Human Services News

Numerous studies show the African-Americans receive worse quality of care relative to white Americans across a broad array of medical conditions--disparities that can significantly harm patients or reduce quality of life.

A new study from Harvard Medical School and Brown Medical School shows that such disparities in care cannot simply be attributed to low-performing health plans.

The research, published in the Oct. 25 Journal of the American Medical Association, shows that high-performing plans and low-performing health plans, based on four key health measures, have comparable levels of disparities in these measures while serving Medicare patients.

"Across Medicare health plans, better overall quality is not consistently associated with smaller racial disparities on four key outcome measures for enrollees with diabetes, hypertension, or heart disease," says John Ayanian, MD, MPP, associate professor of health care policy and of medicine at Harvard Medical School (HMS) and Brigham and Women's Hospital.

The authors obtained HEDIS data for Medicare managed care plans, containing more than 431,000 observations from enrollees in 151 health plans.

For the four HEDIS outcome measures the authors examined, clinical performance was approximately 7 to 14 percent lower for black enrollees than white enrollees.

HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL (http://hms.harvard.edu/) Harvard Medical School has more than 7,000 full-time faculty working in eight academic departments based at the School's Boston quadrangle or in one of 47 academic departments at 18 Harvard teaching hospitals and research institutes.

Posted by Michael at 7:51 PM

'Quit Now' Campaign Seeks Smokers' Personal Stories

Smokers and tobacco users trying to quit will soon have a potent ally -- fellow smokers.

The "Quit Now" Challenge, a new initiative featuring the inspirational stories of people who want to quit smoking, was announced by The National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), both agencies of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

The "Quit Now" Challenge, part of the "Be A Quitter" campaign, enhances NCI and CDC's ongoing National Network of Tobacco Cessation Quitlines initiative.

Participants -- chosen among men and women between 18 and 29 years old -- will be available for local television, radio, and newspaper interviews.

These participants also will be encouraged to help others quit by posting daily diaries and sharing their personal stories of QUIT-NOW experiences on the official 1-800-QUIT-NOW website.

"Since 1-800-QUIT-NOW was launched in 2004, it has remained an important resource for the 45 million Americans who smoke, and for other tobacco users, to help them end their addiction," said HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt.

In addition to The "Quit Now" Challenge, television and radio public service announcements, an online educational video, print materials, banner ads, and a website are part of the tobacco cessation campaign effort.

Posted by Michael at 7:34 PM

Federal Rules Back Single-Sex Public Education

From New York Times:

The Bush administration is giving public school districts broad new latitude to expand the number of single-sex classes, and even schools, in what is widely considered the most significant policy change on the issue since a landmark federal law barring sex discrimination in education more than 30 years ago.

Two years in the making, the new rules, announced Tuesday by the Education Department, will allow districts to create single-sex schools and classes as long as enrollment is voluntary.

Across the nation, the number of public schools exclusively for boys or girls has risen from 3 in 1995 to 241 today, said Leonard Sax, executive director of the National Association for Single Sex Public Education.

New York City has nine single-sex public schools, most of which opened in the past four years.

While the move was sought by some conservatives and urban educators, and had backing from both sides of the political aisle, a number of civil rights and women's rights groups condemned the change.

To open schools exclusively for boys or girls, a district has until now had to show a "compelling reason," for example, that it was acting to remedy past discrimination.

But a new attitude began to take hold with the passage of the No Child Left Behind law in 2002 when women senators from both parties came out in support of same-sex education and asked the Education Department to draft guidelines to permit their growth.

The new rules, first proposed by the Education Department in 2004, are designed to bring Title IX into conformity with a section of the No Child Left Behind law that called on the department to promote single-sex schools.

Posted by Michael at 7:25 PM

Caring for the Uninsured in New York

The Urban Institute:

This paper estimates the costs of uncompensated care in New York during 2005, along with the governmental revenues meant to offset those costs.

The first uses cost reports from hospitals and diagnostic and treatment centers in New York, budget figures for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and the Indian Health Service, and physician survey data to provide an estimate of the amount of uncompensated care reported by providers.

In the second, we use household survey data to provide an alternative estimate based on the amount of uncompensated care reported by the uninsured themselves.

The final section examines governmental sources of payments for uncompensated care.

State and local funding comes through state bad debt and charity care pools, several Medicaid disproportionate share hospital (DSH) and upper payment limit (UPL) programs (with local share for local public hospitals), state public health grants, and direct local support for public hospitals.

New York State's medical providers spent an estimated $2.8 billion last year providing care to 2.5 million uninsured people. Hospitals provided $1.8 billion of this care and physicians accounted for $412 million.

The rest came from health centers, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs facilities, and the federal Indian Health Service. Seventy-two percent of the uncompensated care in hospitals occurred in New York City, home to 1.6 million uninsured adults and children.

The costs of uninsurance are a social burden that would be alleviated, but not ended, by universal coverage.

Some support for uncompensated care will continue to be needed even under universal coverage.

Posted by Michael at 7:00 PM

Consumer-Directed Health Plans Can Save Money, But Effects on Quality Still Uncertain

RAND:

Consumer-directed health plans can reduce health care use and lower costs, but it is debatable whether these high-deductible plans can accomplish this without deterring consumers from seeking needed care, according to a RAND Corporation study issued today.

"The evidence from early adopters of these plans and similar changes in health insurance shows that greater cost-sharing leads to reductions in health care use and expenditures," said economist Melinda Beeuwkes Buntin, co-director of the Bing Center for Health Economics at RAND and lead author of the study.

The RAND study is the lead article of a seven-article series on consumer-directed plans, which the researchers define as high-deductible health insurance plans that are often paired with pre-tax health savings accounts.

"On balance," the RAND researchers conclude, "early evidence suggests that CDHC (consumer-directed health care) may help lower costs and cost increases."

However, "claims that [consumer-directed plans] will encourage patients to reduce inappropriate and unnecessary use instead of making indiscriminate cuts are more problematic."

The 1974-82 RAND Health Insurance Experiment (HIE) found that increased cost-sharing prompted consumers to forego appropriate and inappropriate care alike --- but with no apparent adverse health impacts.

RAND Health is the nation's largest independent health policy research program, with a broad research portfolio that focuses on health care quality, costs and delivery, among other topics.

The RAND Corporation is a nonprofit research organization providing objective analysis and effective solutions that address the challenges facing the public and private sectors around the world.

Posted by Michael at 6:59 PM

Housing in the Nation's Capital

Fannie Mae Foundation

In addition to providing an update on housing challenges facing the Washington region, 2006 Housing in the Nation's Capital report focuses on the intersections among public schools, housing, and neighborhood revitalization.

It addresses questions such as: How much is the Washington region investing in public school facilities in an effort to keep pace with population growth and school modernization needs?

How many public school students will be generated by the thousands of new housing units under construction or planned in the District of Columbia?

Do school segregation patterns mirror the racial divides of residential neighborhoods?

Can school employees afford to live in the communities they serve?

Building on answers to these questions, Housing in the Nation's Capital 2006 also reviews ways in which housing and school policies can come together to help the District achieve its goals of growing and becoming more attractive to families with children.

