The Child and Family Resource Program (CFRP) is a family-oriented child development program initiated by the Administration for Children, Youth and Families to provide support services to low-income families and their children. This report summarizes preliminary findings based on the first year and a half of CFRP evalution. Following the brief…

The Adolescent Diversion Project, an alternative to court processing for juvenile offenders, employs intervention strategies of behavioral contracting and advocacy. Youth (N=73) were assigned to one of three conditions: (1) the control group receiving usual court treatment; (2) the family condition involving a trained undergraduate volunteer who…

This study explores the problem of maintaining personal-social gains made by children in a long-term family enrichment day care and home visitation program for low income, mainly single-parent families. A prior study of program participants at 3 years of age indicated that they compared favorably to matched contrast children in other preschool…

A meta-analysis of home visiting programs (K = 12, N = 2869) examined differences in the effects of home visitor programs for at-risk families on maternal behavior. Studies selected included only peer-reviewed publications and evaluations with a control group design. Although effect sizes varied, programs with more frequent visitation had higher…

Family support and parenting programs exist for parents who need help in acquiring the support, resources, and skills that encourage positive child development. Noting increasing demands for program accountability, this paper identifies 12 recommendations for the future of family support and parenting programs, based on the field's history of…

The 1996-97 school year marked the third year of a 4-year grant from the Texas Education Agency's Division of Adult and Community Education for funding the ASPIRE/Even Start program operated by Communities In Schools-Central Texas Inc. (CIS). The broad purpose of Even Start is to help break the cycle of poverty and illiteracy in families by…

This conference paper discusses the results of a study that investigated the effectiveness of the Total Family Strategy (TFS), a home-based family support program funded by the Juvenile Welfare Board of Pinellas County, Florida. The program was initiated as a means of introducing a family empowerment model of early intervention into the array of…

This final report discusses the activities and outcomes of the Navajo Assistive Bank of Loanable Equipment (Navajo-ABLE), a federally funded program designed to provide assistive technology (AT) devices, services, technical information, funding information, and training for Navajo children and youth with disabilities. The program was operated and…

A crucial question for evaluating nationally or internationally implemented programs is whether local adaptations detract from program quality and effectiveness. An evaluation examined the program successes and challenges encountered in the first 5 years of Home-Start in the Netherlands, a home-based family support program for families with young…

This report details characteristics of 50 family care programs that provide comprehensive, individualized services to families struggling with various problems, as well as services that allow parents and children to continue living together in supervised living arrangements for extended periods. Data were collected through in-depth telephone…

This document is comprised of the 1998 issues (issues 3 and 4 are combined) of a quarterly newsletter produced by the Harvard Family Research Project to share new ideas and experiences in evaluating systems reform and comprehensive child and family services. Regular columns include: "From the Director's Desk,""Theory and…

Discusses guidelines for providing quality direct services to Head Start families. Suggests that nonjudgmental attitudes, empathy, instruction, reinforcement, shaping, removal of barriers, contracting referral, advocacy, and other helping skills permit effective direct services. Proposes FNA (family needs assessment) as a valuable tool with which…

Examined the effectiveness of the Wisconsin Learnfare experiment that requires teens to attend school regularly as a condition of receiving family financial aid. Findings from state social services data reveal that, despite a $1.5 million "savings" attributed to the program between September 1988 and December 1989, tremendous family…

Ounce of Prevention in Schools, an early intervention program in a Quebec elementary school, includes a family support component to increase parents' involvement and assistance with their children's school work. Interviews showed that, compared to control parents, parents in the program helped their children more with homework but had lower…

A literature review of parent training programs on treating young children with behavioral problems indicates most programs used a social learning approach and that overall, the Eyberg and Webster-Stratton models held promise for direct service providers working with behavioral difficulties. Factors that influence a program's success are…