on quality improvement, mainly because of federal priorities set in the block grants (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services [HHS] 2003). A large number of children—1.75 million a month—are served through the child care subsidy system. Table 1 summarizes major facts about the ages of children served and the settings in which they receive care.

This E.D. TAB presents findings about children’s biological fathers from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Birth Cohort (ECLS-B), a nationally representative study of young children, their families, and their early care and education environments. The ECLS-B is sponsored by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) within the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), in collaboration with several agencies of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NCES and the other sponsors of the ECLS-B recognize the need to better understand the role that fathers play in promoting their children’s health and education, and view the ECLS-B as an important tool to examine specific roles fathers play in children’s development and well-being. The ECLS-B is one of the first nationally representative studies of children in the United States to collect information directly from fathers. Fathers are increasingly recognized as having an important influence on children’s development (Marsiglio et al. 2000; Pleck 1997; Lamb 1997). Studies suggest that fathers interact differently with their young children when compared to mothers and such differences may have implications for children’s development (Yogman 1982). Limited data exist, however, about what fathers think about being fathers and the types of activities they engage in with their children. In the ECLS-B, children’s resident and nonresident fathers completed short self-administered questionnaires responding to questions about themselves, their attitudes about fatherhood, and their involvement with their children. The purpose of this E.D. TAB is to introduce new NCES survey data through the presentation of selected descriptive information.

During 2006, the first wave of baby boomers turns 60. This AARP telephone survey of a national sample of 800 boomers born in 1946 explores their thoughts about the significance of reaching this milestone, and assesses their satisfaction with their lives up to now, personal goals and expectations for the future.

Court monitoring of guardians is essential to ensure the welfare of incapacitated persons, identify abuses, and sanction guardians who demonstrate malfeasance. The need for effective court monitoring is heightened by ongoing demographic trends that will sharply boost the number of guardianships in coming years. These trends include: growing numbers of older people, individuals with Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias and people with intellectual disabilities; the rising incidence of elder abuse; and the increasing number of guardianship agencies that must make critical decisions about multiple wards, sometimes with high caseloads. The purpose of this research report is to better understand how courts are monitoring the performance of guardians. It is the first detailed look at adult guardianship monitoring practices in over fifteen years. This paper reports the findings of a 2005 national survey of experts with frontline experience – 387 judges, court managers, guardians, elder law attorneys and legal representatives of people with disabilities. AARP and the ABA are continuing this research with site visits and intensive interviews in jurisdictions with exemplary monitoring practices. AARP will publish a follow-up report articulating recommended steps for replication around the country.

The Commercial Value of Underage and Pathological Drinking to the Alcohol Industry reveals: underage drinkers, alcoholics and alcohol abusers consume between 37.5 and 48.8 percent of the value of all alcohol sold in the United States; underage drinkers and adult pathological drinkers account for at least $48.3 billion and as much as $62.9 billion in alcohol sales in 2001, the last year for which the necessary data were available; at least $22.5 billion of consumer spending on alcohol came from underage drinking and $25.8 billion came from adult pathological drinking (in 2001); and more than a quarter (25.9 percent) of underage drinkers meet clinical criteria for alcohol abuse or dependence compared with 9.6 percent of adult drinkers. CASA conducted an analysis of the link between underage drinking and adult abusive and dependent drinking. This analysis documents the short and long term commercial interest of the alcohol industry in early initiation of alcohol use: the cash value to the alcohol industry of underage drinking and of adult abusive and dependent drinking. It finds that the financial interests of the alcohol industry as they relate to underage drinking are antithetic to the public health. Because of this conflict of interest, the alcohol industry cannot be relied on to regulate its own marketing practices as they relate to underage drinking.

