CFK Weekly—Mar. 4, 2002

We encourage distribution of this information! If reprinting in whole or part, please attribute it to Connect for Kids (www.connectforkids.org).

IDEAS FOR ACTION
**March Forth for Child Care
**National Inhalant and Poisons Awareness Week

WHAT DO BUSH TANF PROPOSALS MEAN FOR FAMILIES?
**President Bush Offers TANF Plan
**Administration's TANF Proposals Would Limit ? Not Increase ? State Flexibility
**La Raza Blasts Bush's Lockout of Legal Immigrants

WELFARE-TO-WORK REQUIREMENTS AND FAMILY OUTCOMES
**How Welfare and Work Policies Affect Children: A Synthesis of the Research
**From Welfare to Work: What the Evidence Shows
**Welfare Reform: How It Shapes the Lives of Infants & Toddlers and Their Families
**?A Little Help to Help Us Along?
**Welfare Reform by the Numbers

APPLY YOURSELF!
**Coming Up Taller Awards
**Government Innovations Awards
**NASA Space Experiment Module Program
**2002 Craftsman/NSTA Young Inventors Awards Program
**High School Journalism Program for Gifted Students of Color

HOW ARE THEY FARING?
**Trends in the Well-Being of America's Children and Youth 2001
**The Well-Being of Children Involved with the Child Welfare System
** Gaps in Knowledge about Children in Immigrant Families

WHAT WORKS, WHAT DOESN'T
**Mentoring: A Promising Strategy for Youth Development
**Charting New Territory: Early Implementation of the Workforce Investment Act,

RESOURCES FOR COMMUNITY BUILDERS
**Team Mates for Schools Foundation
** Earned Income Tax Credit 2002 Outreach Kit
**The Five Promises Check List
**Tips for Teachers Seeking Grants
**Department of Education Forecast of Funding
**eSchool News School Funding Center

PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT
**Academic Honesty: Teaching Kids Not to Take the Easy Way Out
**When Your Child is Behind Bars: A Family Guide to the Juvenile Justice System

GIRLS AND SUCCESS
**Helping Girls Succeed
**The New Girls' Movement: Assessment Tools for Youth Programs

HEALTH CONCERNS
** The New Medicaid and Children's Health Insurance Waiver Initiatives

IN BRIEF
**Highlights of the 2000 National Youth Gang Survey
**Protecting Children in Cyberspace

FOCUS ON THE STATES
**Food Research and Action Center's State of the States Report
**State Income Tax Burdens on Low-Income Families in 2001
**Relieving the Recession
**State-by-State News

SUBSCRIBE/UNSUBSCRIBE

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NEW ON CONNECT FOR KIDS

**More Than A's and B's
by Julee Newberger
As children in the foster care system due to abuse or neglect move from home to home and school to school, the educational damage mounts up. Foster parents who become effective educational advocates can make a huge difference -- but it isn't easy.
http://www.connectforkids.org

**After School: The Future for Teens in Foster Care
by Betsy Krebs & Paul Pitcoff
The difficulty many foster parents face in supporting school success for children in their care is one reason that many young people ?graduate? from the child welfare system with bleak prospects for the future. Betsy Krebs and Paul Pitcoff, founders of the Youth Advocacy Center in New York City, say changes need to be made in how we help teens face these challenges.
http://www.connectforkids.org

IDEAS FOR ACTION

**March Forth for Child Care
Beginning March 4th, organizations and individuals will participate in a "March Forth for Child Care" to speak up about the role government plays in supporting good access and quality through the Child Care and Development Block Grant, up for reauthorization this year. You don't have to march to participate.
http://www.cdfactioncouncil.org/Indexcc.htm

**National Inhalant and Poisons Awareness Week
Many parents don't realize that inhalants are cheap, legal and accessible products that are as popular among middle-school students as marijuana. The National Inhalant Prevention Coalition provides public awareness materials. (800) 269-4237.
http://www.inhalants.org

Find more things to do and ideas for action on Connect for Kids' March calendar.
http://www.connectforkids.org/calendar1569/calendar.htm

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WHAT DO BUSH TANF PROPOSALS MEAN FOR FAMILIES?