It also discusses examples in which affordable housing and public school investments are converging at the neighborhood level to improve the quality of life for current city residents and increase the prospects that future generations will find the District a desirable place to live and raise their children.

Posted by Michael at 6:54 PM

Teen Drinking Prevention Campaign Targets Parents

A new prevention campaign sponsored by the alcohol-industry-backed Century Council targets parents who allow their children to drink, the Associated Press reported Oct. 18.

The campaign, called "We Don't Serve Teens," follows on research showing that 65 percent of underage drinkers get their alcohol from family or friends.

The group's message to parents is that allowing youths to drink is both dangerous and illegal.

"Turning a blind eye is just as irresponsible as putting a drink in their hands," said Century Council chair Susan Molinari.

The group contends that lax parental attitudes about youth drinking undermine its prevention work.

Posted by Michael at 6:49 PM

100 Families Oakland: Art & Social Change

From Ascribe Newsfeed:

Can the experience of learning and creating art together strengthen a family?

One hundred families in Oakland now believe that it can.

An exhibition of the artwork that was created in the workshops, "100 Families Oakland: Art & Social Change," opens at the Oakland Museum of California Saturday, January 20, 2007 (through April 22).

Perry's vision of bringing together families through the transformative process of making art included honoring their artwork with an exhibition at a major arts institution.

The workshops were led by community artists and CCA students, who found that the families' initial hesitation about making art gradually turned into creative expression.

Families and artists from the the "100 Families Oakland" Chinatown workshops will be invited to share their Lunar New Year experiences and highlight their work.

The "100 Families Oakland: Art & Social Change" exhibition is among the events planned by the CCA for its centennial, in 2007.

The museum will also host "California College of the Arts: 100 Years in the Making," a chronological retrospective of art by alumni and faculty representing Bay Area art and its movements throughout the twentieth century, as seen through the lens of the CCA.

Posted by Michael at 6:33 PM

Media Violence Reports Rarely Mention Alcohol

Alcohol plays a role in many murders, assaults, and motor-vehicle crashes, but rarely gets mentioned in media reports on such incidents, according to researchers at Ohio State University.

Researchers looked at about 1,000 newspaper stories, 550 TV news programs, and 72 magazine issues.

"People's perceptions of risk are strongly shaped by what they see in the media, so many people may have distorted views about the risks of alcohol use," said study co-author Michael Slater.

"If the media doesn't report on the link between alcohol and violent crime and accidents, most people won't be fully aware of the risks."

Posted by Michael at 6:28 PM

Women's education is strongly related to husband's income

Much has been written about the income returns to education, but women have been largely ignored by this literature, having historically spent significant periods of time outside the formal labor market.

In a thought-provoking new study, economists from Brigham Young University correlate women's education to future quality of life through an examination of husband's earnings.

Specifically, the researchers find that a woman's college completion predicts an average increase in her husband's earnings of more than $20,000 relative to women who only attended some college.

"Women's education does not have a strong effect on the probability of being married but dramatically increases husband's income," write Lars Lefgren and Frank McIntyre in the current issue of the Journal of Labor Economics.

It has also been well established in other literature that married men earn more than unmarried men.

However, given that women who choose to invest heavily in education may be systematically different than women who invest less, Legren and McIntyre wanted to even more firmly establish a causal relationship between education and marriage outcomes.

Using Census data from 1980 broken down by birth quarter, the researchers analyzed how enrollment cutoff dates and differences in the amount of compulsory schooling can affect husband's earnings.

They found that an extra year of schooling -- that is, the difference in compulsory schooling between a child born in mid-December, just before the cutoff, and a child born a month later in mid-January, just after the cutoff -- increases husband's earnings by about $4,000.

Since 1983, the Journal of Labor Economics has presented international research that examines issues affecting the economy as well as social and private behavior.

Posted by Michael at 6:20 PM

Behavioral and Emotional Problems Common among Children with Developmental Disabilities

Psychopathology (behavioral or mental disorder) with developmental disability is a major cause of failure of community residential placement, reduced occupational opportunity in the post-school period, and leads to major restrictions in participation in recreational and educational programs, according to background information in the article.

Despite this, not much attention has been given to the public health issue of psychopathology in developmental disability and little research has examined the course of these problems over time.

Psychopathology decreased more in boys than girls over time, and more so in participants with mild developmental disability compared with those with severe or profound developmental disability.

"The overarching finding was one of a small, albeit significant, decline in severity of overall psychopathology over the 14 years in which the young participants with intellectual disability were followed up.

Coupled with the absence of any relationship with age in the TBPS, the small size of this decline demonstrates that psychopathology and behavioral disturbance in young people with intellectual disability is a phenomenon that largely persists through to young adulthood," the authors write.

"The observation that severe psychopathology was already present in a high proportion of the cohort at commencement of the study, and the persistence of these symptoms, suggest the need for effective mental health interventions.

Posted by Michael at 6:11 PM

Childhood Abuse can Impact Victims' Adult Relationships

Abused children may have a difficult time developing adult relationships with new people who reminded them of their abusive parent, even if only implicitly, according to a recent study published in the November issue of Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, an official publication of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, published by SAGE Publications.

Among participants who had been abused, however, this was accompanied by negative reactions as well, such as expectations for rejection, mistrust, dislike, and emotional distancing.

Notably, no such pattern occurred among abused participants when the new person bore no resemblance to the parent (a control condition).

Researchers additionally found that the abused participants reported a decrease in negative mood when the new person resembling the parent was also described as explicitly threatening (as compared to when there was no explicit threat).

"A possible interpretation of this," write the authors, is that this may have evoked, for abused individuals, their "well-practiced affective responses to threat.

Berenson and Andersen conclude that the process of transference can lead previously abused individuals to use behavioral patterns from their relationship with the abusive parent in later interpersonal relationships, even when such patterns may be inappropriate or ineffective for the current interpersonal situation.

SAGE Publications is a leading international publisher of journals, books, and electronic media for academic, educational, and professional markets.

Posted by Michael at 6:06 PM

October 24, 2006

Ready4Work In Brief

Public/Private Ventures

The federal Bureau of Justice Statistics estimates that a staggering 12 percent of black men in their late twenties were in prison or jail in 2005.

Incarceration rates for black males of all ages were five to seven times greater than those for white males of the same age. Because of skyrocketing incarceration rates, nearly 650,000 adults now return from custody to their communities each year.

Many of these individuals find the transition back to society difficult, and recidivism rates are high.

Indeed, an additional offense puts more than 25 percent of returnees back behind bars within three years; if probation and parole violations are included, the figure stands at more than 50 percent.

Returning ex-prisoners go home to some of the nation's poorest neighborhoods, where there are few supports and services to help them reintegrate effectively and where their presence may threaten to disrupt already fragile households and social structures.

Three years into the initiative, Ready4Work programs are providing returnees with employment services, case management and mentoring in 11 adult sites around the country.

As researchers continue to collect and analyze data from the programs, early outcomes are beginning to emerge, and thus far they are extremely promising: Participants are finding and keeping jobs at impressive rates, and they have significantly lower levels of recidivism than the national ex-prisoner population.

