Human Services News

August 30, 2006

L.A.'s Homeboy Industries Intervenes With Gang-Involved Youth

Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention:

Homeboy Industries is a job-training program that educates, trains, and finds jobs for at-risk and gang-involved youth.

Through its Gang Reduction Program (GRP), OJJDP supports a number of local gang prevention and intervention programs.

An example of successful federal and local coordination, Homeboy Industries receives funds from the City of Los Angeles, Office of the Mayor, the GRP grantee, to continue and strengthen its youth gang intervention services.

Located in the gang-afflicted East L.A. community of Boyle Heights, Homeboy Industries offers gang-involved and at-risk youth the opportunity to become productive members of society through a variety of employment-centered services.

In remarks given at the 2005 White House Conference on Helping America's Youth, Father Boyle relayed the story of his meeting with one young man who was helped by the program.

Posted by Michael at 5:35 PM

The Changing Role of Welfare in the Lives of Low-Income Families with Children

The Urban Institute:

Individuals no longer have an entitlement to welfare, and states have changed how they administer cash assistance.

Numerous other safety net programs also changed, as the 1996 legislation limited immigrant eligibility for food stamps, scaled back children's eligibility for disability benefits, increased federal money for child care, and placed greater demands on states' child support enforcement systems.

States were given incentives to encourage marriage and the formation of two-parent families and to reduce out-of-wedlock child bearing.

Scholars generally agree that the strong economy, work supports such as the Earned Income Tax Credit, and welfare reform all encouraged a shift from welfare to work, especially among single mothers.

The National Survey of America's Families (NSAF), conducted by the Urban Institute as part of its Assessing the New Federalism project, documented changes in low-income families' circumstances at the national level over the 1996 to 2002 period.

We describe outcomes for three low-income groups: families currently on welfare, families that recently left welfare, and those that never received welfare.

To establish comparability across the three sample groups we limit the sample to low-income families, defined as those with income below 200 percent of the federal poverty level either last year or in the current year and not above 250 percent of the poverty level in either period.1 These income restrictions confine all three sample groups---current welfare recipients, recent welfare leavers, and nonwelfare families---to families with consistently low incomes.

Posted by Michael at 12:08 PM

August 29, 2006

Stories of Women's Hope, Activism and Leadership Across the Gulf Coast

From Ms. Foundation:

Women are building houses and communities, sheltering the homeless and preventing domestic violence, and advocating for policies and approaches that improve life in the areas devastated by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, with help from the Ms. Foundation through its Katrina Women's Response fund.

The fund has raised $1.3 million in the aftermath of the storms to help elevate the voices of low-income women in the Gulf - especially those of color - and to ensure that their leadership is central to the region's recovery process.

One year into that process, these women are speaking out about their experiences rebuilding their communities and fighting for their rightful places at the decision making table - battling not just water and high winds for the survival of their communities as they knew them, but also the government itself.

"Funding community-based women's organizations in the Gulf Coast has offered the opportunity to help elevate women's voices, support their leadership and bring them to the policy table as real partners.

Undaunted, Chief Robichaux quickly pulled the tribe's resources together, providing assistance to thousands of Houma families by delivering furniture, food and hope, and offering the benefits of a tight-knit community.

- Mary Croom Fontenot, Executive Director, All Congregations Together (ACT), New Orleans.

Five days post-Katrina, ACT took a group of clergy and families from all over New Orleans to Washington, D.C., where they met with 40 members of Congress.

Give Una Anderson three or four weeks, and she'll give you an affordable house, complete with the little touches that make it distinctively New Orleans.

- Carol Burnett, Executive Director, Mississippi Low-Income Child Care Initiative.

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Posted by Michael at 10:18 AM

Realistic Child Support Policies that Support Successful Re-entry

From Center for Law and Social Policy:

These slides describe 8 child support strategies to improve employment and long-term child support outcomes for parents leaving prison.

Why Deal With Child Support?

One half of parents in prison have an open child support case.

On average, parents owe $10,000 entering prison and $20,000+ upon release.

There is evidence that increased incarceration and stronger child support enforcement contribute to the decline in employment by less-educated African-American young men.

Even though their families need the money, most parents in prison can not afford to pay significant support.

Bottom Line: Help re-entering fathers maintain employment and avoid illegal income generation by managing child support obligations and strengthening link between parents and children.

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Posted by Michael at 9:50 AM

Teen Career Plans Out of Sync with Reality

From EurekAlert! - Breaking News:

Unfortunately, the goals of too many teens now outpace what they are likely to achieve, a problem that can lead to wasted time and resources, not to mention anxiety and distress, according to a new Florida State University study.

Sociology Professor John Reynolds tracked changes in high school seniors' educational and occupational plans between 1976 and 2000 and found the gap in goals and actual achievements has grown over the 25-year period.

The study, which was supported by a $47,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, is the first to show with comparable, national data how dramatically high school seniors' plans have changed since the 1970s, how these expectations are increasingly out of sync with the achievements of their peers and that there is a corresponding decline in the payoffs of student ambition for future accomplishments in school.

The researchers analyzed data from several national surveys, including the annual Monitoring the Future Survey, the National Longitudinal Study, the Digest of Education Statistics and the Current Population Survey.

They found that high school seniors in 2000 were much more ambitious than their 1976 counterparts with 50 percent of seniors planning to continue their education after college to get an advanced degree and 63 percent planning to work in a professional job, such as doctor, lawyer, college professor, accountant or engineer, by age 30.

The researchers attribute the high school seniors' unrealistic expectations to the declining influence of grades and high school curricula and the increase of students who plan to use community college as an educational stepping-stone to a bachelor's degree and beyond.

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Posted by Michael at 9:48 AM

A Closer Look at Charter Schools

National Center for Education Statistics:

A special over sample of charter schools, conducted as part of the 2003 fourth-grade NAEP assessments, permitted a comparison of academic achievement for students enrolled in charter schools to that for students enrolled in traditional public schools.

The school sample comprised 150 charter schools and 6,764 traditional public schools.

The report uses hierarchical linear models (HLMs) to examine differences between the two types of schools when multiple student and/or school characteristics are taken into account.

After adjusting for student demographic characteristics, charter school mean scores in reading and mathematics were lower, on average, than those for traditional public schools.

The size of these differences was smaller in reading than in mathematics.

Results from the second analysis showed that in reading and mathematics, average performance differences between traditional public schools and charter schools affiliated with a public school district were not statistically significant, while charter schools not affiliated with a public school district scored significantly lower on average than traditional public schools.

Download, view and print the report as a pdf file.(986KB)Need Help Viewing PDF files?

Posted by Michael at 9:17 AM

August 28, 2006

U.S. Education Department Grants Provide Over $11.6 Million for 23 Native Hawaiian Education Programs

From Education Newsfeed:

Nearly two dozen Native Hawaiian Education (NHE) programs on Oahu, Maui and the island of Hawaii have been selected to receive $11,609,750 to develop, assist and expand innovative programs that provide supplemental services and address the educational needs of Native Hawaiian children and adults, U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings announced today.

"The Native Hawaiian Education Program combines academic support with cultural enrichment, connecting tradition to the 21st century," said Secretary Spellings.

"These grants will help children appreciate and celebrate their unique heritage, while paving their way through academics to a bright, opportunity-filled future."

Spellings noted that the grants will benefit not only students.

"They will encourage the maximum participation of Native Hawaiians in planning and managing education programs," she said.

"Parents, teachers, mentors and community leaders will all benefit, whether through professional development, interactive technology or civic programs."

The NHE program is a discretionary grant program funded under Title VII, Part B of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, as amended by the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001.

More information about Native Hawaiian Education programs is available at www.ed.gov/programs/nathawaiian/index.html.

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Posted by Michael at 9:31 PM

Statement by Secretary Margaret Spellings on Release of NCES Study on Charter Schools

From Education Newsfeed:

Many charter schools are still relatively new, and we need to examine how they improve student performance over time for a better picture of how they compare to traditional public schools.

Charter schools are empowering low-income parents with new educational options and providing an important lifeline for families in areas where traditional public schools have fallen short of their responsibilities.

I have visited high-performing charter schools all around the country, and I have seen how they take the most at-risk students and refuse to give up on them.

These schools are pioneering new classroom strategies that will help us raise achievement in all our public schools.

For additional information about the No Child Left Behind Act and other education initiatives, please visit the Department's Web site at http://www.ed.gov.

For additional information, the general public may also call 1-800-USA-LEARN (872-5327).

The report, "A Closer Look at Charter Schools Using Hierarchical Linear Modeling," is available at http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2006460.

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Posted by Michael at 9:29 PM

U.S. Department of Education Awards $16.7 Million in Grants to Alaska Organizations

From Education Newsfeed:

U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings today announced the award of $16.7 million in grants to 32 Alaska organizations to help them support the unique educational needs of Alaska Native children and adults.

