National senior service programs have had a long and relatively successful history. Emerging at the intersection of federal aging and poverty policy initiatives in the early 1960s, projects such as the Foster Grandparent Program (FGP) and the Senior Companion Program (SCP) have expanded in size and scope over the last several decades. These two…

Describes the evaluation of the Fighting Back initiative, in which communities across the country receive funding to combat alcohol and drug use. The evaluation has been designed to be responsive to national policy agendas and local community contextual differences so that it yields important insights at both levels. (Author/SLD)

To assess the nature and importance of family support and education programs which have increased in number during the last decade, this prepared statement addresses three questions: (1) What is known about the ways in which context, defined as factors outside the nuclear family, affects a family's capacity to rear its children and build a…

Only by having an appreciation of how cable systems can be used, the attendant costs and limitations, can local authorities rationally evaluate its impact on the community. This report is intended to provide an introduction to the range of uses and communications services now possible with cable systems. The first part of the report includes a…

In 2000, approximately 877 million adults worldwide were illiterate and 113 million children did not attend school. More than two-thirds of those individuals lived in East and South Asia, and two-thirds were females. Functional illiteracy remains high in developed and developing nations alike. The reasons include weak training in how to teach…