Objective: This study examines medical students' attitudes about mental illness before and after a six-week psychiatry rotation. Methods: Six hundred seventy-two third-year students at Indiana University completed pre- and postrotation surveys assessing attitudes about causes and treatments of mental illness. We conducted paired sample t tests to…

Objective: The objective of the present article is to review and discuss Familias Unidas, an empirically supported, family-based, culturally specific drug abuse and HIV prevention intervention for Hispanic immigrant adolescents and their families. Method: The authors focus on engagement and retention as well as on intervention delivery.…

The conceptualization of individual quality of life is reasonably well established, and now family quality of life and intellectual disability is emerging as an important field of study. This article examines comparative family quality of life in three types of families: those with a child who has Down syndrome, those with a child with autism, and…

Sand tray with group therapy can be an effective treatment approach for parents coping with adolescent substance abuse and/or dependency. Excerpts of parent sand trays are presented to demonstrate pretreatment tasks that decrease denial, reduce reactive anger, stop enabling behaviors, and build support systems. Parent-child relational issues,…

An earlier article published in this journal sought to recover the views of professionals concerned with the delivery and implementation of a "Third Way" multiagency programme tackling the social exclusion of young children and their families known as Sure Start. The tentative findings suggested a "bottom-up" partnership…

"Success for All" is a comprehensive reform model, which applies cooperative learning, tutoring, family support services, and extensive professional development to help high-poverty schools succeed with their pupils. A review of research on "Success for All" with African American students focuses on evidence that the model reduces the achievement…

The authors examined the effects of antipoverty programs on children's cumulative poverty-related risk and the relationship between cumulative poverty-related risk and child outcomes among low-income families. Samples included 419 children ages 3-10 years in the New Hope program and 759 children ages 2-9 years in the Minnesota Family …

This paper is a draft of Chapter 8 of a planned book, "Preschool and Jobs: Human Development as Economic Development, and Vice Versa". This book analyzes early childhood programs' effects on regional economic development. Four early childhood programs are considered: (1) universally accessible preschool for four-year-olds of similar…

The number of U.S. children living in poverty increased in 2007--continuing an upward trend dating back to 2000: in 2007, 13.3 million children were living in poverty, up from 11.6 million children in 2000. The percentage of children living in families with incomes below the poverty line has increased from 16.2 percent in 2000 to 18.0 percent in…

As of March 2008, over half of U.S. states are facing projected budget shortfalls for the coming fiscal year. During economic downturns such as this, opportunities available to hard-working, low-wage families are diminished. These conditions create growing concerns for policymakers who must, with fewer state resources, enhance opportunities and…

Background: To explore whether social or emotional outcomes for high-risk early adolescent youth that attended an established preventive intervention called the Chicago Child-Parent Center Preschool Program (CPC) are moderated by individual, family and program variations. Purpose: Two questions are addressed: (1) Do the effects of CPC preschool…

Adolescent survivors of sexual abuse frequently report severe trauma, depression, anxiety, and low self-esteem. While cognitive-behavioral group interventions show promise, interpreting efficacy is problematic due to commonly high attrition. This article reports promising exploratory study findings relating to a 12-week multimodal abuse-specific…

Internal Audit Services conducted an Early Implementation Review of the Understanding the Early Years (UEY) Initiative in 2006-07. This review is intended to provide assurance to senior management that program delivery has been established appropriately in order to meet its objectives and highlight any areas that require focused management…

AISD student and parent participants in both the INVEST and Positive Families programs were asked to participate in an anonymous survey regarding their experiences of the 4-part workshop following completion of the final class. Aggregated results for quantitative survey items are summarized for the 2006-2007 program year.

Using a quasi-experimental design, this study examined the effectiveness of a standardized intervention model designed to build resiliency in children of women with co-occurring mental health and substance use disorders and histories of interpersonal abuse. The children and mothers who participated in this study were a subset of the sample used…