The three-year grants will support a wide range of innovative projects---from family literacy and home-based tutoring to dropout prevention and teacher training---designed to benefit Alaska native populations through enhanced teaching and learning opportunities.

"As we draw closer to our goal of every child reading and doing math at grade level by 2014, it is all the more important that we have highly qualified teachers and tutoring opportunities for our students.

This program is a great enhancement to our efforts to increase the educational opportunities for all of our students," Spellings said.

"Not only will these grants help develop and operate schools in rural Alaska, they also will help people prepare for meaningful employment and enhance their careers."

Awards under the Alaska Native Education Program ranged from $100,000 to about $975,000; with the average grant about $503,000.

The program received more than 80 applications from organizations throughout Alaska.

Eligible applicants included Alaska Native organizations; educational entities with experience in developing or operating Alaska Native programs or programs of instruction conducted in Alaska Native languages; cultural and community-based organizations with experience in developing or operating programs to benefit Alaska Natives; and related consortia of organizations and entities created to carry out activities to help Alaska Natives.

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Posted by Michael at 9:26 PM

Education Department Announces New Aid for Hurricane-Affected Schools

From Education Newsfeed:

U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings announced today that over $60 million in foreign aid donations have been awarded, and $235 million in supplemental funding from the Emergency Impact Aid for Displaced Students program also has been made immediately available to rebuild, restart school operations and meet the education needs of displaced students in Gulf Coast states.

Secretary Spellings, Federal Coordinator of Gulf Coast Rebuilding Donald Powell and U.S. Department of State Under Secretary for Management Henrietta Fore met with New Orleans-area university presidents at the University of New Orleans Alumni Center.

Foreign aid donations of $30 million will be awarded to higher education institutions damaged by the storm in Louisiana and Mississippi.

According to Under Secretary Fore, "The United States received 151 offers of assistance from foreign governments, international organizations and private citizens---from countries rich and poor, businesses, associations, students and senior citizens.

The supplemental funding, which Congress has appropriated under the Emergency Impact Aid for Displaced Students program, also will help K-12 schools and students in the hurricane-affected states.

This funding will provide assistance to local education agencies for the cost of educating students enrolled in public and nonpublic schools who were displaced by hurricanes Katrina and Rita during the 2005-06 school year.

I thank the Department of Education and the other donors for their generosity.

The U.S. Department of Education also recently notified institutions of higher education who were closed or severely impacted by the storms of an additional $50 million in new funds, part of the same supplemental aid package passed by Congress and signed into law in June 2006.

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Posted by Michael at 9:25 PM

Study shows aggressive students often lack psychological evaluations and effective treatment

From EurekAlert! - Breaking News:

As the disturbing trend of school violence continues to plague our education system, it is important for caregivers, educators, and doctors to join forces to be proactive in its prevention.

A study in the August issue of The Journal of Pediatrics shows that students displaying violent behaviors often have untreated learning disorders and psychiatric illnesses.

Dr. Nancy Rappaport, a child psychiatrist at Cambridge Health Alliance, and colleagues from Harvard University evaluated 33 students in an urban public school district who were referred by school staff due to their aggressive behavior.

These findings reflect the need for health care professionals, caregivers, and teachers to be able to identify potentially dangerous behavior patterns in aggressive students so that proper evaluations and diagnoses can be provided and subsequent treatments be made accessible.

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Posted by Michael at 9:11 PM

Analysis shows blacks have poorer diabetes control than whites

From EurekAlert! - Breaking News:

An analysis combining 11 separate research studies found that blacks with diabetes have poorer control of blood sugar than whites, according to researchers from Wake Forest University School of Medicine and colleagues.

"This lower level of control may partly explain why blacks have disproportionately higher rates of death and complications from diabetes," said Julienne Kirk, PharmD, lead author of the study published online today (Aug. 25) in Diabetes Care.

Kirk said the findings point to the need to determine why the difference in control exists and to identify ways to prevent or reduce the resulting health problems.

The researchers analyzed studies that measured sugar control among blacks and whites using a blood test for glycosylated hemoglobin -- hemoglobin that has linked with glucose, or blood sugar.

By combining the data from the 11 studies into a "meta-analysis" involving a total of 42,273 white and 14,670 black patients, they were able to detect differences that may not have shown up in each individual study.

This was the first meta-analysis of racial and ethnic differences in blood sugar control among patients with diabetes.

The analysis focused on studies between 1993 and 2005 because the A1C measurement became more standardized during that time.

Funders of the research included the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Association of Teachers of Preventive Medicine.

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Posted by Michael at 9:03 PM

Alcohol Wholesalers Say Kids Get Alcohol from Internet

From Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drugs News:

The trade association for the wine and liquor wholesalers industry -- a group that stands to lose big from direct sales of alcohol -- has released a study saying that 2 percent of 14- to 20-year-olds have purchased alcohol online.

Reuters reported Aug. 22 that a survey of 1,001 youths sponsored by the Wine and Spirits Wholesalers of America (WSWA) also reported that 12 percent of youths surveyed said they had friends who had bought alcohol online.

"This is a dangerous situation," said WSWA chair Stan Hastings.

"For the first time, we have hard evidence that millions of kids are buying alcohol online and that the Internet is fast becoming a high-tech, low-risk way for kids to get beer, wine and liquor delivered to their home with no ID check."

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Posted by Michael at 8:45 PM

Fight Teen Drinking from the Outside

From Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drugs News:

A researcher encourages the use of environmental stategies to reduce underage drinking.

When considering how to prevent use of the No. 1 drug of choice for youth - alcohol - people usually think of awareness programs that tell teens and their parents why underage drinking is bad.

Such individual behavioral approaches may be common, but the newest, most promising means is changing the overall environment where problems take root, thereby protecting whole populations.

Some of the tactics discussed at the conference may seem fairly routine, such as cracking down on liquor stores that sell to minors and breaking up underage drinking parties.

But the strategies behind these tactics are aimed at changing the widespread cultural acceptance of underage drinking by targeting the culture - or the environment - itself.

My work involves mapping strategies within communities to pinpoint the physical relationship among alcohol sales outlets, alcohol-related crimes and arrests, schools and parks, and other places where young people congregate.

Still other work involves how to prevent alcohol retailers, wholesalers and producers from selling and marketing alcohol to teens.

Various segments of the alcohol industry would prefer that the prevention of alcohol problems focus on individual behaviors, not on the environment where production, sales, marketing and large-scale consumption take place.

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Posted by Michael at 8:38 PM

Levels of Serious Mental Illness in Katrina Survivors Doubled Compared to Earlier Pre-Katrina Survey

From Ascribe Newsfeed:

According to the most comprehensive survey yet completed of mental health among Hurricane Katrina survivors from Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi, the proportion of people with a serious mental illness doubled in the months after the hurricane compared to a survey carried out several years before the hurricane.

The study also found that thoughts of suicide did not increase despite the dramatic increase in mental illness.

The authors suggest that this low rate of suicide thoughts is due to optimistic beliefs about the success of future recovery efforts.

The research, led by investigators from Harvard Medical School (HMS), will be published today in a special online edition of the Bulletin of the World Health Organization: http://www.who.int/bulletin/en/.

"The increase in mental illness among Katrina survivors is not surprising, but the low suicidality is a surprise," says Ronald Kessler, PhD, professor of health care policy at HMS and lead author of the study.

To estimate the influence of Hurricane Katrina on the mental health of survivors, the researchers compared results of the post-Katrina survey with a survey carried out several years earlier that used the same assessment of mental illness.

The earlier survey was the 2001-03 National Comorbidity Survey Replication (NCS-R), taken every 10 years to assess the mental health of the country.

A weight was applied to the survey to adjust for observed differences between respondents and non-respondents, as non-respondents tended to have somewhat higher levels of trauma exposure and hurricane-related psychological distress.

The team discovered a strong relationship between the comparatively low rate of suicide thoughts and the existence of positive cognitions among Katrina survivors, especially with cognitions regarding increased sense of meaning and purpose in life and increased realization of inner strengths.

For mentally ill post-Katrina survey respondents who did not endorse these cognitions, the prevalence of suicide thoughts was comparable to the prevalence in the NCS-R.

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Posted by Michael at 8:36 PM

READERS RESPOND: War on Drugs (Part 3)

From Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drugs News:

Passionate, thoughtful responses to Join Together's feature story on a June gathering of former drug czars (part 3 of 3).

I can remember driving by the Ship Channel in Houston in 1952, past row after row of tanks being outfitted with turrets at the Brown and Root plant.

I was a year away from heroin addiction, and the U.S. was embarking on generations of war mentality, perhaps fostered by winning what some have called the last just war.

