The Council of Chief State School Officers calls upon educators, policymakers, service providers, and community leaders to create new ways of supporting families and assuring that each child's earliest years provide the foundation for a creative life. Given recent changes in the realities facing children, the council believes that there is no more…

This annotated bibliography provides bibliographic information and non-evaluative annotations of about 46 publications based on research with families of children with disabilities and authored by staff members of the Beach Center on Families and Disability in Lawrence, Kansas. Citations are organized into sections on book chapters, hearings and…

The project, Extending Family Resources, was designed to assess the impact on 14 families of raising children with handicapping conditions and to implement a model program to reduce obstacles facing those families. The model emphasized incorporating under-involved relatives, friends, and neighbors into the family's support network. Performance…

The purpose of this directory is to facilitate networking and collaboration among those caring for or providing support services to children with chronic illness or disabling conditions. It is hoped that this directory will enable parents to identify other parents who share their interests and concerns, as well as assist professionals in locating…

Literature concerning problems that result from teenage pregnancy is synthesized and reviewed. The first section briefly compares rates of pregnancy among adolescents in the United States against those of other countries. This comparison is discussed in greater detail in the second section, which focuses on pregnancy rates in Connecticut and the…

Condensed from "Childhood Education, Volume 45 (September 1968), 22-27.

The document provides summaries of 53 programs from around the country demonstrating innovative approaches to identifying needs and developing and delivering services and materials to families. Chapters are organized according to broad themes which underlie their programs' design. Chapter 1 (10 programs) examines programs which explore informal…

Preliminary data are reported on the impact of the national Parent-Child Center Program (PCC), related to what is termed an immediate criterion of impact. The information summarizes numbers of families served and types of services provided, without evaluative interpretation. Introductory remarks give information on the purpose of the report,…

Advances the view that the family is an important social service and that the task of professionals is no longer to provide services that either totally or partly substitute for the family, but to discover what help families would like. Discusses implications for policy and for care of handicapped persons. (BR)

The Mama Lere Parent-Infant Training Program (Nashville, Tennessee) which serves hearing- and speech-impaired children focuses on family involvement and an intervention plan which includes four service delivery components: facilitation of child communicative competence; educational advocacy and team decision making; information exchange; and…

The involvement of the Dunham family and their physically disabled son with the Family Challenge Program (Westfield, Massachusetts) is outlined with particular attention to how the family relationships (especially between father and son) have grown closer through improved communication, cooperation, and trust, thereby creating a partnership. (JMM)

Discusses the work of the Cooperative Extension Service, how the extension process works, how the extension model benefits families in developing countries, parameters for an extension program abroad, nonformal extension programs, and the importance of understanding the sociocultural environment of developing nations. (CT)

The authors identify a "crisis in caring" that calls for a reassessment and realignment of both formal and informal systems of family support. A spectrum of helping relationships is introduced as a stimulus to discussion out of which a commitment to the creation of patterns of societal organization supportive of family relationships can evolve.…

Significant evaluation findings for a respite care program include the following: (1) training sessions enhanced workers' knowledge of disabilities, (2) families with recently disabled children received more benefits from respite services than families with long-term disabled children, (3) services provided parents emotional relief, and (4)…

This brief outlines both the national and state environments and summarizes the opportunities and challenges that need to be taken into account as states move forward to develop comprehensive early childhood systems. It is adapted from and summarizes a full report entitled "Planning for the State Early Childhood Comprehensive Systems Initiative…