In 1999, Tony Blair announced the historic aim of ending child poverty within a generation. In 2006, Conservative policy director Oliver Letwin announced that his party shares that ambition. En route to ending child poverty by 2020, the present Government has targets of cutting it by a quarter from 1998/9 to 2004/5 and halving it by 2010. There are various measures of poverty, but this report focuses on the main measure of relative income, which defines someone as poor if their household is on less than 60 per cent of median income, adjusted for the composition of the household. The median is the income of the person in the middle of the income distribution. While poverty in 2004/5 remained above the first target, falling by about a fifth rather than a quarter, this in itself represents a historic reversal of the previous upward trend. Improved benefits and tax credits for families with children contributed to the fall, as did a reduction in the number of out-of-work families, to which government policy contributed. It has not been clear, however, to what degree present policies would need to be extended to take all children out of poverty, moving beyond an initial reduction that helped a minority who are likely to have been the easiest to help. This study explores what policies may be needed to achieve the Government's bold ambitions.

The commitment to abolish child poverty by 2020 is a key aim of current social policy. The Government has adopted measures of child poverty that will be used to assess child poverty levels against this target. This research considers two of the measures used:
- absolute low income - defined as 60 per cent of median income in 1998/9 prices (£210 a week for a couple with two children) and then adjusted over time by prices;
- relative low income - 60 per cent of contemporary median income before housing costs.
All government indicators of poverty relating to the target will define income 'before housing costs' (BHC). Choosing whether to measure poverty after housing costs (AHC) or before housing costs (BHC) results in important differences in defining poverty and poverty levels. AHC measures relate more closely to actual living costs and usually result in higher numbers of people being classed as in poverty and in greater 'poverty gaps'.

This Treatment Improvement Protocol (TIP) is a revision of TIP 19, Detoxification From Alcohol and Other Drugs. TIP 45 was developed by a panel of experts and it provides up-to-date information about the role of detoxification in the continuum of services for individuals with substance use disorders. . . . Among the issues covered in this TIP is the importance of detoxification as one component in the continuum of healthcare services for substance-related disorders. The TIP reinforces the urgent need for non-traditional settings—emergency rooms, medical and surgical wards in hospitals, acute care clinics, and others—to be prepared to participate in the process of getting the patient who is in need of detoxification services into treatment as quickly as possible. Furthermore, it promotes the latest strategies for retaining individuals in detoxification while also encouraging the development of the therapeutic alliance to promote the patient’s entrance into substance abuse treatment. The TIP also includes suggestions on addressing psychosocial issues that may impact detoxification treatment, such as providing culturally appropriate services to the patient population.

This draft guidance details the recruitment and vetting checks that need to be made on all people who wish to work with children and young persons through a role in the education service, including overseas teachers and agency staff working in education establishments.

The LICOs are published by Statistics Canada. Persons and families living below these income levels are considered to be living in "straitened circumstances." There are 35 different LICOs, varying according to family size and size of community. The LICOs are more popularly known as Canada's poverty lines.

Organizations within the nonprofit and voluntary sector provide a wide range of
essential services and programs that touch virtually all aspects of society – social justice, sport, environment, health, faith, arts and culture. Over 45,000 organizations were in operation in 2003, 369 organizations per 100,000 population. . . . As is true for the rest of Canada, most nonprofit and voluntary organizations in Ontario serve their local communities, although Ontario has a relatively large share of organizations with a national and international reach. The nonprofit and voluntary sector in Ontario commands a substantial economic presence. Ontario organizations reported $47.7 billion in annual revenues in 2003. This represents 43% of all revenues generated by all organizations across Canada – a total of nearly $112 billion. Total sector revenues in Ontario are highly skewed. Hospitals, Universities and Colleges account for less than 1% of all organizations but received 38% of total sector revenues in 2003. Indeed, Ontario has a comparatively large number of organizations in the top revenue bracket compared to other regions combined, including many in Hospitals, Universities and Colleges (38 versus 33%).

This document sets out the action required to implement a series of changes to the way controlled drugs for human use are prescribed and dispensed and the monitoring of this activity. The arrangements came into force on 1 April 2006 and have now been given statutory backing in the Misuse of Drugs regulations, which will come into effect on 7 July 2006.