On February 26, President Bush issued his proposals for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), the welfare reform legislation that is up for reauthorization this year. Because the Administration's proposals would impose more rigid requirements on the states and longer work requirements for welfare-to-work families, state and child advocates are concerned that these proposals will impose increased burdens on state budgets and on families struggling to juggle work and family responsibilities.

**President Bush Offers TANF Plan
A preliminary analysis of the Administration's plan for TANF reauthorization has raised concerns among child advocates. While the proposals would continue flat funding (without an adjustment for inflation or increase in an economic slowdown), they would place greater demands on state budgets and welfare-to-work families without increasing resources to meet these demands. In addition, according to the National Association of Child Advocates, the Administration's stricter work requirements for TANF recipients with no increase in Child Care Development Block Grant (CCDBG) funding to provide child care could result in states cutting off working low-income parents from child care subsidies in order to provide child care to TANF recipients. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/02/welfare-reform-announcement-book.html

**Administration's TANF Proposals Would Limit ? Not Increase ? State Flexibility
President Bush's proposals for reauthorizing the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families legislation that provides block grants to the states for welfare-to-work programs would substantially limit the flexibility states currently have to design work programs that respond to the needs of working families and the condition of the labor market in their states, according to an early analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Further, the Administration's proposal to continue to exclude legal immigrants from welfare-to-work benefit programs denies states more flexibility to decide when and under what conditions immigrants in their states should qualify for TANF benefits and services.
http://www.cbpp.org/2-26-02tanf.htm

**La Raza Blasts Bush's Lockout of Legal Immigrants
One in five U.S. children lives in an immigrant family, but the original TANF legislation in 1996 locked legal immigrants out of welfare-to-work programs. Legal immigrants in the low-wage workforce may work double shifts, but they are not likely to be eligible for food stamps, child care subsidies or education and training programs that would allow them to make ends meet and move up in the workforce. The National Council of La Raza has expressed anger with the administration's decision that ?hardworking legal immigrants are not worthy of medical care or other safety-net services.?
http://nclr.policy.net/proactive/newsroom/release.vtml?id=19920

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WELFARE-TO-WORK REQUIREMENTS AND FAMILY OUTCOMES

**How Welfare and Work Policies Affect Children: A Synthesis of the Research
Longer work week requirements are a cornerstone of President Bush's TANF proposals, but new research from Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation shows that requiring employment for welfare-to-work mothers does not by itself improve outcomes for school-age kids, and may put more teens at risk.

Last year MDRC's Next Generation project's review of 16 major evaluation research studies concluded that elementary school children benefited from welfare-to-work programs that raised family income, but not from programs requiring work without supplementing poverty wages.

This latest study finds that these effects persist through the long-term. The analysis also found that welfare reform policies can have negative effects on teen school progress, particularly for the more resilient teens -- those doing better than average in school -- in welfare-to-work families.
http://wwww.mdrc.org

**From Welfare to Work: What the Evidence Shows
According to this Brookings policy brief, welfare-to-work families have increased their work hours and overall the incomes of single mothers have risen in the last few years, but incomes of those women leaving welfare have increased only slightly. A significant group of very disadvantaged mothers, many no longer on welfare, continue to have major difficulties with employment because of poor job skills, poor health or other problems.
http://www.brookings.edu/dybdocroot/es/wrb/publications/pb/pb13.htm

**Welfare Reform: How It Shapes the Lives of Infants & Toddlers and Their Families
There is a paucity of research evaluating welfare reform's impact on infants and toddlers. This Center for Family Policy and Research study used interviews with state and local policy makers, service providers and parents to identify areas of promise and of concern. Researchers found some successes, especially when welfare-to-work mothers found good jobs with benefits and quality care for their children, but in many cases inflexible policies caused instability in the lives of mothers and their very young children.
http://mucenter.missouri.edu/brief020502.pdf

**"A Little Help to Help Us Along?
Bring together low-wage working parents and you'll hear about their struggles to get health insurance and quality child care, about unrealistic guidelines for assistance, about problems in enrollment procedures and insensitive treatment by case workers and about the ?cliff effect? ? sudden and precipitous losses of benefits triggered by only modest increases in income. Through it all, the parents' stories reflect their regret that their potential, and that of their children, are not being fulfilled. You can hear these voices from focus groups conducted by the Action Alliance for Virginia's Children and Youth in 2001. For a copy, e-mail actionalliance@vakids.org.

