Suggests adding poetry instruction to the Children's Defense Fund, a fund created to ensure that poor children get the basic necessities of life--food, healthcare, and education. Talks about the influence that Langston Hughes, a poet who lived in Harlem, had on the first author. Encourages students to avoid living other people's answers and to…

Argues that home visiting and related services have been shaped and constrained by the tendency to use services as a substitute for adequate income and economic opportunity, by ambivalent attitudes toward poor people, and by a preoccupation with the effects of poverty on child rearing. Proposes basic principles of practice that should guide early…

This report is one of a series of papers presented to encourage discussion on the evaluation of important development issues. The recent emphasis within the Agency for International Development (AID) on knowing the impacts of development assistance, particularly the benefit incidence of projects and programs, makes it important to look at the…

Noting the while there may be much support for the principle that families on welfare should have access to 2 years of education and training and then be expected to work, this paper contends that it will be extremely difficult, perhaps impossible, to design a coherent and constructive program within the probable federal budget constraints. In…

This report provides a detailed examination of the various federal programs for children and families and outlines ways in which the United States Congress and Executive Branch could make these programs work better. Intricate and often overlapping goals and actions are typical of the Congressional committees and Executive Branch departments that…

Demonstrates typical concerns and problems associated with administering and maintaining a rural community Head Start center as exemplified by the Carbon County Child Development Program in Rawlins, Wyoming. Emphasizes the poverty of families served, lack of federal financial support, enrollment trends, and educational benefits of the Head Start…

Discusses the Clinton Administration's proposed overhaul of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), designed to assist the nation's poor and disadvantaged students. The new ESEA should set high standards for all children; focus on teaching and learning; stimulate local initiatives; reconnect schools, parents, and communities; and target…

Discusses successes and problems of Head Start. Suggests that Head Start's difficulties relate to its implementation, not its design. Proposes increasing the effectiveness of Head Start through a series of reform strategies that relate to interventions that address the needs of children in child care, preschool children, and school-age children.…

In order to break the cycle of poverty for disadvantaged children and their families, action must be taken to redistribute income and other resources and improve services and institutions that serve the poor. Successful programs are the following: (1) comprehensive, flexible, and responsive; (2) staffed by workers who develop relationships of…

The problems facing low-income families headed by women and some current and planned Ford Foundation responses are discussed in this paper. The first section presents a general overview of the problem, with special focus on nonpayment of child support and teenage pregnancy. The debate over the Federal welfare program and other attempts to use…

Continuing erosion of the structure of low-income families perpetuates a vicious cycle of moral and economic troubles--poverty, drug and alcohol dependency, out-of-wedlock births, child and spouse abuse, juvenile delinquency, and crime--that feed on and create more impaired families. Accordingly, this report contends that the major portion of the…

This report describes problems West Virginia State has experienced in serving children, especially those in poverty-stricken areas, and recommends ways to overcome these problems. In confronting these issues, the task force made recommendations in four topic areas: Reorganization and System Change, Education and Child Care, Teen Pregnancy, and…

This book analyzes how welfare reform can improve the lives of children, based on a study of successful programs that provide services to needy children and their families. The study looked at programs that operated in conjunction with the welfare department before the enactment of the Family Support Act and that operated successfully. Chapter 1…