When Jerry Jaffe became the first drug czar, I had been "clean" for a couple of years, and Nixon was introducing the rhetoric of war into the field of drug abuse.

Treatment was funded, certainly, but always at a far lower rate than enforcement of sometimes arcane laws.

It is not for nothing that the Public Health Service is a military organization, which trains its new recruits to become part of a culture that accepts the notion that a disease, a condition, a state of being outside the realm of "normal" is an enemy to be fought and vanquished.

Maybe it is time to recognize that our social structure fosters enormous drug markets, a hidden economy that becomes all too visible when adding up the cost of fighting the war.

It's a war we all need to fight in behalf of children of addicted parents, an invisible mass of kids (one out of every four in this country) who needs still are not being met, even though they carry the burden of the transgenerational effects of alcoholism and other substance abuse.

In the same way that fear of HIV/AIDS fueled the funding of drug treatment in the 1980s, so fear of crime has seen substantial funding for drug treatment during the late 1990s and beyond.

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Posted by Michael at 8:33 PM

National Conference of Black Mayors, Inc. Calls for National Day of Prayer, Remembrance in Wake of Anniversary of Katrina

From U.S. Newswire Releases:

The National Conference of Black Mayors, Inc. (NCBM) has called for a National Day of Prayer for the families and communities affected by Hurricane Katrina.

Mayors from across the country will come together in unity to pray for the Gulf Coast and thousands of citizens still feeling the aftermath of the storm one year later.

We come together for a National Day of Prayer but it is also a charge to this country to not forget what happened, to not forget the people still battling the storm one year later, and most importantly not to forget but to do all that we can collectively to ensure that lives and communities are restored," said Vanessa R. Williams, NCBM executive director.

Collectively we must help rebuild lives and restore hope throughout the Gulf Coast," said Johnny Dupree, mayor of Hattiesburg, Miss.

In remembrance of the devastation that was caused by Hurricane Katrina, mayors of NCBM will be flying flags at half-staff.

NCBM requests that the rest of the nation join them on this day of remembrance.

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Posted by Michael at 8:12 PM

New Study Seeks to Lower Diabetes Risk in Youth

From EurekAlert! - Breaking News:

As schools across the country reopen their doors this fall, hundreds of sixth graders in 42 middle schools will begin taking part in a study sponsored by the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

The HEALTHY study will determine if changes in school food services and physical education (PE) classes, along with activities that encourage healthy behaviors, lower risk factors for type 2 diabetes, an increasingly common disease in youth.

In one such study, about half of eighth graders in 12 schools were overweight or at risk for overweight.

Among youth 2 to 19 years old, 17 percent are overweight (i.e., have a BMI at the 95th percentile or more for their age and sex) -- triple the rate in 1980.

This form of diabetes usually strikes children and young adults, who need several insulin injections a day or an insulin pump to survive.

"As a society, we need to address the obesity epidemic if we're going to have any success containing the rising rate of type 2 diabetes in kids.

Nearly 21 million people in the United States -- 7 percent of the population -- have diabetes, the most common cause of blindness, kidney failure, and amputations in adults and a major cause of heart disease and stroke.

Sponsored by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), the study is part of a broad research initiative, called STOPP T2D (Studies to Treat or Prevent Pediatric Type 2 Diabetes), which seeks to improve the treatment and prevention of type 2 diabetes in youth.

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Posted by Michael at 8:04 PM

More than Meets the Eye: Head Start Programs, Participants, Families, and Staff in 2005

From Center for Law and Social Policy:

This policy brief examines the latest data from the Program Information Reports (PIR) that all Head Start programs must submit to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Since 1965, the federal Head Start program has served lowincome 3- and 4-year-old children and their families with comprehensive early education and support services.

Most families did not have child care subsidies and relied on informal child care during the hours their child was not in Head Start.

At least 90 percent of enrollees must be from low-income families (with income at or below federal poverty guidelines), receiving public assistance, or in foster care.

Standards require that all children receive a complete medical screening within 45 days of enrollment and, if necessary, staff must work with parents to provide referrals for follow-up treatment.

More than half of all children enrolled in Head Start with a disability are not diagnosed until entering the program.

Children are increasingly receiving health insurance through public programs, even though parental employment rates have remained constant.

Families (TANF) program has decreased significantly in recent years.

In 2005, just 19 percent of Head Start families received TANF benefits, compared to 45 percent in 1997.

2002. The number of parents participating in Head Start as staff members or volunteers remained the same in 2005.

2003. Head Start programs met that mandate, and the number of teachers with degrees and credentials continued to increase in 2005, with 69 percent of teachers holding an A.A. or higher.

2005. The PIR includes all children who were enrolled in Head Start at any point during the program year, including those who dropped out before 45 days of enrollment, the time frame during which Head Start programs are required to provide medical and dental screenings.

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Posted by Michael at 7:53 PM

August 24, 2006

Grassroots & Groundwork: What Communities are Doing to Get Out and Stay Out of Poverty

Northwest Area Foundation:

The 2006 Grassroots & Groundwork conference, scheduled from September
16-19, 2006, promises to be a valuable, memorable event featuring:

20 break-out sessions focused on microenterprise development, living-wage jobs, collaboration between businesses and nonprofits, community-driven initiatives and other successful poverty- reduction strategies.

Community-Builder Institute - our new half-day program with two powerful workshops: "Building Economic Engines and Opportunities" and "Building Community Capacity to Design, Lead and Implement Lasting Change."

Outstanding keynote speakers and panel experts give participants the opportunity for in-depth and lively discussions with policy-makers, authors, reporters, nonprofit leaders, civic and business leaders, and more.

Picturesque fall in the Upper Midwest ~ the mighty Mississippi River flows just outside the Crowne Plaza Riverfront Hotel, great coffee houses await you, shopping and restaurants are within a five-minute walk of the hotel, miles of walking paths and bike trails throughout the Twin Cities provide scenic areas for recreation, and our state's 10,000+ lakes and more than 400 golf courses are unparalleled.

Posted by Michael at 3:02 PM

The Role of Medicaid and SCHIP as an Insurance Safety Net

The Urban Institute:

Most people with private health insurance in the United States get it through an employer-sponsored insurance (ESI) plan.

However, in recent years, the likelihood of having ESI has been falling, as it becomes more and more difficult for employers and employees to afford the costs of these plans.1 Losing ESI is a particularly serious problem among low-income families, for whom purchasing private coverage on their own would represent a severe financial hardship.

Eligibility for these two major public programs favors children over adults in virtually every state.

In fact, almost 75 percent of all uninsured children are eligible for Medicaid or SCHIP, compared to only 14 percent of uninsured adults.3 This broad eligibility for children's coverage through public programs will be debated over the next year as Congress considers the reauthorization of the SCHIP program.

Posted by Michael at 2:22 PM

An Overview of Selected Data on Children in Vulnerable Families

The Urban Institute:

This paper presents trends over time in the number of children in particularly vulnerable families, including families facing such risks as domestic violence, child maltreatment, substance abuse, depression, and childhood disabilities.

These families are of particular importance to policymakers given the considerable risk to children's safety and development, the challenges to parents' ability to support a family as well as raise children when they are facing these major stressors, and the potential requirement for strong public or community roles to meet children's needs when parents cannot.

While families at all income levels can experience these challenges, many challenges are disproportionately frequent among low-income families.

Regardless of whether the occurrence of the stress is associated with low income, the challenges faced by families are likely more difficult to cope with when they have fewer resources.

For instance, raising a child with a disability can require significant time, attention, and resources that a low-income parent may not be able to offer.

As state and local policymakers, funders, and researchers look ahead to craft policies and practices to better the lives of children, these trends illuminate some of the key challenges that may arise in addressing the needs of vulnerable low-income families.

Posted by Michael at 2:20 PM

Anti-Poverty Practitioners Gear Up for Orlando Convention After Hurricane Katrina Shuts Down Their 2005 Meeting

Community Action Partnership:

WASHINGTON, DC - One year after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina wreaked havoc on the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans along the Gulf Coast---many of them low-income---and caused the cancellation of a convention for the nation's anti-poverty practitioners, the Community Action Partnership will explore the lessons learned from this disaster during its 2006 Annual Convention, September 5-8 at the Orlando World Center Marriott in Orlando, Florida.

The group's 2005 convention in New Orleans was washed away by the hurricane and many of its Community Action Agencies (CAAs) along the Gulf Coast assisted with relief efforts while dealing with damages to their own buildings and the homes of employees.

Hurricane Devastation 2005: Where Are We One Year Later will provide an overview of the tragic devastation of Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma and the response by government, non-government organizations, and communities at large in the year since.