This report is intended to supplement, or “shadow,” the report of the government of the United States to the Human Rights Committee (“the Committee”). As has been expressed by Committee members, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) can play an invaluable role in providing credible and reliable independent information on laws and practices of reporting countries, as well as on governments’ periodic reports submitted pursuant to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). NGOs can provide information the Committee needs to make recommendations that respond to a reporting country’s most pressing human rights concerns. These recommendations, in turn, provide NGOs with valuable tools with which to press their governments to enact or implement legal and policy changes. Throughout the world, gender inequality permeates every society and every facet of women’s lives. The United States is no exception. This report focuses on the reproductive rights of women in the United States. It is intended to summarize the issues of greatest concern with respect to reproductive rights. U.S. laws and policies endanger the lives and health of women and girls within the United States through restrictions on their access to reproductive health care. Furthermore, U.S. foreign policy jeopardizes the lives and health of women in lowincome countries by imposing restrictive U.S. reproductive and sexual health policies upon countries that receive U.S. development aid.

This study examined the relationship between the federal government’s decision to seek the death penalty in a case and that case’s characteristics, including the defendant’s and victim’s races. This research began by identifying the types of data that would be appropriate and feasible to gather. Next, case characteristics were abstracted from Department of Justice Capital Case Unit (CCU) files. Defendant- and victim-race data were obtained from electronic files. Finally, three independent teams used these data to investigate whether charging decisions were related to defendant or victim race. The teams also examined whether these decisions were related to case characteristics and geographic area. There are large race effects in the raw data that are of concern. However, all three teams found that controlling for nonracial case characteristics eliminated these effects, and that these characteristics could predict the seek decision with 85 to 90 percent accuracy. These findings support the view that decisions to seek the death penalty were driven by heinousness of crimes rather than by race. Nevertheless, these findings are not definitive because of the difficulties in determining causation from statistical modeling of observational data.

Unprotected sexual contact with injection drug users (IDUs) is a rapidly growing risk factor for HIV, and understanding condom use barriers, attitudes, and preferences is a first step to changing sexual risk behaviors. According to a study of 550 IDUs enrolled in California syringe exchange programs, gay and bisexual participants, as well as those who have had multiple partners over the previous six months or who have engaged in exchanges of sex for money or drugs during that time, were more likely to report both positive attitudes toward and more consistent use of condoms. Individuals who had a steady partner for the previous six month period were both more likely to report negative attitudes toward and less consistent use of condoms.

After years of discussion and debate, President Bush signed a new outpatient prescription drug benefit into law on December 8, 2003. Since Medicare’s enactment in 1965, the program has not generally paid for outpatient prescription drugs – despite numerous attempts by Congress and prior Administrations. In 1988, a prescription drug benefit was enacted as part of the Medicare Catastrophic Coverage Act (MCCA) but was repealed along with other provisions of the Act in 1989. The Clinton Administration proposed adding a drug benefit to Medicare as part of the ill-fated Health Security Act of 1993, and later that decade, proposed to provide drug coverage under a new Medicare Part D. In both 2000 and 2002, the House of Representatives passed a Medicare prescription drug bill, while the Senate was unable to pass a bill in either year. The Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003 (MMA) ultimately passed the House of Representatives and the Senate in November 2003.

This newly expanded narrated slide tutorial, by Tricia Neuman, Sc.D., Vice President of the Kaiser Family Foundation, provides an overview of the Medicare Part D program and discuss some of the key issues that have emerged in the early stages of Part D implementation.

The High Level Summary of Statistics presents statistical trends on the main areas of Government activity in Scotland. It provides a similar, concise format for each topic, presenting information graphically where possible and providing a route into more detailed statistics by listing relevant publications and related websites after each trend. Trends are presented individually for each sub-topic; the publication does not attempt to provide a flowing narrative between each sub-topic.

