Federal and other studies have noted that exposure to violence and substance abuse make Native American youth susceptible to becoming involved with the justice system. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) was asked to examine federal and tribal efforts to address juvenile delinquency and the barriers tribes face in doing so. This report…

This testimony reports on the state of program evaluation in the field of drug education for youth. The report focuses on the role of evaluation in: (1) the Department of Education's program of grants to states and local school districts under the Drug-Free Schools and Communities Act (DFSCA) of 1986, as amended; (2) the department's Drug-Free…

Although hundreds of state and local organizations provide homelessness prevention assistance, the Government Accounting Office (GAO) could not determine the effectiveness of this assistance because few assistance providers have the resources available to collect the client follow-up data needed for evaluation. Homelessness prevention programs,…

Healthy Start is a 5-year program that encourages community-based strategies for reducing infant mortality. This report addresses Congressional concerns of preliminary evaluation results reported by the press concerning the program's efficacy. The report strives to answer three Congressional concerns: (1) the plan for the national program…

This testimony by the Director of Education and Employment Issues of the Health, Education, and Human Services Division of the General Accounting Office (GAO) is based on a number of GAO studies of substance abuse and violence prevention programs for youth. The testimony focuses on: (1) the information available about substance-abuse and…

This document describes Denmark's 10-year (1965-75) program of cost-effective provision of social services to crisis families with children under the Danish 1964 Child and Youth Welfare Act. The program, voluntary and open to all families, provided preventive psychosocial services for children based on a family support system. The background to…

The Minnesota Department of Education has created a plan, "Unlearning Violence," to aid schools and communities in their efforts to create safe and nurturing environments for all the state's children. The goals and challenges of this plan were formulated with the involvement of over 600 citizens and an in-depth study of research related…