Disaster Preparedness...Are You in the Loop will highlight the Georgia Community Action Association's strategic approach to engaging local Community Action Agencies in the process of educating and equipping low-income citizens and communities on disaster response strategies.

"We felt that this experience, while very devastating to the nation, our Community Action Agencies and the low-income people we serve---offered an example of what CAAs need to do when faced with an emergency on the scale of Hurricane Katrina.

Posted by Michael at 2:16 PM

Local Costs of the Iraq War

National Priorities Project:

The taxpayer cost of the Iraq War is broken down for various towns, cities and counties across the U.S. The breakdown is based on a total cost of $318.5 billion.

That is $2,844 for every American household or $1,075 for every American.

The money (already spent or allocated) is being spent at a rate $10 million per hour and $244 million per day.

The estimate is based on an NPP analysis of the legislation appropriating money for the Iraq War and a report published by the Congressional Research Service (CRS) in June 2006.

The state-level costs in the table are computed based on how much each state contributes in tax revenues, according to IRS data.

The local-level costs are based on the state costs, and on relative population and income levels in each location.

The population and household amounts are based on Census Bureau estimates: population for July 1, 2005; households for 2004.

The taxpayer amount is based on IRS projected taxfilers for the 2005 tax year.

NPP will calculate the value for your town or county if you send us a request including your name, address, contact information, and any group with which you are affiliated (if any) and how you intend to use the information.

Posted by Michael at 1:39 PM

Thirteen Community Action Leaders 'Certify' Their Promise to Help Low-Income Families

Community Action Partnership:

WASHINGTON, DC - Thirteen individuals who are helping low-income families change their lives have become Certified Community Action Professionals (CCAPs).

The CCAP program, sponsored by the Washington, DC-based Community Action Partnership, is a national certification program for current and emerging leaders who fight poverty on the local level.

With poverty rates continuing to grow and the demand for services such as housing, Head Start, and emergency assistance increasing daily, Community Action leaders are faced with many challenges.

They must be able to respond appropriately to these challenges and help position their Community Action Agencies (CAAs) as preeminent community-builders.

The CCAP program assists with this process by significantly enhancing participants' capabilities to serve their low-income clients and create innovative programs specifically tailored to meet ever-changing community needs.

It draws on the knowledge and insight of more than one hundred local Community Action executive directors and senior-level staff who have contributed to a body of knowledge relevant to Community Action.

"Our CCAPs represented the very talented and dedicated individuals in our network who are drawn to Community Action because they want to make America a better place to live," said Karen K. Lueck, CCAP, Chair of the CCAP Commission at the Community Action Partnership.

"They have the skills and motivation necessary to successfully complete this rigorous process and are able to merge those skills with the new techniques they learn while making the journey toward becoming a CCAP."

Posted by Michael at 1:30 PM

Enhancing Health Care Delivery for People in Connecticut with Limited English Proficiency

Mathematica Policy Research:

Seeking ways to provide culturally and linguistically appropriate health care to an increasingly diverse population is a growing policy concern.

Public hearings held in Connecticut revealed that many of the state's residents with limited English proficiency (LEP) see health care providers without a trained interpreter.

A new policy brief provides estimates of (1) the number of Connecticut Medicaid recipients with LEP, and (2) the cost of providing face-to-face interpreter services to these beneficiaries statewide.

Researchers also estimated that the state’s annual share of providing medical interpreter services through its Medicaid program would total about $2.35 million if Connecticut takes advantage of available federal matching funds.

Posted by Michael at 1:20 PM

August 23, 2006

Wealth Inequality is Vast and Growing

From Economic Policy Institute:

Inequality in the United States is on the rise, whether measured in terms of wages, family incomes, or wealth and is much higher than that of other advanced countries.

This week's Snapshot looks at the rising inequality of wealth and is a preview of the advance edition of The State of Working America 2006/2007, to be released on Labor Day weekend.

The richest 1% of wealth holders had 125 times the wealth of the typical household in 1962; by 2004 they had 190 times as much or $14.8 million in wealth for the upper 1% compared to just $82,000 for the household in the middle fifth of wealth.

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Posted by Michael at 11:21 PM

Adolescent condom use with 'casual' versus 'main' partners

From EurekAlert! - Breaking News:

This week, a new study from researchers at the Bradley Hasbro Children's Research Center and Brown Medical School, finds that teen attitudes toward condom use with whom they perceive as casual sexual partners versus main partners is crucial in developing effective HIV intervention programs.

Researchers discovered that whether or not they were with a 'main' or 'casual' sexual partner, study participants had similar numbers of unprotected sex acts, despite the fact that they were more likely to use condoms with a casual partner than with someone with whom they considered a serious partner.

"Unfortunately, this reveals that teens may overestimate the safety of using condoms most of the time with a casual partner and underestimate the risk of unprotected sex with a serious partner," says lead author Celia Lescano, PhD, with the Bradley Hasbro Children's Research Center and Brown Medical School.

Over thirteen hundred sexually active adolescents (between fifteen and twenty-one years of age), from Miami, Atlanta and Providence, were recruited for this study.

"We can conclude that, given these high rates of unprotected sex, teens in both groups may be at risk for contracting HIV and sexually-transmitted diseases," says Lescano.

Condom use, a primary method of sexual safety, has been associated with a variety of individual characteristics and attitudes, such as self-efficacy, personal beliefs, and perception of peer norms.

For instance, ten percent of those teens reporting having relationships with casual partners also reported living with a main partner.

Bradley Hospital, located in Providence, RI, is a teaching hospital for Brown Medical School and ranks in the top third of private hospitals receiving funding from the National Institutes of Health.

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Posted by Michael at 11:18 PM

A Look at the 2005 Census Data and What the Numbers Mean for Children and Families

From Brookings Institution:

The Census Bureau will release new data on poverty and family income for 2005 on August 29.

Poverty declined every year between 1993 and 2000, reaching its lowest level ever for black children, but then increased during the recession year of 2001 as well as in 2002, 2003, and 2004.

Researchers who track child poverty are awaiting the 2005 Census figures to determine whether poverty among children has continued to increase.

On the day the Census poverty report is released, the Brookings Center on Children and Families will hold a briefing to discuss the new figures and their implications for families and policymakers.

A panel of experts with a broad range of opinions will offer their reactions to the report as well as their perspectives on the significance of the new data.

Ron Haskins, senior fellow and author of Work over Welfare (Brookings, 2006) will moderate.

After the discussion, panelists will take questions from the audience.

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Posted by Michael at 11:11 PM

August 21, 2006

2006 Teen Survey Reveals: Teen Parties Awash in Alcohol, Marijuana and Illegal Drugs -- Even When Parents Are Present

CASAColumbia.org: National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse

One-third of teens and nearly half of 17-year olds attend house parties where parents are present and teens are drinking, smoking marijuana or using cocaine, Ecstasy or prescription drugs, according to the National Survey of American Attitudes on Substance Abuse XI: Teens and Parents, an annual back-to-school survey conducted by The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University.

CASA's survey also reveals that teens who say parents are not present at the parties they attend are 16 times likelier to say alcohol is available, 15 times likelier to say illegal and prescription drugs are available and 29 times likelier to say marijuana is available, compared to teens who say parents are always present at the parties they attend.

"Teen drinking and drugging is a parent problem.

Too many parents fail to fulfill their responsibility to chaperone their kids' parties.

They have no idea how drug- and alcohol-infested their teens' world is," said Joseph A. Califano, Jr., CASA's chairman and president and former U.S. Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare.

"The denial, self-delusion and lack of awareness of these parental palookas put their children at enormous risk of drinking and using illegal and prescription drugs."

80 percent of parents believe that neither alcohol nor marijuana is usually available at parties their teens attend.

BUT 50 percent of teen partygoers attend parties where alcohol, drugs or both are available.

98 percent of parents say they are normally present during parties they allow their teens to have at home.

BUT a third of teen partygoers report that parents are rarely or never present at the parties they attend.

"If your teen is having a party at your home, you should not only be there, but be aware of what is going on.

The Dangerous Divide: Age 13 to 14 The transition from age 13 to age 14 is a particularly risky time for American teens.

Two times likelier to be offered cocaine.

One in five 12- to 17-year olds (19 percent) has personally witnessed the sale of drugs in their neighborhood, and these teens are more than two and one half times the risk of substance abuse compared to teens who have not seen the sale of drugs in their neighborhood.

Hispanic and African American 12- and 13-year olds are being offered illegal drugs at three times the rate of white 12- and 13-year olds (20 percent vs. seven percent).

For the first time, the CASA survey reveals that at every age, the substance abuse gender gap has closed.

Most high school students (51 percent) and one in five middle school students (20 percent) attend a school where drugs are used, kept or sold.

