Young children with special needs and their families often experience transitions across multiple environments in the early childhood years. Many transitions are identified as stressful for children and families. In the present study, a series of focus groups involving administrators, practitioners, and family members were held around the United…

"Full-service schools" present opportunities for communities to construct solutions at the local level that unite people and resources in times of stress. Among these schools are school-based health centers, youth-service centers, family-resource centers, Beacons/lighted schoolhouses, and community schools. They share the provision of community…

The history of intergovernmental relations in educational policy has been dominated by regulations, categorical programs, and technical assistance by higher levels of government to stimulate or require lower levels to make changes in policy and practice. This paper summarizes recent research collected by the Consortium of Policy Research in…

California's Healthy Start initiative, begun in 1991, awards grants to local groups of schools and public and private organizations to collaboratively plan and implement strategies to integrate services for children and families, which are provided at or through the school. This paper presents findings of a study that examined whether…

This newsletter theme issue addresses the issue of violence prevention in American schools and is based on presentations and discussions at the Workgroup To Improve the Quality of Technical Assistance around the Topic of Violence Prevention held in Washington, D.C. on June 12-14, 1995. The newsletter reports on the following presentation topics:…

This report describes activities and accomplishments of the Dual Sensory Impairments Program in Florida, a 3-year federally supported program, housed at Florida State University, to provide technical assistance and other services to students, ages 0 to 21, with deaf-blindness. A change in priorities concerning infants (ages 0 to 2) is noted as the…

This final report describes activities and accomplishments of the NICU Follow-Through Project, a 3-year project designed to help hospital neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) and community developmental centers serving infants with disabilities or very low birth weights (VLBW) replicate the project's innovative and successful training components.…

This report describes activities and accomplishments of the Idaho Project for Children and Youth with Deaf-Blindness, a 3-year federally supported project which provided training, technical assistance, and resources to families, educators, and other service providers working with infants, toddlers, children, and youth with deaf-blindness. An…

In response to proposed federal Job Training 2000 legislation, which called for three elements--skill centers, performance-based certification, and vouchering--a series of six forums were held throughout the state of Idaho in 1992. The forums were conducted by a team of staff from the Departments of Employment, Health and Welfare, and Education,…

A study of 24 elementary, middle, and high schools conducted by the Center on Organization and Restructuring of Schools (CORS) found that simply adding school-based support services to bureaucratically organized schools is unlikely to prove effective, and does not necessarily produce better student achievement. However, the research linked schools…

This guidebook shows how schools can form partnerships with law-enforcement agencies and communities to develop a comprehensive safe-school plan. The planning guide is based on four principles: that safe schools are caring schools, are built through cooperative efforts of all stakeholders, communicate high standards, and stress prevention. This…

This final report describes activities and accomplishments of Alaska's 3-year program on services for children and youth with dual sensory impairments. The project provided technical assistance to local education agencies, infant learning programs, and other educators. It also provided support and training to families of children with…

A discussion of the role of bilingual education programs focuses on their function as a district-wide or school-wide reform effort, rather than as a discrete program within a larger system. It is proposed that this approach requires changes in the traditional roles of school personnel and thoughtful attention to how to involve all participants.…

This consensus statement was the result of a conference on school-to-work transition for youths with disabilities which brought together service providers, consumers, family members, researchers, and others. Consensus was reached on several principles, organized around six broad areas: (1) what school-to-work transition for this population is and…

In 1992 the Texas Education Agency selected 83 schools to participate in its Partnership Schools Initiative (PSI), which had the goals of improving outcomes for students and closing the performance gaps among various student groups. The schools were allowed flexibility in the process used to achieve these goals. One of the partnership schools,…