Program planners had hoped that more enrollees would participate in the mentoring component of Ready4Work and that they would meet with their mentors more often than they have (the initiative had an original goal of matching 90 percent of participants with a mentor).

Posted by Michael at 11:44 AM

October 22, 2006

Proposed Medical Child Support Regulations

This publication describes new proposed federal regulations relating to medical support enforcement and suggests issues on which interested people may wish to comment.

Children in single parent families often obtain such coverage through job-related health insurance available to their custodial parent.

If such coverage is not available, their non-custodial parent may provide coverage pursuant to a court or administrative medical support order.

In cases where the state child support (IVD) agency establishes or enforces the order, the noncustodial parent may be required to provide such coverage if it is available at "reasonable cost"---i.e.

If the non-custodial parent is required to provide coverage, the cost may be quite high, as, despite the federal regulations, employment related coverage may not be reasonable in cost.

While some states have access to highly automated health insurance data bases, which can be easily matched with existing orders to discover available coverage, many states do not yet have this capacity.

Under these proposed regulations, the state child support agency would be required to inform the Medicaid agency whenever a new or modified medical support order is entered for a child who has applied for or receives Medicaid.

Proposed 45 CFR §303.32 amends the National Medical Support Notice (NMSN) to include a provision telling employers what to do if the combined withholding on one or more orders exceeds the amount that can be withheld under the CCPA limits for that employee.

In cases in which the child has medical needs that make health care coverage even more important than cash support, the court/administrative agency entering or modifying the order can provide for a different scheme (i.e. health insurance premiums come first), and the employer would be informed of this.

Posted by Michael at 9:58 PM

Political Backlash Builds Over High-Stakes Testing

From washingtonpost.com:

The role of the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test, or FCAT, has become central to the race to succeed Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R), with polls showing a growing discontent over the exams, which he has championed and which are used to determine many aspects of the school system, including teacher pay, budgets and who flunks third grade.

Republican Charlie Crist is offering to push forward with the testing regime, but Democrat Jim Davis has condemned what he calls its "punitive" nature, arguing that exam pressures have transformed schools into "dreary test-taking factories."

A similar exam revolt has become a key issue in the race for governor in Texas, another state in the vanguard of the testing movement, and the issue has roiled the Ohio gubernatorial contest as well.

High-stakes testing -- using standardized test scores to impose consequences affecting teachers and students -- has been embraced widely in recent years as a way to hold educators and students accountable for their performance.

Texas and Florida were among the states that adopted high-stakes testing early, and each has pushed its program beyond what is required in No Child Left Behind.

The testing systems include the public release of schools' results and test-based financial incentives for educators, and determine which third-graders can be promoted and which high school students can graduate.

But teachers unions and some parents groups have argued that an overemphasis on the tests has reduced education to rote drills and needlessly heightened stresses on elementary students, and that the reported test gains have been illusory, overstated or short-lived.

Posted by Michael at 9:47 PM

NAACP Supports California Proposition 86 to Fund Universal Health Care for Children

From U.S. Newswire Releases:

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People National Board of Directors voted today to endorse California ballot Proposition 86 that would raise billions of dollars for hospitals and fund universal children's health insurance, anti-tobacco programs and health education programs by increasing taxes on tobacco.

"From our earliest days, the health status of African- Americans has been a major NAACP concern.

Proposition 86 would raise cigarette taxes by $2.60 a pack, making the California cigarette tax the highest in the nation.

"It has been demonstrated that an increase in the price of tobacco products reduces the utilization of those products, especially among the young," the Board resolution states.

In supporting Proposition 86, the NAACP joins a number of groups that include the California Black Health Network, American Diabetes Association, AARP-California, California Federation of Teachers, National Council of La Raza, League of United Latin American Citizens, Los Angeles Urban League, National African American Tobacco Education Network, American Federation of State, County Municipal Employees, Service Employees International Union Local 535, United Farm Workers, League of Women Voters of California, California Medical Association, Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation-Central Valley Affiliate, Dental Health Foundation and the National Health Foundation.

Its members throughout the United States and the world are the premier advocates for civil rights in their communities, conducting voter mobilization and monitoring equal opportunity in the public and private sectors.

Posted by Michael at 9:39 PM

Indian Community Burgeoning in America

From Yahoo! News: Top Stories:

Local travel agents promise the best airfares from New York to Mumbai.

Shagun Fashions is selling dazzling Indian saris.

Roughly every third person who lives Edison, a New York suburb, is of Asian Indian ancestry.

Many are new immigrants who have come to work as physicians, engineers and high-tech experts and are drawn to "Little India" by convenience --- it's near the commuter train --- and familiarity.

Here they can "get their groceries and goods from home," says Aruna Rao, a mental health counselor who lives in town.

Not only is the Indian community burgeoning, it's maturing.

Increasingly, after decades of quietly establishing themselves, Indians are becoming more vocal in the American conversation --- about politics, ethnicity and many other topics.

"I've been studying the community for 20 years and in the last four or five years something different has been happening," said Madhulika Khandelwal, president of the Asian American Center at Queens College in New York.

"Indian-Americans are finally out there speaking for themselves."

They have big communities in New Jersey, New York, California and Texas, and their average yearly household income is more than $60,000 --- 35 percent higher than the nation overall.

Few knew their rights because few had been engaged politically, said Amardeep Singh, executive director of The Sikh Coalition in New York.

The group now has two bills pending in the New York city council --- one would allow city employees to wear turbans and the other would make city officials craft plans to prevent hate crimes if another terrorist attack happened.

Posted by Michael at 9:13 PM

Analysis of Fiscal Year 2005 TANF and MOE Spending by States

Included are worksheets analyzing how the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the nation as a whole spent the federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) block grants and state Maintenance of Effort (MOE) funds in fiscal year 2005.

States reported this information to the Administration for Children and Families.

While FY 2005 data are the most recent data that the federal government has posted (at www.acf.dhhs.gov/programs/ofs/data/tanf_2005.html), one should keep in mind that they only describe spending through September 30, 2005, and that individual state circumstances may have changed substantially since then.

The definitions provide information on how CLASP organized the data from federal reporting.

FRAC Press Release: Report, " Food Stamp Access in Urban America: A City-by-City Snapshot"

Posted by Michael at 9:09 PM

October 19, 2006

HHS Awards $58 Million through Compassion Capital Fund

HHS:

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced awards totaling $58,025,562 through the Compassion Capital Fund (CCF).

The awards, to 420 faith-based and community organizations, are designed to help grass-roots faith-based and community organizations enhance their ability to provide a wide range of social services for those in need.

Those services include aid for homeless persons, at-risk youth and rural communities and initiatives to empower youth and promote healthy marriage.

The second set totals $15,116,280 for 310 faith-based and community organizations under the CCF Targeted Capacity Building Program.

The areas of focus for this program include at-risk youth, homeless persons, rural communities and strengthening marriage.

The third set of awards inaugurates the Communities Empowering Youth (CEY) program, a new program created in response to First Lady Laura Bush's Helping America's Youth initiative.