CASA is the creator of the nationwide initiative Family Day -- A Day to Eat Dinner with Your Childrentm -- the fourth Monday in September -- the 25th in 2006 -- that promotes parental engagement as a simple and effective way to reduce children's risk of smoking, drinking and using illegal drugs.

*The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University is neither affiliated with, nor sponsored by, the National Court Appointed Special Advocate Association (also known as "CASA") or any of its member organizations with the name of "CASA".

Posted by Michael at 2:44 AM

August 20, 2006

Statement from U.S. Secretary of Education on the Class of 2006 ACT Scores

From Education Newsfeed:

Today's ACT results show a nation that is on the right track and moving forward, but far too slowly for the 21st century.

The increase in the ACT composite score---the largest in 20 years---reflects the progress our schools have made in raising standards and improving accountability.

Gains were made by male and female students and across nearly every racial and ethnic group.

A record number of test-takers, including a nearly 30 percent increase in Hispanic students since 2002, is another heartening sign that we are leaving fewer children behind.

"Unfortunately, less than half of all test-takers met the College Readiness Benchmark in math; for science, the number was one in four.

The ACT findings clearly point to the need for high schools to require a rigorous, four-year core curriculum and offer advanced coursework so that our graduates are prepared to compete and succeed in both college and the workforce."

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Posted by Michael at 9:08 PM

Rough Start for Effort to Remake Faltering New Orleans Schools

From New York Times:

On Debra Smith's third attempt to enroll her younger sister in a public high school here last week, patience evaporated.

For the student, disappointment turned into tears.

Smith said the school her sister, now a 10th grader, attended before Hurricane Katrina --- one of just five the city is still operating --- turned her away because of poor grades.

"Why am I still sitting here begging to get a child into school?"

Many saw their schools disappear with the storm, replaced by a small but labyrinthine system of state, city and charter-operated schools, each with its own rules, applications and starting dates.

The storm offered one of the worst school districts in the nation an opportunity for rebirth in the Recovery School District, state officials said.

The Louisiana Department of Education had already considered the city school district to be in "academic crisis," but after the hurricane, the district neared collapse.

Well into the summer, it was still unclear how many schools would be chartered and how many teachers and classrooms would be needed.

It has about 60 percent of the teachers it will need on Sept. 7, when 8,000 students are expected for the first day of school.

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Posted by Michael at 8:59 PM

Readers Respond: War on Drugs (Part 2)

From Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drugs News:

Joined Together received an unprecedented number of passionate, thoughtful responses to "Mission Accomplished" in War on Drugs?

Cancer a Better Analogy for Drug Problem It's easy to characterize overcoming an evil entity as a war; that notion makes the fight righteous.

Cancer is preventable in many cases, it can be treated, treatment often works for a while as the cancer goes into remission, but there is relapse.

Cancer can affect anyone at any time: it has affected every family in our nation, just as addiction, and there are tremendous costs in human life.

Waiting to Surrender What would we say about a war in which our military tells enemies who want to surrender, "You'll have to wait?

It's a war we all need to fight on behalf of children of addicted parents, an invisible mass of kids (one out of every four in this country) whose needs still are not being met, even though they carry the burden of the transgenerational effects of alcoholism and other substance abuse.

They believe they will be failures because they think that what's happening at home is their fault, and they live with the legacy of silent shame they have inherited -- believing it because our society reinforces the shame with silence.

Humans Are Biologically Prone to Substance Abuse The very tiny impact that billions of dollars and decades of attempts at regulating and suppressing human substance use has had underscores the important fact that drug warriors want to ignore: that human beings are genetically predisposed to want the altered states that drugs (including caffeine, nicotine and alcohol) produce.

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Posted by Michael at 8:37 PM

Ten Years after Welfare Reform, It's Time to Make Work Work for Families

From Center for Law and Social Policy:

Along with a strong economy, expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit and children's health care coverage, more money to help low-income families pay for child care and improved child support enforcement during the 1990's, welfare changes helped welfare recipients gain employment and contributed to increases in the real incomes of some working families.

Structural changes in our economy mean that millions of low-income workers, including former welfare recipients, are working at wages that are too low, and at jobs that are too unstable, to allow them to escape poverty.

A poorly designed, underfunded child welfare system leaves hundreds of thousands of children abandoned -- more than 350,000 children receive no services-- not even foster care -- after child welfare agencies determine they have been abused or neglected and hundreds of thousands more children linger in foster care waiting for a permanent home.

CLASP believes that this anniversary is a time to look to the future and begin a national conversation about the policies that are needed to truly help all low-income children and their families succeed.

Evelyn Ganzglass, Director of Workforce Development at the Center for Law and Social Policy, said today, "We need to move beyond TANF, a program that serves an ever smaller share of low-income families and talk about what we as a nation can do to help all people find work that allows them to support themselves and their families and provide them with necessary supports to help their children grow and develop into healthy adults.

Child support systems that strengthen families, increase family income, and promote personal responsibility.

If welfare reform was about strengthening work ethic, today's discussions should be about the ethics of work---the dignity of adequate wages and family supports."

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Posted by Michael at 8:13 PM

August 18, 2006

New study examines children's exposure to neighborhood poverty

From EurekAlert! - Breaking News:

University of Cincinnati researchers are reporting two key findings as they examine neighborhoods where American children live and play -- the 1990s were a pretty good decade for minority children, yet African-American, Hispanic and American Indian children "continue to be exposed to dramatically higher rates of neighborhood poverty than their white and Asian counterparts."

The racial groups studied were white, Asian, African-American, American Indian and Hispanic.

African-American children benefited the most, as families with black children living in the poorest of neighborhoods declined 44 percent, from 18.3 percent in 1990 to 10.3 percent in 2000.

Regionally, the researchers found the South held the largest percentage of high poverty (22.1 percent) and extreme poverty (4.4 percent) neighborhoods of the four Census regions.

The paper points out that for at least three decades, African-Americans and Hispanics have been both residentially segregated and living in dramatically higher rates of poverty than their white counterparts.

The paper states that neighborhood conditions for children are "dramatically affected by the health of the national, regional, state and local economies," meaning significant and prolonged economic development is the key for improving the financial conditions of neighborhoods in the future.

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Posted by Michael at 12:34 AM

August 17, 2006

Education Department of Releases Results of State Plans for Highly Qualified Teachers in Every Classroom

From Education Newsfeed:

The U.S. Department of Education today released initial peer review feedback and related information on revised comprehensive state plans for ensuring that all public elementary and secondary school students are taught by highly qualified teachers.

Based on the analysis of a 31-member team of experts, the Department determined that the vast majority of states made serious efforts to develop plans for having experienced, well-trained educators in classrooms, particularly in low-performing, disadvantaged schools.

"Every child deserves a highly qualified teacher, regardless of his or her family's income or neighborhood.

Scored against protocols containing six requirements provided to states in March, the plans outline the bold new steps that states will take to reach the 100 percent highly qualified teacher goal by the end of the 2006-07 school year.

Nine states developed plans that were recognized by the experts as satisfying all six criteria outlined in the guidance provided by the Department.

Under the No Child Left Behind Act, all teachers of core academic subjects must hold at least a bachelor's degree, have full state certification, and demonstrate knowledge in the core academic subjects they teach.

Information on the review process, protocols, and peer reviewers is available at: http://www.ed.gov/nclb/methods/teachers/stateplanfacts.html.

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Posted by Michael at 2:06 AM

Fox and Kaiser Form Partnership To Inform Young People on Risk and Responsibility

From The Kaiser Family Foundation:

The PAUSE campaign is a public education partnership of the Kaiser Family Foundation and Fox Networks Group to help young people (ages 15 and older) to make smart choices and maintain healthy life-styles.

The PAUSE campaign helps teens understand the power they have to make difficult decisions on a range of issues including teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases; alcohol and substance use; and online safety, among other topics.

In addition to broadcast, cable and online public service announcements (PSAs), the campaign utilizes Fox's wide array of new media platforms popular with teens, including MySpace.com, and works to incorporate information across the network's entertainment programs.

The PAUSE "ll" symbol -- recognizable to the digital generation -- serves as the campaign's icon, linking together the various components.

PAUSE Website Young people can access information about a variety of topics online at www.fox.com/pause.

Campaign Kickoff The first wave of PAUSE ads will debut on August 20 during the Teen Choice Awards on Fox.

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Posted by Michael at 1:56 AM

Skin tone more important than educational background for African Americans seeking jobs

From EurekAlert! - Breaking News:

Everyone knows about the insidious effects of racism in American society.

But when it comes to the workplace, African-Americans may face a more complex situation--the effects of their own skin tone.

For the first time, a study indicates that dark-skinned African-Americans face a distinct disadvantage when applying for jobs, even if they have resumes superior to lighter-skinned black applicants.