Determined to Succeed is a £86 million long-term Scottish Executive strategy, which aims to prepare young people for the world of work through enterprising and entrepreneurial learning, work-based vocational learning and appropriately focused career education. There are teams in place throughout all 32 Scottish local authorities to ensure delivery from 2003 - 2008. Following the recommendations of the Review of Education for Work and Enterprise set up in September 2001 the Scottish Executive set out its Determined to Succeed (DtS): Enterprise in Education (EinE) strategy. The results reported here are key findings from a small-scale qualitative study carried out by the National Foundation for Educational Research ( NFER) between February 2005 and October 2005 which examined the potential contribution of DtS to improving the outcomes of young people at risk of becoming NEET (not in education, employment or training) in both mainstream and non-mainstream settings. This research constitutes an additional element of phase 1 of the national evaluation of DtS, which is published separately.

Wider community engagement in governance is frequently argued, across the political parties, to be vital to improving public services and tackling the ‘democratic deficit’. Future Perspectives Co-operative Ltd has looked at participant experience of value added by community involvement in governance through Local Strategic Partnerships (LSPs). The benefits, costs and difficulties identified hold lessons for community engagement in other governance structures, particularly those also including professionals and
multi-agency groups.

The transition to adulthood is a critical stage of human development during which young people leave childhood behind and take on new roles and responsibilities. It is a period of social, psychological, economic, and biological transitions, and for many young people it involves demanding emotional challenges and important choices. To a large degree, the nature and quality of young people’s future lives depend on how successfully they negotiate through this critical period. Yet in many developing countries, it is a stage of life that has only recently begun to receive focused attention. The challenges for young people making the transition to adulthood are greater today than ever before. Globalization, with its power to reach across national boundaries and into the smallest communities, carries with it the transformative power of new markets and new technology. At the same time, globalization brings with it new ideas and lifestyles that can conflict with traditional norms and values. And while the economic benefits are potentially enormous, the actual course of globalization has not been without its critics who charge that, to date, the gains have been very unevenly distributed, generating a new set of problems associated with rising inequality and social polarization.

In the past 30 years, the population of prisoners in the United States has expanded more than 4.5-fold, correctional facilities are increasingly overcrowded, and more of the country's disadvantaged populations - racial minorities, women, people with mental ilness, and people with communicable diseases such as HIV/AIDS, hepatitis C, and tuberculosis - are under correctional supervision. Because prisoners face restrictions on liberty and autonomy, limited privacy, and often inadequate health care, they require specific protections when involved in research, particularly in today’s correctional settings. Given these issues, the Department of Health and Human Services' Office for Human Research Protections commissioned the Institute of Medicine to review the ethical considerations regarding research involving prisoners. The resulting analysis emphasizes five broad actions to provide prisoners involved in research with critically important protections: (1) expand the definition of "prisoner;" (2) ensure universally and consistently applied standards of protection; (3) shift from a category-based to a risk-benefit approach to research review; (4) update the ethical framework to include collaborative responsibility; and (5) enhance systematic oversight
of research involving prisoners.

Positive Futures is a national sport and activity based social inclusion programme delivered through 119 partnership projects1 across England and Wales. In April 2006, Crime Concern took over responsibility for managing and developing the Positive Futures programme on behalf of the Home Office Crime and Drug Strategy Directorate.

Overcrowding blights lives. And in particular it can make life intolerable for families. There are overcrowded living conditions in all sectors of the housing market. Overcrowding does not occur in all areas, but there are particular pockets of overcrowded housing in parts of London and other urban areas, and in the stock of local authorities and registered social landlords. It is particularly likely to be an issue for some black and minority ethnic families. And often it is the most vulnerable who are at highest risk, such as families who need extra space for members with special needs. We estimate that there are between 350,000 and 410,00 families with dependent children in England who are living in overcrowded conditions. At worst families can be living in grotesquely overcrowded conditions. In some cases couples are forced to sleep separately; several children including small babies are crowded into one room; and family members sleep in kitchens and bathrooms. Overcrowded living conditions are often associated with health problems such as stress and depression, with poor educational achievement by children, and with family breakdown. The legal mechanisms for defining and dealing with overcrowding have remained unchanged since the 1930s and are widely considered to be out of date. At the start of the 21st century it is hard to defend an approach reflecting the early years of the 20th century.