The primary purpose of CCF is to help faith-based and community organizations increase their effectiveness, enhance their ability to provide social services to serve those most in need, expand their organizations and create collaborations to better serve those in need.

Posted by Michael at 7:26 PM

HUD Awards $47 Million to Help Families Across the U.S. Get Job-Training and Employment

HUD :

U.S. Housing and Urban Development Deputy Secretary Roy A. Bernardi announced today that public housing agencies in 48 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico will receive $47,494,003 in funding to help low-income people get job training, employment and homeownership counseling.

"This funding will give more low-income adults the opportunity to get job-training that will lead to meaningful employment," said Bernardi.

Bernardi announced the grants with Congresswoman Shelley Moore Capito in Charleston, where the state of West Virginia will receive $302,930 and the Charleston-Kanawha Housing Authority will receive $34,041 of these grants to assist local families.

The funding is from the HUD's Housing Choice Voucher Family Self-Sufficiency (HCV/FSS) program that provides grants to public housing agencies (PHAs) to hire FSS program coordinators.

FSS coordinators link adults in the HCV program (Section 8) to local organizations that provide job training, childcare, counseling, transportation and job placement.

PHAs can also hire homeownership coordinators to help families get homeownership counseling.

Earlier this year, Garbett combined a HUD home-buying program with local resources to become a first-time homeowner.

"Amanda is building equity for her family's future by becoming a homeowner," said Bernardi, presenting her a plant.

Garbett used the HCV Homeownership program, which allows first-time homeowners to use an HCV toward monthly homeownership expenses - mortgage payment and utilities.

HUD is the nation's housing agency committed to increasing homeownership, particularly among minorities; creating affordable housing opportunities for low-income Americans; and supporting the homeless, elderly, people with disabilities and people living with AIDS.

Posted by Michael at 7:01 PM

More than 1,000 Families at Risk for Homelessness to Receive Housing and Services

HUD:

Over a thousand persons who are living with HIV/AIDS and who might otherwise be living on the streets will find a stable home and receive the services they need because of $27.5 million in funding awarded today by Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson.

HUD grants will support 26 programs in 15 states to provide their clients with three years of permanent supportive housing.

Jackson made the announcement during a news conference with Rep. Pete Sessions at a local housing development operated by AIDS Services of Dallas.

Housing assistance and related services funded by HOPWA are a vital part of the comprehensive system of care for those living with HIV/AIDS.

"These grants offer a stable home and critically needed services to persons living with this disease so they can devote themselves to staying healthy," said Jackson.

These resources are expected to assist an estimated 75,000 households annually.

As part of today's awards, HUD is providing nearly $16.5 million to 16 existing projects and nearly $11 million to support 10 new HIV/AIDS housing programs.

Ninety percent of HOPWA funds are distributed by formula to cities and states based on the number of AIDS cases reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

HUD's formula grants are managed by 120 local and state jurisdictions, which coordinate AIDS housing efforts with other HUD and community resources.

Posted by Michael at 6:51 PM

Food Stamps Continue to Serve as Crucial Support in U.S. Cities

Washington, D.C. -- More than $1.9 billion in food stamp benefits was left unclaimed by 24 of the largest U.S. cities and urban counties in 2004, according to Food Stamp Access in Urban America, the Food Research and Action Center's latest survey of food stamp usage and hunger.

According to FRAC's Local Access Indicator (the measure used by FRAC to calculate local participation in the program), it is estimated that only 66 percent of the people in the 24 cities who were eligible for food stamps were actually receiving benefits.

While outreach efforts in some places are working to enroll larger numbers of eligible persons, barriers to applying for food stamps include language or cultural challenges, unnecessary red tape and other administrative barriers, concern about stigma or low-income people simply just not knowing that they are eligible.

"Too many families in America's cities are facing a constant struggle against hunger.

Food stamp participation in the surveyed cities was lowest in San Diego (Calif.), with only 27 percent participating, and in Clark County (Las Vegas, Nev.), with 43 percent participating.

"Research shows that each dollar in federal food stamp benefits generates nearly twice that in economic activity."

Posted by Michael at 6:43 PM

A Rising Number of State Earned Income Tax Credits Are Helping Working Families Escape Poverty

Center on Budget and Policy Priorities:

An Earned Income Tax Credit is a tax reduction and a wage supplement for low- and moderate-income working families.

States that enact EITCs can reduce child poverty, increase effective wages, and cut taxes for families struggling to make ends meet.

When the new EITCs are fully implemented, roughly one-third of recipients of the federal EITC will live in a state with an EITC.

Over the last several years, several million welfare recipients have left welfare and become employed, most of them for low wages.

Enacting a state EITC is a way to ensure that low- and moderate-income families share in the benefits of tax cuts.

The maximum federal EITC benefit for the 2006 tax year is $4,536 for families with two or more children and $2,747 for families with one child.

Nineteen state EITCs piggyback directly on the federal EITC; those 19 states use federal eligibility rules and express the state credit as a specified percentage of the federal credit.

Notes: From 1999 to 2001, Colorado offered a 10% refundable EITC financed from required rebates under the state's "TABOR" amendment.

Those rebates, and hence the EITC, were suspended beginning in 2002 due to lack of funds and again in 2005 as a result of a voter-approved five-year suspension of TABOR.

If a family has no income tax liability, the family receives the entire EITC as a refund.

Existing refundable state EITCs cost less than 1 percent of state tax revenues each year, though their dollar cost varies considerably from state to state because of differences in the size of state economies.

Posted by Michael at 6:37 PM

Seven Unique Programs that Empower People to Leave Poverty Behind

Catholic Charities USA:

Here's a look at seven Catholic Charities programs that give people the skills, the knowledge, the confidence, and the support to change their lives and their circumstances.

Getting people to see the greater benefit of learning how to fish---learning the skills in order to become financially stable and self-sufficient---is one of the key goals of Neighbor to Neighbor, a faith-based life skills and financial literacy program developed by Catholic Charities in Evansville, IN, that helps people in financial crisis take concrete steps to improve their lives.

When a family is living paycheck to paycheck, goals such as owning their own home, starting a small business, or funding higher education for their children seem completely out of reach.

The Worth Waiting For (WWF) program of Community Maternity Services, an agency of Catholic Charities in Albany, NY, provides youth between the ages of 10 and 19 and their parents with resources for, and direct assistance with, abstinence education, family strengthening, and community service linkage.

The support groups are facilitated by a mental health therapist, an AODA counselor and the jail chaplain.

Because all information shared in the group is confidential and is not reported back to the jail staff or to probation and parole officers, Beginnings provides a safe environment for the inmates to take an honest look at their behaviors and make changes.

Many children in our country grow up not just in income poverty, but in the poverty of absent fathers.

As a community-based mental health counseling program, the Fatherhood Initiative provides group counseling and education sessions to help fathers develop personally and socially, so that they can positively affect the lives of their children.

Posted by Michael at 6:30 PM

October 17, 2006

Married and Single Parents Spending More Time With Children

Russell Sage Foundation

Over the last forty years, the number of American households with a stay-at-home parent has dwindled as women have increasingly joined the paid workforce and more women raise children alone.

