Matching Needs and Services (MNS) is a practice tool intended to help people who work with vulnerable children use rigorously assembled information on needs as a guide to design, implement, and evaluate more-effective services. To do this, MNS focuses on needs but links them to outcomes and thresholds before dealing with the services to achieve…

This article features three housing programs designed to target the needs of youth aging out of child welfare. One program combines housing and treatment to move substance-dependent youth off the streets; one combines the resources of Urban Peak, the only licensed homeless and runaway youth shelter in Colorado, with the Denver Department of Human…

This paper sorts out the kinds of information policy makers need at the community level, suggests ways to acquire kinds of information especially relevant and difficult to obtain, and indicates the range of options open to communities in developing day care programs. (Author)

A combination of many factors indicates that during this decade the number of children requiring day care will increase enormously. Planning the expansion of day care services to meet this need involves public policy decisions on several fronts--welfare, manpower, education--with possibilities of great benefit or loss to society. (Author/WY)

A review of the current status of children who were placed in foster care in New York City as infants or as preschool children. Emphasizes the need to stress plans for permanency. A supplement on data from upstate New York is appended. (BD)

Describes a needs assessment model which can be used by grass-roots organizations to collect socioeconomic and demographic data in Hispanic and other ethnic-minority communities. (CM)

A survey of parents, foster parents, and guardians whose children were group home residents indicated the need for programs with different levels of parent involvement. Written contracts between houseparents and children's parents are recommended. (Author/DB)

Needs assessments require staff with the necessary expertise to design the study, collect the data, analyze the data, and present results. They require money, time, and persistence, because the people one wishes to assess often are difficult to access. This article argues for the centrality of a well-done needs assessment when developing services…

Describes the experience of the Philadelphia Kinship Care Task Force's collaborative process between political, public, and private communities to respond to the emergence of kinship care. Describes the achievements including a national summit, initiation of dialog on policy and program aspects, and formation of legislative and administrative…

Highlights the key issues in kinship care and discusses them as they relate to agency structure for kinship family support in the public child welfare system. Examines concerns for future planning, including meeting regulations, monitoring, and development of permanent plans, and explores implications for policy and practice. (Author/SD)