Publication of the 2001 Census presented an opportunity to analyse the scale of residential care provision in Great Britain, to examine changes in relation to 1991 and geographical variations, such as differences between urban and rural and rich and poor areas, and what has happened in those parts of the country traditionally seen as retirement areas and previously identified as having large numbers of residential establishments. . . . Between the two Census years, there was a decline in the number of local authority care homes in all regions, but the trend in changes in the independent sector varied (see Figure 1). Overall there was, however, an increase in independent sector residential care homes, but a decline in nursing homes. (It should be noted, however, that there was no category of ‘dual-registration’ homes, which may distort this distinction.)

View Figure 1

Our first report, You’ve Got Drugs! Prescription Drug Pushers on the Internet was released in February of 2004. This report documented that the Internet is a wide-open channel of distribution for dangerous and addictive prescription drugs. The second report was included in CASA’s landmark study Under the Counter: The Diversion and Abuse of Controlled Prescription Drugs in the U.S. This is the third report in that series. It includes data from our most recent analysis conducted in February of 2006 and compares these findings with those of our first two reports. Our findings once again are alarming: despite CASA’s reports, Congressional hearings, and increased attention in the press to this issue, these drugs continue to be as easy to buy over the Internet as candy. Anyone--including children--can readily obtain without a prescription highly addictive controlled substances from Internet drug pushers. All they need is a credit card.

View image depicting Families of Minimum Wage Workers

For many families in the United States, full-time employment does not guarantee economic well-being. Indeed, low-wage work can leave families with household income below or just above the poverty threshold. For example, the household income for a family of three with one full-time worker earning the federal minimum wage of $5.15 per hour reaches only 65 percent of the 2006 federal poverty line. For a family of four with one minimum-wage worker, household income is 54 percent of the poverty line. Even if a family of four has two full-time minimum-wage workers, household income is only slightly higher than the poverty line, at 107 percent.

Community colleges play a critical role in American higher education. Because they have open admissions policies and relatively low tuition and fees, they are particularly important to the millions of adults who might lack preparation or otherwise be unable to afford college. At the same time, longitudinal research suggests that nearly half of students who begin at community college do not obtain a degree or enroll in another college or university within six years. Many factors explain the low rate of persistence, including the expense of attending college. Despite financial aid, most low-income students have substantial unmet needs. In 1999-2000, the average community college student receiving a Pell Grant (the primary need-based financial aid program) had an unmet need of over $3,000, taking into account Pell and all other federal and state aid received. This report presents the early results of a program in Louisiana designed to help low-income parents attending community college cover more of their expenses and also provide a financial incentive to make good progress.

Mr. Chairman and Committee Members, thank you for this opportunity to address you today. I am Director of the Low-Wage Workers and Communities policy area at MDRC, a national nonprofit, nonpartisan social policy research organization based in New York City. I want to share with you some compelling evidence about an employment program that we now know works to increase the earnings of public housing residents. The program is called Jobs-Plus, and it deserves special attention because it is the most carefully evaluated employment initiative ever tried in public housing. It was the focus of a six-city research project sponsored jointly by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the Rockefeller Foundation, along with a number of other public agencies and private foundations. MDRC conducted the study.

As the Group of Eight (G8) world leaders meet in Saint Petersburg, Russia for this year’s G8 Summit, it is important to take stock of international efforts to finance the response to the global HIV/AIDS epidemic. Financing a sufficient and sustained response to the epidemic has emerged as one of the world’s greatest challenges, and one that will be with us for the foreseeable future. Often, those countries most affected are also least able to respond, increasing their vulnerability to HIV/AIDS and in turn further complicating their ability to address the epidemic, as is the case for many nations in sub-Saharan Africa. In addition, concerns have been raised about “second wave” nations, particularly China, India, and Russia, which stand on the brink of generalized epidemics if more is not done now. Yet analyses indicate that if effective HIV prevention programs, coupled with treatment, were truly brought to global scale, and on a sustained basis, millions of future infections could be prevented and HIV-related mortality reduced. Given the magnitude of the epidemic, the role of international assistance in low- and middleincome countries has been and continues to be critical.