Using time diary data from surveys of American parents over the last four decades, Changing Rhythms of American Family Life finds that "despite increased workloads outside of the home mothers today spend at least as much time interacting with their children as mothers did decades ago" and perhaps even more.

Rather, mothers have made time for both work and family by sacrificing time spent doing housework and by increased multitasking. Changing Rhythms of American Family Life finds that the total workload (in and out of the home) for employed parents is high for both sexes, with employed mothers averaging five hours more per week than employed fathers and almost nineteen hours more per week than homemaker mothers.

Overall, it appears that Americans have adapted to changing circumstances to ensure that they preserve their family time and provide adequately for their children.

Though the iconic image of the American mother has changed from a docile homemaker to a frenzied, sleepless working mom, this important new volume demonstrates that the time mothers spend with their families has remained steady throughout the decades.

Suzanne M. Bianchi is professor of sociology at the University of Maryland, College Park.

Posted by Michael at 11:57 AM

October 16, 2006

In Cities, Healthful Living Through Fresher Shopping

From washingtonpost.com :

The Pennsylvania Fresh Food Financing Initiative, leveraging $30 million in state money with $90 million in private funds, is the most ambitious of a spate of state and local projects around the country.

They represent a different model for public nutrition programs, which have relied since the 1960s on federal subsidies, such as food stamps and WIC.

Healthful food is scarce in many inner-city neighborhoods, where much of the food comes from corner markets and greasy takeout places.

Instead of subsidizing shoppers, the projects shift the emphasis to the private sector, offering coaching and financial inducements for grocers to go into areas they shunned for decades.

These initiatives grow out of new research exploring the relationship among proximity to fresh food, the nation's obesity epidemic and diseases such as diabetes that are affected by diet.

"We tried to make the connection between grocery stores and public health," said R. Duane Perry, executive director of the Food Trust, a nonprofit group that, in a pioneering 2002 study, produced maps showing that low-income neighborhoods of Philadelphia with few or no supermarkets had high death rates from diet-related diseases.

A study in Chicago, released three months ago, measured the distance from every city block to the nearest grocery store and fast-food restaurant.

It found that people in what it called Chicago's "food deserts" died early in greater numbers and had more diabetes, obesity and high blood pressure.

Such public health discoveries -- combined with an older view of supermarkets as tools of economic development -- have been spurring new policies around the country.

Posted by Michael at 1:30 AM

October 15, 2006

Va.'s ABC Dept. Hosts Annual College Conference to Prevent Underage Drinking

November marks the 21st anniversary of the Virginia Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC's) College Conference.

Each year, the College Conference invites participants from different backgrounds to come together and spend a weekend to participate for a common goal: prevent underage drinking and high-risk alcohol consumption.

As college students and faculty members, you will spend time engaging with one another and collaborating with other community leaders, organizations and local law enforcement to figure out the pieces of the underage and high-risk drinking puzzle.

Registration packet, conference meals, and materials are included in the registration fee.

Posted by Michael at 10:38 PM

Drinking Teens More Likely to Be Violent

Children who drink are not only more likely to be violent but also to be the victims of violence, British researchers say.

UPI reported Sept. 28 that researchers from the University of Cardiff surveyed 4,000 11- to 16-year-olds about their drinking and experience with violence.

They found that drinkers were more likely to hit others, be hit by others, and engage in fighting.

"This new study seems to be the first to show a direct link between alcohol misuse and vulnerability to injury, independent of any link between drinking and fighting.

There now needs to be much more effort put into reducing alcohol misuse in order to reduce injury," the study said.

The research appears in the August 2006 issue of the Journal of Adolescence.

Posted by Michael at 10:20 PM

National Treatment Admissions for Marijuana, Methamphetamine Continue to Increase; Heroin Decreases

The percentage of marijuana-, methamphetamine- and other opiates-related admissions to state-funded substance abuse treatment facilities have continued to increase in recent years, according to data from the national Treatment Episode Data Set (TEDS).

The percentage of treatment admissions citing marijuana as a primary substance of abuse has increased steadily over the past few years, reaching a high of 15.9% in 2004 (the most recent year for which data are available).

Admissions for the primary abuse of methamphetamine and opiates other than heroin have also increased.

Heroin-related treatment admissions have declined in recent years, while admissions for primary abuse of cocaine have remained relatively steady.

For details, including data charts, source information and caveats, download the PDF file at www.cesar.umd.edu/cesar/cesarfax/vol15/15-38.pdf.

http://www.jointogether.org/news/research/summaries/2006/national-treatment-admissions.html">Read more from this post.

Posted by Michael at 10:07 PM

We're Letting Down Our Kids Over Tobacco and Alcohol

This op-ed originally appeared on Sept. 14, 2006 in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Not the headlines about politics and war; I'm talking about some news stories that have to do with the well-being of our kids.

In late August, there was the story about how Big Tobacco secretly has been increasing the nicotine content of cigarettes since 1998, making its deadly product that much more lethal and addictive.

By increasing the addictiveness of its products, Big Tobacco again has shown its true colors -- despite lawsuits, settlements and promises of reform.

Another news story concerned itself with Big Tobacco's twin brother: Big Alcohol.

A study out of Columbia University stated that 17.5 percent -- $22.5 billion -- of alcohol industry revenue is attributable to underage drinking.

As Big Tobacco did for decades, Big Alcohol is ready to present good news stats and "facts" that deny they market to youth and that advertising has nothing to do with why kids drink.

Yet the industry is every bit as addicted to its profits as an alcoholic is addicted to alcohol.

It's not so hard to understand that the children of yesterday are the addicted smokers and problem drinkers of today, and that the children of today are the addicted smokers and problem drinkers of tomorrow.

Posted by Michael at 9:53 PM

Alcohol Education Project Grants

From Funding News:

The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) will make awards of up to $250,000 for Alcohol Education Project Grants.

The grants support research programs that advance understanding of the biological and behavioral processes involved in the development, expression, and consequences of alcoholism and other alcohol-related problems.

Made under the R25 funding mechanism, the grants will support K-12 science education and undergraduate/graduate education, health professions education, and public-health education.

Center on Budget and Policy Priorities:

Posted by Michael at 9:38 PM

October 12, 2006

Public Housing Squeezed Between Higher Utility Costs and Stagnant Funding

The nation's public housing units provide affordable homes to about 1.1 million low-income households, approximately half of which are headed by people who are elderly or have disabilities.

The local housing agencies that administer these units are required by federal law to rent them to low-income families at rents the families can afford.

Utility inflation eased during early 2006 and projections from the Department of Energy suggest that utility prices will dip somewhat in late 2006.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) did not request funding for fiscal year 2007 to reflect growth in utility costs since the start of 2005.

Housing agencies have substantial discretion to set utility allowance levels, and not every agency provides sufficient allowances to cover tenants' reasonable utility costs.[7] Agencies also have some flexibility to decide which appliances will be subject to a surcharge and the amount of the surcharge.[8] Housing agencies that face shortfalls will face strong pressure to use this discretion in ways that maximize their revenues.