Matthew Harrison, a doctoral student at the University of Georgia, presented his research today at the 66th annual meeting of the Academy of Management in Atlanta.

Along with his faculty supervisor, Kecia Thomas, a professor of applied psychology and acting director of UGA's Institute for African American Studies, Harrison undertook the first significant study of "colorism" in the American workplace.

"We found that a light-skinned black male can have only a bachelor's degree and typical work experience and still be preferred over a dark-skinned black male with an MBA and past managerial positions, simply because expectations of the light-skinned black male are much higher, and he doesn't appear as 'menacing' as the darker-skinned male applicant."

Participants in the study that Harrison, himself an African American, directed for his master's thesis included 240 undergraduate students at the University of Georgia, some of whom participated in the study voluntarily, while others got class credit for their involvement.

"While the respondents in this study were University of Georgia students, we think we would find the same response no matter where such a study was done in the country," said Thomas.

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Posted by Michael at 1:41 AM

Two-fifths of US adults report experiencing unsafe, wasteful, or poorly coordinated health care

From EurekAlert! - Breaking News:

Patients, who experience the health care system on a first-hand basis, find much that could be improved. According to a new survey from The Commonwealth Fund Commission on a High Performance Health System, a surprisingly high proportion of Americans -- 42 percent -- reported experiencing poorly coordinated, inefficient, or unsafe care at some time during the past two years.

Overall, the survey found strong public support for efforts to improve care coordination, and a shared belief that expanded use of information technology and teams could improve the quality of care.

When care isn't coordinated there is a higher risk for unsafe care and duplicative or wasteful medical spending," said Commonwealth Fund President Karen Davis.

"This survey shows that patients place high value on having a medical home that coordinates all of a patient's care and provides better access to information and care.

The nationally representative survey of over 1,000 adults reveals widespread concerns about the affordability of health care, access to quality care, and the safety and efficiency of care.

The survey was conducted in June by Harris Interactive for the Commonwealth Fund Commission on a High Performance Health System.

Paying for and Receiving Health Care Is Increasingly a Middle Class Problem About half (48%) of adults in middle-income families ($35,000 to $50,000 annual income) reported serious problems paying for health care and health insurance.

In fact, health care costs are now stretching budgets even for those with higher incomes.

Forty-three percent of those who had experienced a medical error in the past two years said the system needs to be rebuilt, compared with 27 percent of those who did not experience a medical error.

Asked about the importance of health care policy actions for President and Congress, survey respondents said the four top priorities were: ensuring that all Americans have adequate and reliable health insurance, controlling the rising costs of medical care, lowering the cost of prescription drugs, and ensuring that Medicare remains financially sound long-term.

Thirty-nine percent of adults said they experienced serious problems getting timely appointments to see doctors.

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Posted by Michael at 12:48 AM

Release of Mississippi Gulf Coast 'Recovery' Report Will Mark First Anniversary of Katrina

From Ascribe Newsfeed:

Mississippi
State Conference NAACP will release a wide-ranging report on
the state and federal government recovery efforts on the eve
of Hurricane Katrina's first anniversary, Wednesday, August
23.

The report will be edited and published by the Initiative for Regional and Community Transformation at Rutgers University with contributions from the Mississippi Center for Justice, the Brookings Institute and Public and Private Ventures.

- 9:00 a.m. (CST) press conference in the Rotunda at State Capitol building in Jackson.

- 2:30 p.m. (CST) news conference in Biloxi, Mississippi.

On August 26, the Mississippi State Conference NAACP in conjunction with Oxfam American will host a town hall meeting and the participants will include actor/activist Danny Glover, NAACP President/CEO Bruce Gordon, and Oxfam America President Ray Offenheiser.

On Tuesday, August 29, the Steps coalition will sponsor a sunrise prayer vigil on the first anniversary of Hurricane Katrina for details please call 228-832-8806.

Members of the Steps Coalition include: AMOS Network, Back Bay Mission, Center for Environmental & Economic Justice, Coastal Community Watch, Coastal Women for Change, Enterprise Corporation of the Delta, HOPE Community Credit Union, Gulf Coast Latin American Association, Interfaith Disaster Task Force, International Relief and Development, Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, MS Center for Justice, NAACP - MS Conference, NAACP - Biloxi, MS Coalition for Disabled, MS Immigrant Rights Alliance, MS Workers Center for Human Rights, National Alliance for Vietnamese Service Agencies, North Gulfport Community Land Conservancy, Oxfam America, Sierra Club - MS Chapter, Southern Echo, Soria City Civic Organization, Turkey Creek Community Initiatives, William Winter Institute - U. of MS

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Posted by Michael at 12:06 AM

August 16, 2006

Bayer Foundation Awards $150,000 Grant to Nationally Recognized Bay Area Biotechnology School-to-Career Program

From U.S. Newswire Releases:

The Bayer Foundation tonight awarded Biotech Partners (formerly Berkeley Biotechnology Education Inc., or BBEI) a $150,000 grant, further demonstrating the foundation's commitment to education and workforce development and to ensure today's students are well- prepared to be tomorrow's leaders and innovators.

The Bayer Foundation grant will help Biotech Partners enhance the educational services it provides to local high school and community college students.

Biotech Partners is the Bay Area's only non-profit organization providing a comprehensive, hands-on, bioscience education and job training program for populations underrepresented in the sciences -- especially students of color (97 percent), young women (54 percent) and those from low-income households.

This grant reaffirms Bayer Corporation's commitment to this exemplary biotechnology school-to-career program the company established with the City of Berkeley 13 years ago.

"It is with great pride and pleasure that the Bayer Foundation awards this grant to a program that Bayer Corporation helped establish," said Yvonne Richardson, who presented the check on behalf of the Foundation.

Richardson is vice president, Project Management, Bayer HealthCare Pharmaceuticals, Hematology/Cardiology.

The gift was bestowed at Posters2006, Biotech Partners' annual event that showcases and celebrates the achievements of students from Berkeley High School and Oakland's Life Academy of Health and Bioscience at the conclusion of their first summer internships in the biotechnology industry.

Their internship supervisors were presented with Certificates of Appreciation.

During Posters2006, each student presented a poster depicting his or her summer internship experience at biotech companies including Bayer, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Kaiser Permanente, Alta Bates Summit Medical Center, the Alameda County Department of Health, EBMUD, Brookside Community Health Center, Libby Laboratories, Lawrence Hall of Science, Pets Unlimited Hospital and La Clinica Alta Vista.

Judging the posters for Best Poster, Most Creative Poster and Best Oral Presentation awards were Bayer's Richardson; Councilmember Moore; Julie Sinai, aide to Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates; Dr. William A. Lester, UCB professor of chemistry and principal investigator, Chemical Sciences Division, LBNL; Karina Moreno, The Y&H Soda Foundation; Rogeair Purnell, The James Irvine Foundation; Alameda County's Board of Supervisors' President Carson and Superintendent of Schools Sheila Jordan; Dr. J. Mark Carter, Research Leader, USDA; David Manson, Executive Director of Berkeley Boosters; and Tammy Burns Bailey, a Biotech Partners graduate and board member, among others.

Biotech Partners also presented Outstanding Mentor Awards to Glenn Yamasaki of Bayer HealthCare and Gennady Borinshteyn of Libby Laboratories, for their longtime dedication to and participation in the program.

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Posted by Michael at 11:55 PM

Innovative 'Social Norms' Campaign Targets Fla. Students

From Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drugs News:

The Broward County Commission on Substance Abuse has partnered with Broward County Schools to target students at Everglades High School in South Broward, Florida, with a "social norms" campaign, the Sun-Sentinel reported on August 7.

Initially, the campaign collected data on the drinking habits of teens and discovered that four out of five kids claim that they do not usually drink when hanging out with friends but that they see their friends drinking.

In its first phase, Ambit created t-shirts, posters, bracelets, pencils, Post-Its, mugs, and automated calls to students in multiple languages.

Now in its second year, the campaign hopes to gain strength with billboards, signs, and newspaper ads and the participation of local businesses.

"Traditional campaigns were created to scare them," said Kathy Koch, president of Ambit Marketing.

"Social norms campaigns are designed to tell them the reality of what with their friends are doing, and work with the kids to believe and adopt this healthy behavior through the years."

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Posted by Michael at 11:55 PM

Study Says Vancouver Injection Site Caters to Longtime Users, Not New Addicts

From Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drugs News:

The Insite safe-injection site in Vancouver doesn't encourage people to start using drugs, with 1,000 interviews showing that clients have been using heroin, cocaine, or other substances for an average of 15 years. Read more from this post.

