These three brochures discuss important issues related to child welfare. The first, "Family Support: A New Approach to Child Well-Being," summarizes this philosophy of community service. Family support is defined and differentiated from traditional services; its advantages are outlined; and specific family support programs in…

This book examines the emerging social science research base on violence and families. It specifically explores the evaluation of family violence as well as insights reported in other assessments of selected interventions. The focus is on family violence and family violence interventions, ways to improve evaluation, social service interventions,…

This book describes Boysville's 5-year effort to design, implement, and evaluate an agency-based computerized management information, program evaluation, and clinical decision-making system, BOMIS (Boysville Management Information System). The goal of BOMIS is the integration of the four intervention programs, through the collection, analysis,…

This report is the result of an evaluation of the delivery of a pilot parenthood education program at Monifeith High School in Angus, Scotland. The program was developed as part of Save the Children, Scotland's 3-year Positive Parenting Project. The report is targeted at those responsible for the delivery of personal and social education to…

Shifting to results-based accountability is a difficult stage in reforming family and children's services. Heretofore, these services have been more concerned with the number of clients seen or papers processed than in their clients' quality of life. This document should help communities find the data they need to measure qualitative outcomes. It…

The Senate Appropriations Committee recently approved a $1.1 billion reduction in the Social Services Block Grant (SSBG), a decrease of almost two-thirds of funding. This program has provided a flexible source of funding that enables states to meet the needs of their most vulnerable populations, low- and moderate-income children, and people who…

Neither public nor private agencies address the extensive religious involvement that children and youth receive in child care facilities and foster home placement situations. In a five-state mid-west study (N=252), this paper examines religious practices in foster homes. The study identifies a strong Christian-based affiliation of foster homes.…

This book examines the history of supportive social services to examine ways in which those services have been helpful, and sometimes unhelpful, to poor families; the factors that have constrained service provision and reform; and what would make the service enterprise viable in the coming years. Discussed are formative influences on the…

Proposes that social workers have specialized, skilled roles in the home health care system and that future legislative and reimbursement patterns must reflect these skills. Concludes social workers can work autonomously within an interdisciplinary framework, with other members of the home-care team. (RC)

The Head Start program has survived two decades of fiscal and policy challenges because of its multi-faceted character. Head Start sits astride an intellectual divide, contradicting both liberal and conservative social policy dogma. (Author/GC)

A judge from the District of Columbia outlines his views on the need for comprehensive care services for the disadvantaged. If services remain fragmented, restricted in eligibility, and scattered throughout the community, the children who need help the most may never be reached. (PP)

Discusses the feasibility of delivering combined health and social services to an elderly population. The social/health maintenance organization (S/HMO), incorporating features of health maintenance organizations with community social services, will be financed on a prepaid, capitated basis through premium contributions from Medicare, Medicaid,…

The label "underclass" obscures structural economic change and distorts the realities of poverty. It pays insufficient attention to factors for understanding marginal people--labor market shifts, the poor's lack of safety nets, and interactions between these factors and social problems. Specific policies must confront the divergent…

A congressman discusses adverse effects of Federal policy and budget cuts on social programs for children, holds that children's lack of political visibility means that their interests are not always protected, and examines the role of psychologists and the Congressional Select Committee on Children, Youth, and Families in promoting child welfare.…

Reviews the merger of the public and private provision of social services, and outlines major issues being raised. Proposes a reconceptualization of the "public-private" sector. The expanding range and scale of the provision of social benefits requires continuing experimentation with alternative delivery models. (JAC)