Because of a shortfall in 2006, for example, the St. Paul Housing Agency delayed an allowance increase of close to 10 percent that the agency believed was needed to reflect higher utility rates.

In some cases, higher utility costs can pose difficult burdens for public housing tenants, most of whom are poor and already struggling to make ends meet.

Some agencies will likely conclude that they cannot reduce their operating costs enough or squeeze sufficient revenues from tenants to make up the shortfall in federal operating subsidies --- or that such steps would cause unacceptable harm.

Posted by Michael at 4:23 PM

October 11, 2006

Annual Donations Can Rise $27.5 Billion, If Affluent Gave as Generously as Peers in the Most Charitable States

Newtithing Group

Individual charitable giving would rise nearly 15%, by $27.5 billion annually, if affluent income tax filers in forty-five states and the District of Columbia donated as high a proportion of their asset wealth to charity as do well-off filers in the most generous five states, concludes a landmark six-year study by NewTithing Group, a philanthropic research organization.

Based on IRS data for tax-years 1999-2004, the study suggests that the largest number of affluent tax filers (those with $200,000 or more in adjusted gross income) reside in California and hold an estimated $1.04 trillion in aggregate investment assets, followed by affluent filers in New York ($794 billion), Florida ($533 billion), Texas ($465 billion), and Illinois ($331 billion).

Measuring charitable donations relative to investment assets provides a meaningful gauge of generosity amongst the affluent, whose investment assets usually exceed their income.

None of the wealthiest ten states, measured by the aggregate assets of affluent filers, rank within the top quarter of U.S. states for generosity adjusted for cost-of-living.

Conversely, none of the most charitable ten states, those with wealthy filers donating the highest proportion of investment asset wealth to charity, according to the findings, rank within the top quarter for aggregate wealth.

According to the analysis, 80% of the most generous five states rank in the bottom half of the nation for per capita spending.

Utah ranks 1st in generosity and 48th in per capita spending.

Minnesota ranks 4th in generosity and 50th in per capita spending.

Georgia ranks 5th in generosity and 42nd in per capita spending.

Wyoming ranks high in both generosity (6th) and per capita spending (8th).

Posted by Michael at 10:45 AM

Philanthropy From the Heart of America

New York Times

None of this happens naturally in a free-market economy, because the efforts cost money that will never be fully recouped.

In San Francisco, a retired money manager named Claude Rosenberg has founded a small organization called New Tithin g Group.

It tries to persuade Americans to base their charitable giving on their assets as well as their income, given how many now have substantial assets.

And using tax returns, NewTithing has put together a devilish ranking of the 50 states.

Then, with the same federal tax data, it calculated what percentage of those assets the households have given to charity, on average, in recent years.

Nebraska ranked third, with its affluent residents giving away just over 1 percent of their assets each year.

What is striking about the top of NewTithing's list is that it is dominated by a group of states that run from the Rockies through the Plains and down into the Southeast.

The only ones ahead of Nebraska were Utah (where the Mormon Church asks members to donate 10 percent of their incomes) and Oklahoma, while Minnesota and Georgia came next.

As Emmett D. Carson, president of the Minneapolis Foundation, points out, these are places that do not have many beaches, famous cultural institutions or other obvious ways to attract residents.

"So how do you build a community that is a destination?"

"You have to be a lot more intentional about it."

The average affluent resident of New York (23rd on the list) or Florida (41st) owns about one-third more assets than the average affluent Nebraskan, but the Nebraskan still gives away a bigger pile of money.

The NewTithing ranking, by its nature, also fails to count donations that are not tax-deductible, like informal gifts and time spent on community service.

But the ranking makes an important point.

The middle of the country has developed a culture of philanthropy that the coasts and the Southwest, for all their wealth, do not yet have.

Posted by Michael at 10:37 AM

Far From Big City, Hidden Toll of Homelessness

New York Times

Rural homelessness has always taken a back seat to the more glaring problems in cities.

Most studies estimate homeless people in small towns account for about 9 percent of the 600,000 or so homeless nationwide.

But local officials and advocates for the homeless in small towns say that economic distress in recent years, including closing plants, failing farms, rising housing costs and other troubles, has left more people without homes and in greater need of help.

Real numbers are hard to come by because most rural areas, where homeless services often means ad-hoc help from church groups or volunteers, are far behind a parade of cities taking head counts.

Rural homelessness "doesn't get enough attention," said Philip Mangano, the executive director of the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness and the Bush administration's chief coordinator of homeless services.

But Mr. Mangano said the problem had been difficult to assess because rural communities by and large had not chronicled their problems with the data-heavy planning documents the Housing and Urban Development Department and other federal agencies increasingly demand.

Posted by Michael at 1:53 AM

October 10, 2006

Rural Children Continue to Live in Poverty

The Carsey Institute:

While the nationwide poverty rate remained stagnant, the situation became worse throughout rural, non-metro America.

"Many of the headlines are saying that poverty levels have not increased, but unfortunately trends are worse for rural children," Cynthia M. Duncan, Director of the Carsey Institute, said.

"Clearly many rural families, especially in the South, are struggling to support their families and rural children are paying the price, growing up in poverty with bleak futures.

The fact that almost 40 percent of children in rural Mississippi are living in poverty is a terrible indictment of our social policies."

The child poverty rate is the most widely used indicator of child well-being since poverty is closely linked to undesirable outcomes in health, education, emotional welfare, and delinquency.

"The new figures released by the Census Bureau today indicate that children growing up in rural America continue to have higher poverty rates than their counterparts in urban America," William O'Hare, Visiting Senior Fellow at the Carsey Institute said.

The nationwide rural/non-metro child poverty rate was 22.5 percent compared to the total nationwide child poverty rate of 18.5 percent in 2005, according to the ACS.

The Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire conducts research and analysis into the challenges facing rural families and communities in New Hampshire, New England, and the nation.

Posted by Michael at 7:13 PM

October 9, 2006

Study Sheds Light on How Young Adult Children of Immigrants Assimilate

The largest and longest-running study of children of immigrants yet conducted, the study also confirms the critical importance of education.

"The greatest educational disadvantage is found among children of Mexican immigrants and Laotian and Cambodian refugees in our sample -- close to 40 percent of whom did not go beyond a high school diploma," said Rumbaut.

"Education is the key to successful upward mobility among children of immigrants, so the discrepancies that emerge in educational achievement among immigrant groups tend to persist in trends for income, employment and incarceration."

The researchers also point to the influence of human capital (the skills and education of immigrant parents) as well as family structure, racial prejudice and government policies toward certain immigrant groups -- particularly the undocumented -- that influence this "downward assimilation" process.

The researchers found that children of Laotian and Cambodian Americans as well as Haitian Americans had the lowest median annual household income at just over $25,000.

On the other end of the spectrum, children of upper-middle-class Cuban exiles in Southern Florida reported a household income of more than $70,000, and Filipino Americans in Southern California had more than $64,000, followed by Chinese immigrants.