Posted by Michael at 11:52 PM

Children of Smokers Face Future Drug Problems, Study Says

From Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drugs News:

Children of smokers are more likely to smoke themselves as well as use other types of legal and illicit drugs, Medical News Today reported Aug. 14.

"If your parents were smokers it is a double whammy, because you are more likely to use drugs in general and even more likely to smoke cigarettes," said study co-author Karl Hill of the University of Washington Social Development Research Group.

The study also found that parents who use marijuana or drink heavily are more likely to have children who do the same.

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Posted by Michael at 11:49 PM

New study links higher income with lower disability rates

From EurekAlert! - Breaking News:

Numerous studies have already established the link between extreme poverty and poor health, but a new study led by a public health researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, has found that health disparities exist even between those with higher incomes.

"What was unusual was that we found that people in the middle class were still at a disadvantage compared with those at just a slightly higher income," said Meredith Minkler, professor of health and social behavior at UC Berkeley's School of Public Health and lead author of the study, published in the Aug. 17 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

In 2000, the poverty threshold for a person living alone who was 65 or older was $8,259 per year, and it was $17,761 for a four-person household.

A single 65-year-old living at 600 percent of poverty would therefore earn $49,544 per year in income while someone at 700 percent of poverty would earn $57,813.

"We have lots of evidence that wealthier people in society are healthier and live longer than the poorest, but less settled is whether you see this gradient with respect to disability, and whether it plays out among older people," said Minkler.

They compared poverty level status with the rate of functional limitation, defined as a long-lasting condition that substantially limited one or more basic physical activities, such as walking, reaching or lifting.

In that group, people who were living in poverty were six times more likely to report functional limitation than people in the same age group who were living at or above 700 percent of the poverty level, with very little difference between men and women.

"We know that Americans 55 and above today are relatively health conscious compared to prior generations, but it may be that the wealthiest Americans have the greatest edge in acting upon their motivations to stay healthy," said Minkler.

"For instance, wealthier adults with problems walking can afford to renovate their homes to make them more accessible to wheelchairs.

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Posted by Michael at 11:39 PM

Community model effective in allotting anti-AIDS meds

From EurekAlert! - Breaking News:

When there are millions of patients clamoring for anti-AIDS drugs and precious little to go around, who decides which patients go to the front of the line?

The answer, says Stanford AIDS researcher Dennis Israelski, MD, is relatively simple: the affected community.

"I believe if you give the affected communities the necessary resources, appropriate tools and training, it will do a better job in providing care and treatment than approaching the problem from the top-down," said Israelski, who is also the medical director of the AIDS Program in San Mateo County, Calif.

AIDSETI's cohort is estimated to be 100,000 people living with HIV/AIDS.

In a new, small-scale study, to be presented Aug. 17 at the International AIDS Conference in Toronto, Israelski and his colleagues found that the group has been effective in distributing antiretroviral drugs to the patients who need them most.

"What we found in our initial evaluation indicates an equitable distribution of medications, based on gender and severity of illness," said Seble Getachew Kassaye, MD, a postdoctoral scholar in infectious disease at Stanford and first author of the study.

Given the results, researchers believe the program could be a model for scaling up antiretroviral treatment in more poor nations, alongside other treatment programs.

In 1999, when AIDSETI was founded, there were few programs providing care for people living with HIV and AIDS in Africa, and only a limited supply of drugs were being distributed - without clear guidelines or medical supervision, Israelski said.

To gauge the effectiveness of the program, the researchers examined data for more than 1,500 of the group's patients in four countries: Burkina Faso, Kenya, Tanzania and Zimbabwe.

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Posted by Michael at 11:36 PM

Breaking Through Adoption�s Racial Barriers

From New York Times:

A growing number of white couples are pushing past longtime cultural resistance to adopt black children.

In 2004, 26 percent of black children adopted from foster care, about 4,200, were adopted transracially, nearly all by whites.

That is up from roughly 14 percent, or 2,200, in 1998, according to a New York Times analysis of data from the National Data Archive on Child Abuse and Neglect at Cornell University and from the Department of Health and Human Services.

"It is a significant increase," said Rita Simon, a sociologist at American University, who has written several books on transracial adoption.

"It is getting easier, bureaucratically and socially.

With so many people going overseas, people are also increasingly saying, Wait a minute, there are children here who need to be adopted, too."

The 2000 census --- the first in which information on adoptions was collected --- showed that just over 16,000 white households included adopted black children.

Adoption experts say there has been a notable increase since 2000.

The combination of legal changes and greater embracing of multicultural families --- Americans have adopted more than 200,000 children from overseas in the past 15 years --- have lessened resistance from both blacks and whites.

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Posted by Michael at 11:27 PM

August 13, 2006

XVI International AIDS Conference: Free Online Access to Sessions and Resources,

From The Kaiser Family Foundation:

Live and tape-delayed webcasts and transcripts of each day's sessions, including the opening and closing sessions, all plenary sessions, and selected other sessions and press conferences.

News summaries from international media in the Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report.

Major new media coalitions and public awareness campaigns have emerged in Africa, the Caribbean, India and Russia.

Media executives from these regions and countries will discuss and share key challenges and achievements in their expanded response to HIV/AIDS.

NEWS CONFERENCE Monday, August 14, 2006, at 17:00 -- 17:45 -- Media Center, Metro Toronto Convention Center The Heroes Project and Star TV will make an important announcement regarding their stigma reduction and HIV prevention campaign in India.

Launched in 2004, the Heroes Project is the largest nongovernmental public service campaign in India, which is responsible for mainstreaming HIV/AIDS messaging throughout the country.

GlobalHealthReporting.org Updated daily provides daily news summaries, resources for journalists, country-focus pages, webcasts of health conference and interviews, and a calendar of upcoming global health events.

International Assistance for HIV/AIDS in the Developing World A detailed look a funding for the global epidemic by G8 and other major donor governments.

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Posted by Michael at 8:59 PM

'Thirdhand Smoke' Can Imperil Babies

From Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drugs News:

Babies can absorb particles and gases emitted by cigarettes from walls, clothes, hair and skin -- including up to 90 percent of the nicotine found in tobacco smoke -- experts warn.

George Matt of San Diego State University and colleagues found that babies, who explore the world by crawling and touching, can swallow, inhale, or absorb dangerous chemicals from cigarette-smoke residue, which can stay in the environment for months.

The preliminary study found that even babies whose parents only smoked outside had detectable levels of the nicotine byproduct cotinine in their bodies, perhaps from hugging their mothers.

The cotinine levels of such children were 50 times lower than those of children whose parents smoked around them, but seven times higher than the cotinine levels in children of nonsmokers.

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Posted by Michael at 7:36 PM

On Eve of Welfare Reform's 10th Anniversary New Report 'Follows the Money'; Temporary Assistance No Longer 'Welfare,' But Many Policymakers Have Yet to Adjust to New Realities

From Ascribe Newsfeed:

The Brookings Institution is releasing a national report on how states spend Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (Temporary Assistance) block grant funds.

The report is being issued on the eve of the 10th anniversary (August 22) of the 1996 federal law which established the block grant and followed other reforms, like the expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit in 1993, that boosted supports for parents in low-wage jobs.

The national report and three separate state reports from Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin find that Temporary Assistance is now a major funding source for benefits and services to parents in low-wage jobs.

Even cash assistance, once thought of as "welfare" for parents with little connection to the labor market, now has more in common with work supports like the Earned Income Tax Credit and unemployment insurance, often supplementing the income of working families or families temporarily between jobs.

The study also finds, however, that a surprisingly large share of Temporary Assistance funds-more than is spent on child care-are now spent on "social services."

Federal policymakers have no way to judge whether these funds are spent effectively, let alone determine whether it would be better to dedicate these funds to specific low-wage employment benefits or other community needs.

The Brookings Institution is a private nonprofit organization devoted to independent research and innovative policy solutions.

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Posted by Michael at 7:22 PM

Planned Medicaid Cuts Cause Rift With States

From New York Times:

The White House is clashing with governors of both parties over a plan to cut Medicaid payments to hospitals and nursing homes that care for millions of low-income people.

The White House says the changes are needed to ensure the "fiscal integrity" of Medicaid and to curb "excessive payments" to health care providers.

The National Governors Association said it "would impose a huge financial burden on states," already struggling with explosive growth in health costs.

A letter signed by 82 House Republicans says it "would seriously disrupt financing of Medicaid programs around the country."

A bipartisan group of 50 senators recently urged President Bush to scrap the proposed rules, which were set forth in his 2007 budget and could be issued before the end of this year.

Under the White House plan, the federal government would reduce Medicaid payments to many public hospitals and nursing homes by redefining allowable costs.

It would also limit the states' ability to finance their share of Medicaid by imposing taxes on health care providers.

Bush administration officials say states have used creative bookkeeping and accounting gimmicks to obtain large amounts of federal Medicaid money without paying their share.