**Welfare Reform by the Numbers
If you're looking for charts on the trends for national child poverty rates, maternal employment, teen pregnancy or welfare caseloads, you'll find a set of snapshot charts prepared by the Progressive Policy Institute.
http://www.ppionline.org/ppi_ci.cfm?knlgAreaID=114&subsecid=143&contentid=250201
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APPLY YOURSELF!

**Coming Up Taller Awards
The Coming Up Taller awards recognize outstanding community programs that foster the creative and intellectual development of America's children and youth through education and practical experience in the arts and the humanities. Accompanied by a cash award, the awards honor these projects and support their continued work. Deadline: March 21, 2002.
http://www.cominguptaller.org

**Government Innovations Awards
Every level and unit of government within the United States is eligible for the annual Innovations in Government Awards, judged on novelty, effectiveness, significance, and transferability. Deadline: May 17, 2002.
http://www.innovations.harvard.edu

**NASA Space Experiment Module Program
If you've always wanted to be an astronaut, you might get close through the Space Experiment Module project. Students can propose experiments that might be selected to fly on a U.S. Space Shuttle mission. Deadlines depend on flight schedules!
http://www.wff.nasa.gov/~sspp/sem/history/history.html

**2002 Craftsman/NSTA Young Inventors Awards Program
The 2002 Young Inventors Awards Program is open to all students in grades 2-8 who work independently to conceive and design tool inventions. The tool must perform a practical function, including (but not limited to) tools that mend, make life easier or safer in some way, entertain, or solve an everyday problem. Applications are due March 14, 2002.
http://www.nsta.org/programs/craftsman/

**High School Journalism Program for Gifted Students of Color
The Asian American Journalists Association is accepting applications for its all-expenses paid August 3-7, 2002 ?J Camp,? a high school journalism program for gifted high school students of color. Application deadline: March 22, 2002.
http://www.pnnonline.org/people/aaja021502.asp

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HOW ARE THEY FARING?

**Trends in the Well-Being of America's Children and Youth 2001
A new federal report offers key facts about America's families: From 1975 through 1999 the median income of mother-only families has never exceeded 35 percent of the median income of two-parent families. Between 1975 and 1993. The proportion of children living in extreme poverty doubled from 5 to 10 percent. Rates of maternal employment rose most sharply in the late 90s for mothers of preschool children, and the percentage of low-income renter households with children paying more than 30 percent of their income on housing rose from 59 percent in 1978 to 70 percent in 1999. The ?Trends? report is available in hard copy only right now. Additional information is available online in ?America's Children: Key National Indicators of Well-Being 2001.? http://childstats.gov/ac2001/ac01.asp.
http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/hspinddb.htm

**The Well-Being of Children Involved with the Child Welfare System
This Urban Institute brief offers the first national overview of the well-being of children in the child welfare system, which cares for children who have been abused or neglected. These children are more likely to have behavioral and emotional problems than children living with their parents, even children living with a low-income single parent.

The report argues that the well-being of many of these children is compromised, their caregivers are often strained and while the children may receive some services, their needs are substantial. Given these challenges, policymakers need to address whether child welfare agencies have the resources to meet these challenges.
http://newfederalism.urban.org/html/series_b/b43/b43.html

**Gaps in Knowledge about Children in Immigrant Families
According to this review by Donald J. Hernandez, by 2030 children of immigrants and their descendants will help swell the proportion of children of color to half the childhood population of the United States. This means that the baby boom generation's retirement will depend for its economic support on the productivity of many working-age adults who lived in immigrant families as children. While we do not know enough about how these children fare, we do know that the high poverty rate among them is not because their parents don't work but because their families face serious barriers to earning their way out of poverty.
http://www.researchforum.org

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WHAT WORKS, WHAT DOESN'T

**Mentoring: A Promising Strategy for Youth Development
Mentoring programs can be effective tools for enhancing the positive development of youth, concludes this Child Trends analysis of the research on mentoring programs. Mentored youth are likely to have fewer school absences, better attitudes toward school, fewer incidents of hitting others, less drug and alcohol abuse and improved attitudes and relationships with adults including their parents. But mentoring of short duration may do more harm than good.
http://www.childtrends.org/PDF/MentoringBrief2002.pdf