When surveyed at the average age of 24, none of the Chinese Americans had children, while in contrast 25 percent of Haitians, West Indians, Laotians and Cambodians did, as did 41 percent of Mexican American young adults.

While only 10 percent of second-generation immigrant males in the survey had been incarcerated, that figure jumped to 20 percent among West Indian and Mexican American youths.

The surveys were conducted over more than 10 years with random samples representing 77 different nationalities originally drawn in 1991 in San Diego, Calif., and Miami/Ft.

Founded in 1965, UCI is among the fastest-growing University of California campuses, with more than 24,000 undergraduate and graduate students and about 1,400 faculty members.

News Radio: UCI maintains on campus an ISDN line for conducting interviews with its faculty and experts.

Posted by Michael at 8:35 AM

Parent's Conversational Style Contributes to Child's Security

Parents who use a particular conversational style with their children--drawing them out to elicit detailed memories about past shared events and to talk about emotions--contribute to the child's secure attachment, sense of self-worth, and eventual social competence, says a new University of Illinois study published in a September special edition of Attachment and Human Development.

"As soon as children start talking, parents develop conversational patterns with their kids, and different parents have very different patterns," said Kelly K. Bost, a U of I associate professor of human development.

In the study, Bost and her colleagues compared the conversational styles of 90 mothers and their three-year-old children with assessments the scientists had made in the home of the children's attachment security.

"In elaborative conversations, parents provide rich detail and lots of background information and try to get their child to provide new information from his memory as the conversation goes on," Bost said.

"These conversations are much easier and more evident in secure parent-child relationships in which parents are sensitive to their children's communication.

In a separate measure, Bost asked the mothers to participate in an adult attachment interview, which assessed the mothers' attachment experiences.

When mothers had secure relationships with their parents, they were more likely to respond sensitively to their own children, suggesting that these behaviors are intergenerational," she said.

"Adult attachment wasn't related to mothers' use of elaboration in conversation; instead, the mothers' own attachment security helped them to talk more openly about positive and negative emotions.

Posted by Michael at 3:36 AM

October 8, 2006

Prescribe Exercise for Older Adults for Better Health

For many older adults, a visit to the doctor is not complete without the bestowal of at least one prescription.

What if, in addition to prescribing medications as necessary, physicians also prescribed exercise?

Ann Yelmokas McDermott, PhD, a researcher in the Lipid Metabolism Laboratory at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging (USDA HNRCA) at Tufts University, and Heather Mernitz, PhD, now of the Nutrition and Cancer Biology Laboratory at the USDA HNRCA, propose using the familiar concept of a prescription to help physicians incorporate exercise recommendations into their routine practice.

In the journal American Family Physician, McDermott and Mernitz provide clinicians with explicit guidelines for giving their older patients effective "exercise prescriptions."

McDermott and Mernitz caution that, as with medication prescriptions, these exercise parameters must be personalized to suit each patient's health status and goals.

McDermott, who is also a licensed nutritionist, points out that fewer than half of older adults report ever having received a suggestion to exercise from their physicians.

"Clinicians shouldn't feel like they have to be fitness experts to discuss exercise with their patients," she says.

"Only 30 percent of America's senior citizens engage in regular exercise," notes McDermott, "yet there is compelling evidence suggesting that people in all conditions of health and at all fitness levels benefit from regular physical activity.

Mernitz adds, "Seniors tend to have less access than other demographic groups to physical activity information and programming.

Posted by Michael at 9:17 PM

Producers Agree to Send Healthier Foods to Schools

From New York Times:

Former President Bill Clinton, who announced an agreement with snack producers to put healthier items in school, talked with students at A. Philip Randolph High School in Manhattan after the announcement.

In an effort to fight the rise in childhood obesity, five of the country's largest snack food producers said yesterday they would start providing more nutritious foods to schools, replacing sugary, fat-laden products in vending machines and cafeterias.

French fries, ice cream, candy, cupcakes and potato chips from the machines, lunch lines, school stores and even school fund-raising events could disappear under a voluntary agreement between the companies and the Alliance for a Healthier Generation.

The plan, which may take effect at the beginning of the next school year, is the first nationwide effort to set strict nutrition guidelines for school vending machines.

Because the guidelines are voluntary, critics say they will not be effective.

Dr. Carlos Camargo, an associate professor of epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health was more positive.

"I think it's helpful for groups that have traditionally denied any connection between snack foods and obesity or health to be acknowledging now that there are links, and that moves the agenda forward," Dr. Camargo said.

The soft drink companies account for 90 percent of soft drinks in schools, which are sold through the company distributors.

No product could get more than 35 percent of its calories from fat.

The guidelines would also set calorie limits for each serving based on age: 150 calories for elementary school children, 180 calories for middle school children and 200 calories for high school students.

"We didn't get in this fix overnight, and we won't get out of it overnight," he said.

Posted by Michael at 9:00 PM

Employment Growth in Maryland Nonprofits Outpaces Businesses

From Ascribe Newsfeed:

The employment growth rate in Maryland's nonprofit sector is continuing to outpace the for-profit sector's, a Johns Hopkins University study concludes.

Maryland nonprofit organizations added more than 4,500 jobs during 2004, the latest year for which data are available.

Growth was particularly robust in the Baltimore suburbs where nonprofit employment grew 4.8 percent.

"This report demonstrates that Maryland's nonprofit sector continues to play a more significant role in the economy of the state than is the case in most states," said Peter V. Berns, executive director of the Maryland Association of Nonprofit Organizations.

"Nonprofits account for 11 percent of private sector employment in Maryland, well above the national average of 8.2 percent."

- While the nonprofit job growth rate in Baltimore City was lower than the state average, it still outpaced employment in the city's for-profit sector, which declined by nearly 4 percent.

This represents more than 9 percent of all jobs in the state, and 11 percent of all private jobs.

Posted by Michael at 8:41 PM

Overweight Children at Increased Risk for Adult Cardiovascular Diseases

Research published today in Journal of the CardioMetabolic Syndrome (JCMS) presents data supporting that adult diseases, such as hypertension, type 2 diabetes, and sleep apnea are now recognizable in childhood.

The underlying link between them is a disorder of insulin resistance, which is worsened by childhood obesity.

The annual National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that about one-third of U.S. children today, about 25 million, are overweight or at risk of becoming overweight.

One study in this special issue reports data on the effect of age and sex on cardiovascular risk in overweight children, aged 11 years and older.

"Together, this collection of articles demonstrates that morbidity from diseases traditionally thought to have expression in middle to late adulthood can now be demonstrated in children and adolescents," adds Falkner.

Posted by Michael at 8:39 PM

Physical Exercise has Little Impact on Obesity in Young Children

Physical activity is unlikely to have a significant effect in reducing levels of obesity amongst pre-school children, but could lay the foundations for a healthier future, a BMJ study reveals today.

Childhood obesity has become an increasing problem over recent years, yet there is a lack of high quality evidence on the issue, and how it can best be tackled.

A team of researchers from Glasgow undertook a large study -- involving 545 pre-school children from 36 nurseries -- to ascertain whether or not an increase in levels of exercise could reduce a child's Body Mass Index (BMI).