Raising children has never been easy. For today’s parents, however, it has become a conspicuous source of anxiety and distress. A recent crop of books and articles give voice to this complaint. Likewise in recent surveys, parents report lower levels of marital happiness than nonparents. Why is this happening? Are parents merely whining? Or is there an objective reason for their distress? "Life Without Children,” this year’s essay, points to an objective reason for parental discontent. It is a dramatic, but until now largely unacknowledged, change in the pattern of our adult lives. Within living memory, the larger share of the adult lives of most Americans consisted of years spent with minor children in the household. Today, however, due to later age of marriage, lower fertility, and expanded life expectancy, the larger share of the adult lives of most Americans consists of the years spent without minor children in the household. This change is particularly striking in the lives of women. As a National Marriage Project’s analysis of Census Bureau data shows, women are now entering their active childrearing years at older ages than in the past and ending child-rearing years at younger ages. In 1970, 73.6 percent of women, ages 25-29, had already entered their childrearing years and were living with at least one minor child of their own. By 2000, the share had dropped to 48.7 percent. In 1970, 27.4 percent of women, ages 50-54, had at least one minor child of their own in the household. By 2000, the share of such women had fallen to 15.4 percent.

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) will soon decide three cases, known collectively as the Kentucky River cases, which could change the basic rights of workers in America. If the NLRB accedes to the demands the employers are making in these cases to significantly broaden the definition of "supervisor," hundreds of thousands of employees could be stripped of their contract protections and millions more across the economy could be denied the right to form unions or engage in collective bargaining. The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), the nation's primary law determining the rights of employees to join unions and bargain collectively, excludes "supervisors" from the definition of "employee" (29 USC 152 (3)).

The Common Assessment Framework for Children and Young People is a key part of the strategy to shift the focus from dealing with the consequences of difficulties in children's lives to preventing things from going wrong in the first place. It is a nationally standardised approach to conducting an assessment of the needs of a child or young person and deciding how those needs should be met.

This report contains estimates from the pilot study of the monetary amounts overpaid and underpaid as a result of fraud, customer error and official error in state pension. It also contains recommendations about conducting a main national benefit review of state pension.

This report examines the factors that promote good outcomes across a range of different provision for pupils with learning difficulties and disabilities. It found effective provision was distributed equally between mainstream and special schools when certain factors were securely in place. However, more good or outstanding provision existed in resourced mainstream schools.

Funders provide financial support to nonprofit organizations, which use the funding to implement programs that provide services to clients. A key part of this relationship is the need for nonprofits to ensure funding compliance — the need to report program progress and expenditures to funders. This case study, the first of its kind, examines the management processes of one nonprofit in terms of staff time investments in tracking outcomes, reporting results, and meeting funder compliance, and is guided by research questions, developed in partnership with the Forbes Funds, addressing the related challenges, experiences, and costs through interviews and focus groups with nonprofit staff. The recommendations of this case study point to specific areas for improvement and increased efficiency in nonprofits’ compliance-related activities, as well as areas in which funders might reevaluate their compliance requirements. This study includes sample survey instruments for interviews and focus group discussions with nonprofit management and field staff that address the challenges and costs, from a staff perspective, of achieving and maintaining funder compliance. Although this study focuses on a single nonprofit organization, the findings of this study may be applicable to any organization that is seeking to improve compliance-related processes.

Background: Children who have been maltreated are at increased risk of further maltreatment. Competent identification of those at highest risk of further maltreatment is an important part of safe and effective practice, but is a complex and demanding task.
Aim: To systematically review the research base predicting those children at highest risk of recurrent maltreatment.
Methods: Systematic review of cohort studies investigating factors associated with substantiated maltreatment recurrence in children.
Results: Sixteen studies met the inclusion criteria. The studies were heterogeneous. A variety of forms of maltre