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Posted by Michael at 7:17 PM

Readers Respond: War on Drugs (Part 1)

From Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drugs News:

Join Together received an unprecedented number of passionate, thoughtful responses to "Mission Accomplished" in War on Drugs?

Here in Baltimore, our new Health Commissioner, Joshua Sharfstein, began his term by reviewing 15 years of public health statistics related to our investment in substance abuse treatment.

Speaking at a conference sponsored by Baltimore City and Open Society Institute in June, Dr. Sharfstein cited significant decreases in new HIV infections, drug-related deaths, violent crime and other public health measures correlated with our tripling of treatment capacity.

We endorse former Drug Czar Dogoloff's view of the importance of making treatment available to all who seek it.

"As far as I am concerned the war has not even started" I would like to know why my daughter Meggin is in a box on a counter in our trailer if we have already won the war on drugs.

She was living in Maryland at the time of her death, and it seems that there was no problem for her to get heroin whenever she wanted to.

Alcohol kills more people in the U.S. than all the other drugs combined, save cigarettes, and more than 17, 000 people lose their lives on the nation's highways due to DUI.

According to the DEA, by 1965 there were 4 million people in the U.S. who had used an illegal drug but by 2001 there were 110 million-27 times as many.

By 1999 street level heroin averaged 38.2 percent pure (25 times as potent) and cost $0.80 to get high (adjusted by DEA to 1980 dollars to account for inflation).

Join Together welcomes reader letters for publication consideration.

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Posted by Michael at 7:17 PM

Checklist improves assessment of aggressive boys' needs

From EurekAlert! - Breaking News:

A decision support system, in form of a checklist with 20 risk- and need factors, complements clinical evaluation of boys between the ages of six and twelve with behavioural problems, according to new research from Karolinska Institutet.

Early identification of boys with increased risk of problems in the future is therefore important in order to be able to provide specialised initiatives to help them and their families.

EARL-20B (Early Assessment Risk List for boys) consists of 20 risk- and need factors, where boys' anti-social behaviour, family, friends and environment are evaluated.

Dr. Pia Enebrink, psychologist and researcher at Karolinska Institutet, Sweden, is one of the first to investigate how well EARL-20B works for boys between the ages of six and twelve.

"EARL-20B is a promising tool for child and youth psychiatry professionals who may make them more secure in their role", says Dr. Enebrink.

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Posted by Michael at 7:12 PM

U of M study shows teen body dissatisfaction predicts use of behaviors that can lead to poor health

From EurekAlert! - Breaking News:

Adolescents who feel dissatisfied with their bodies are at higher risk for future binge eating, smoking, poor eating, and decreased physical activity, according to new research from the University of Minnesota School of Public Health.

A study published in the August 2006 issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health found lower levels of body satisfaction among teenagers can predict the use of unhealthy weight control behaviors, which can lead to weight gain and poorer overall health.

Teenage girls who weren't satisfied with their bodies were more likely to binge eat, participate in less physical activity, eat less fruits and vegetables, take diet pills, and induce vomiting five years later.

With this in mind, interventions with teens should strive to boost self-confidence so they will want to take care of themselves the right way."

Subjects completed two Project EAT: Eating Among Teens surveys -- one in 1999 and one in 2004 - to determine if those who reported low body satisfaction are at an increased risk for obesity and eating disorders.

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Posted by Michael at 7:09 PM

Parental cigarette use is 'double whammy' for children

From EurekAlert! - Breaking News:

A new study exploring smoking, heavy drinking and marijuana use across three generations indicates that the children of a parent who uses any of these substances are more likely to smoke, binge drink or use marijuana in adolescence and adulthood.

Drug transmission across generations, the study found, was for a general tendency to use these substances rather than to use any one specifically, with the exception of tobacco.

"If your parents were smokers it is a double whammy because you are more likely to use drugs in general and even more likely to smoke cigarettes," said Karl Hill, a research associate professor at the UW's Social Development Research Group and co-author of the new study.

In addition to the participants, who make up generation 2, data were collected from their parents (generation 1) and their children (generation 3).

The researchers also found a transmission link between the three generations -- child behavior problems such as conduct disorder (getting into fights, stealing) attention deficit disorder (lack of focus, can't sit still or maintain attention) and oppositional defiant disorder (problems with authority).

"Children of smokers, heavy drinkers or marijuana users are more likely to have behavior problems when they are young, and consequently more likely to have drug problems themselves as they get old," said Jennifer Bailey, lead author of the study and a UW research scientist.

The researchers found that the link between general substance use and childhood behavior problems held up even when they controlled for such variable social factors as marital status, education and neighborhood conditions.

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Posted by Michael at 7:07 PM

Study finds parental time to be key in fight against childhood obesity

From EurekAlert! - Breaking News:

The fight against obesity in children just got a new weapon, thanks to a multi-year study by researchers from Texas A&M University.

The study found that the amounts and quality of time parents spent with their children has a direct effect on children's rates of obesity, said Dr. Alex McIntosh, lead researcher.

McIntosh is professor of sociology with a research appointment from Texas Agricultural Experiment Station.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture study, "Parental Time, Role Strain and Children's Fat Intake and Obesity-Related Outcomes," was published in June.

In general, researchers found the amount of time a mother spent with her child, her work stress and her income level had a larger impact in lowering the child's risk of obesity than the father's time, work stress and income, McIntosh said.

As a sociologist, McIntosh has long wondered how parents influence their children's nutritional habits, he said.

She is a professor of nutrition and food science and associate dean for the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

"Of concern is the fact that the prevalence is increasing at younger and younger ages.

Because so many families are headed by two working parents, the focus of the research was to look at how the parents' work-related stress, flexibility and general work conditions influenced the children's nutrition, McIntosh said.

"One factor in the development of childhood obesity that has been suggested but about which little research data exist is mothers working outside of the home," Kubena said.

The study found 9- to 11-year-olds' fathers spend an average of 80 minutes per day with their children, while mothers' average time spent with their children is 125 minutes.

Dr. George Davis, Experiment Station economist and professor in the department of agricultural economics at Texas A&M, said as a father's income goes up, a child's body mass index also increases for 9- to 11- year-olds.

Davis said a number of studies have been conducted, but none examined income, health and the amount of parental time spent with a child.

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Posted by Michael at 7:05 PM

The 'Good Life' elusive for middle class working couples with children

From EurekAlert! - Breaking News:

In research to be presented at the American Sociological Association's annual meeting, Phyllis Moen, McKnight Presidential Chair in Sociology at the University of Minnesota, says that middle class couples who both work struggle to compete in job environments designed for single earners with no family responsibilities.

According to Moen, couples still are operating under outdated work policies and practices and institutional and organizational rules designed for a one earner, one homemaker model.

"Middle class couples are stretched thin in terms of time by "work-friendly" jobs," said Moen.

"In part this reflects the realities of a global information economy with its speed-ups, pressures to increase productivity, 24-7 availability by computer, downsizing insecurities, expectations of long hours and little schedule flexibility."

In her paper, Moen describes evidence that middle class dual-earner couples, who appear advantaged given their education and resources, are nevertheless stretched thin.

In fact, fewer than one in six qualify as "super couples" (those where both husband and wife have a high quality of life).

Moen studies and has published numerous books and articles on occupational careers, retirement, families, health, gender and social policy, as they intersect and as they play out over the life course.

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Posted by Michael at 7:02 PM

Work, poverty, and single-mother families

From Economic Policy Institute:

This month marks the 10th anniversary of the welfare reform legislation signed in August 1996. Those touting the program's success often cite the sharp decline in the poverty rates of single-mother families over the course of the latter 1990s.

But what economic factors are really at the heart of these improvements, and have they carried over into today's economy? Get the facts at a glance in this week's Economic Snapshot.

While research has shown that changes in the rules governing welfare did contribute to an increase in welfare recipients (and potential recipients) in the workforce, other economic factors also played an important and complementary role.

In fact, the strong increase in employment opportunities in the latter 1990s meant that the demand for labor expanded more than enough to meet the increase in labor supply precipitated by welfare reform.

Note, for example, that employment for non-managers in retail grew by 1.9 million jobs from 1994 to 2000, but actually lost 33,000 jobs from 2000 to 2005.

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Posted by Michael at 7:00 PM

Childhood obesity caused by 'toxic environment' of Western diets, study says

From EurekAlert! - Breaking News:

A UCSF researcher has determined that a key reason for the epidemic of pediatric obesity, now the most commonly diagnosed childhood ailment, is that high-calorie, low-fiber Western diets promote hormonal imbalances that encourage children to overeat.

In a comprehensive review of obesity research published in the August edition of the journal Nature Clinical Practice Endocrinology & M