The participating children (average age of 4.2 years) took part in a nursery based active play programme consisting of three sessions of 30 minutes each week.

BMI readings for each child were taken after six months and then again after a year, they were also assessed for movement skills and 'habitual physical activity and sedentary behaviour' -- i.e. whether or not the increased activity led to a reduction in sedentary behaviour and/or an increase in physical activity.

The researchers say that this improvement may foster an increase in activity levels by increasing the confidence and ability of children to carry out physical activity, which could affect long-term levels of body fat.

The authors conclude that to prevent obesity in early childhood may require change not just at nursery school and home, but also in the 'wider environment', and that changes in diet are also necessary.

They call for further research into the issue 'to identify successful and sustainable interventions for obesity prevention and physical activity promotion in young children.'

Posted by Michael at 8:32 PM

Child Custody with Abusive Ex-Spouse? Study Shows How Women Decide

What influences women when they are making child custody decisions that will bring them into future contact with a violent or controlling ex-husband?

Fear, pragmatism, and the belief--sometimes reinforced in mandated divorce education classes--that their children will suffer if both parents are not in their lives, according to a University of Illinois study in the August Journal of Social and Personal Relationships.

That's the most important consideration in making child custody decisions," said Jennifer Hardesty, a U of I assistant professor of human and community development.

Aside from the obvious fear of being hurt or killed, mothers feared their former husbands would harm or take the children.

Nearly all of the mothers experienced some form of abuse between the time they initiated separation and finalization of the divorce.

One participant said, "Get me into a courtroom where they're going to grill me and ask me questions and it's frightening.

Only one had an attorney who brought the prior abuse into the proceedings by including in the divorce petition threatening notes written by the woman's husband.

And, although experts recommend that abused women be screened out of co-parenting classes, such as the class mandated in the two Missouri counties studied, half of the women in the study were directed to participate in the classes, even though all but one of the women's attorneys knew there had been violence in the relationship.

"Many women talked about the influence of that class on their thinking about custody," said Hardesty.

"I listen to Dr. Laura every day, and I know it is really good for the children to see both parents every day," said one mother.

I just know it would be hard on him for me to take away his rights to his kids," said another.

One woman reluctantly agreed to a joint physical custody arrangement in which the children lived with their father during the week and she had them on weekends.

Women with health problems were concerned about having enough energy to endure a custody battle.

After the divorce, many mothers continued to co-parent in a context of fear, the researcher said, adding that the fathers in this study seemed to have a high level of involvement compared to divorced fathers in general.

Posted by Michael at 8:26 PM

New National Emergency Child Locator Center Within National Center for Missing & Exploited Children

From U.S. Newswire Releases:

The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) has now been charged with establishing and operating the new National Emergency Child Locator Center.

The center, created by legislation signed into law by President Bush this week, will help expedite reunification of children with their families during major disasters.

Senators Susan Collins (R-ME) and Joseph Lieberman (D-CT), Chairman and Ranking Minority Member of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs, sponsored the legislation, along with Senator Ken Salazar (D-CO).

"Americans are rightfully asking if we are better prepared for the next disaster, whether it is a hurricane, an epidemic disease, or a terrorist attack," said Senator Collins.

"Creation of the National Emergency Child Locator Center signifies a critical first step toward a stronger, more effective national plan for responding to a crisis and helping to reunite children with their loved ones."

-- Refer reports of displaced adults to the Attorney General's designated authority and the National Emergency Family Registry and Locator System.

"NCMEC is pleased to be part of the federal government's newly-structured disaster response plan, and brings decades of experience and expertise in the missing children arena," said Ernie Allen, president and CEO of NCMEC.

"As soon as Hurricane Katrina made landfall, our team worked non-stop with searching families, law enforcement, and other organizations across the country to help resolve the thousands of missing children reported to us," added Allen.

At the request of the U.S. Department of Justice in 2005, NCMEC set up a national missing persons hotline and website within 24 hours of Hurricane Katrina's devastating blow to the Gulf coast.

Posted by Michael at 8:21 PM

Two-Thirds of States Qualify for Extended Counting of TANF Job Search and Job Readiness Assistance

The changes made by the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 and the corresponding regulations have increased pressure on states to place TANF recipients in federally countable activities.

"Needy states" may qualify for extended counting of job search and job readiness assistance toward the TANF work participation rate.

HHS has just issued a Program Instruction (TANF-ACF-PI-2006-04) describing this provision and how it will be implemented.

The state qualifies as a "needy state" under the provisions of the Contingency Fund section of the law.

The threshold levels have been calculated by the Department of Agriculture, and are included in a table provided with the Program Instruction.

These provisions were not affected by the TANF changes in the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 or by the Interim Final Rule published by HHS on June 29, 2006.

However, they take on increased significance because the DRA substantially increased the effective participation rate requirement on states.

Also, the regulations stated that many barrier removal and labor force attachment activities---previously counted under other work activities---could only be counted toward the participation rate as part of "job search and job readiness assistance."

States qualified primarily because of growth in Food Stamp caseloads.

Because of the lags in reporting data, states will not know officially that they qualified under this provision until well after the end of the month.

However, HHS suggests that a state will be able to "predict with reasonably high accuracy whether it will qualify" in a given month by using its own trends and projections of Food Stamp participants and unemployment rates and comparing them to the thresholds.

In the preamble to the Interim Final Rule published on June 29, 2006, HHS stated that, for the purpose of this requirement, a "week" is considered a period of seven consecutive days.

If a state reports even one hour of job search and job readiness assistance as counting toward the participation rate calculation during such a seven-day period, it uses up a full week toward the limit.

In the Program Instruction, HHS clearly endorses such an approach, and it recognizes that a state may need to go back and adjust a month's participation rate data if the state has incorrectly counted additional weeks of job search and job readiness assistance, or if it has failed to count weeks to which it is entitled.

Posted by Michael at 8:07 PM

State Fact Sheets on Child Welfare Funding

Many believe the child welfare system must do more to prevent child abuse and neglect; to provide specialized treatment to families struggling with problems of mental health, substance abuse, or domestic violence; to support grandparents and other relatives who have stepped in to raise children when their parents cannot; and to provide adequate numbers of child welfare workers who are trained to deal with the complex needs of families in crisis.

At the heart of the debate lie questions about how best to increase the capacity, in each of these areas, to improve outcomes for children and families---and how to hold federal, state, and local governments more accountable for these outcomes.

As Congress debates various reform proposals, these fact sheets---one for each state and one for the nation---will provide useful background on the current fiscal structure of the child welfare system and on the ways different financing reform proposals will affect children across the country.

Highlight expenditures and trends within the Title IV-E Foster Care Program, including expenditures for foster care maintenance payments, administrative and child placement costs, and training.

We hope that these state fact sheets will help policymakers, advocates, and the public better understand the complex financing structure of child welfare services in their states.

We also hope that it will enable them to work effectively toward national and local reforms that will help ensure our nation's child welfare system protects children, accurately identifies and addresses their needs---including the needs of their families---and helps all children grow up in safe and loving families.