**Charting New Territory: Early Implementation of the Workforce Investment Act
The Workforce Investment Act (WIA) was designed to support activities to increase participants' employment, job skills, retention and earnings. Public/Private Ventures takes a look at the early successes and struggles in the implementation of this 1998 legislation in Boston, Charlotte (N.C.), Houston, Orlando and Philadelphia. WIA trains many young people trying to succeed in the workforce and is up for reauthorization in 2003.
http://www.ppv.org/pdffiles/charting.pdf

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RESOURCES FOR COMMUNITY BUILDERS

**Team Mates for Schools Foundation
If your nonprofit program has been serving needy children for more than two years, you might be eligible for a $10,000 to $50,000 grant from the Team Mates for Schools Foundation. Deadline: April 1, 2002.
http://www.touchemall.com/apply_for_grant/fund_prio.htm

**Earned Income Tax Credit 2002 Outreach Kit
Every year the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities puts together a community information kit to help get the word out about the most effective anti-poverty measure available ? the Earned Income Tax Credit.
http://www.cbpp.org/eic2002/index.html

**The Five Promises Check List
Here's a resource to help you make sure your community offers the programs and assets to fulfill the five promises all kids need ? caring adults, safe places, a healthy start, marketable skills and opportunities to serve. Checklists, concrete ideas for parents, businessmen or educators and examples abound.
http://www.americaspromise.org/partnerarea/partnertoolkit/fivepromiseschecklist.cfm

**Tips for Teachers Seeking Grants
Grantmakers are eager to fund teachers' ideas for creative, hands-on learning. But, to be successful at winning grants, it's important that teachers match their idea with the funder's priorities, clearly explain a need and a solution, show wide-ranging benefits, and focus on results. Find eight tips for turning creative ideas into convincing grant proposals in this publication from the Public Education Network.
http://www.publiceducation.org/cgi-bin/downloadmanager/publications/p98.asp

**Department of Education Forecast of Funding
Find out about the U.S. Department of Education programs and competitions available for new awards for FY 2002 and their estimated deadlines.
http://www.ed.gov/offices/OCFO/grants/forecast.html

**eSchool News School Funding Center
The eSchool News School Funding Center has information on up-to-the-minute grant programs and funding sources.
http://www.eschoolnews.com/resources/funding/

You'll find toolkits and more resources for community builders in the Community Building topic page on Connect for Kids.
http://www.connectforkids.org/resources3139/resources_list.htm?attrib_id=259&doc_id=82322

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PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT

**Academic Honesty: Teaching Kids Not to Take the Easy Way Out
Ninety-seven percent of high school students surveyed in a 2001 study admitted to at least one questionable practice when it comes to academic integrity ? like copying homework, plagiarism or submitting papers obtained from a term paper mill or Web site. The national PTA has practical strategies for parents to nurture integrity in schoolwork -- like pointing out examples of honesty and integrity in books or TV shows, talking about people you admire and why, setting examples for your children through your hard work, and admitting to honest failure.
http://www.pta.org/parentinvolvement/helpchild/oc_academichonesty.asp

**When Your Child is Behind Bars: A Family Guide to the Juvenile Justice System
If your child has been pulled into the juvenile justice system, the last thing he or she needs is for you to feel intimidated because you don't understand his or her rights or how the system works. This handbook for parents will help, especially if your child has special needs like substance abuse or mental illness. For a copy, e-mail Gary Christ (gchrist@nmha.org).

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GIRLS AND SUCCESS

**Helping Girls Succeed
Here's an online reference library of books and websites for and about girls.
http://www.ipl.org/teen/esteem/

**The New Girls' Movement: Assessment Tools for Youth Programs
If you have a youth program or girls' group, this toolkit, complete with assessment tools and suggestions for practical applications, can help you create and conduct a participatory evaluation. Use these tools to plan your strategy, and your evaluations will help with program development, fundraising and community education. For a free copy, contact McKecuen Business Support Center (252-331-2648).

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HEALTH CONCERNS

** The New Medicaid and Children's Health Insurance Waiver Initiatives
Medicaid and/or State Children's Health Insurance Program waiver proposals from Arizona, California and Utah have been approved, others are pending, and more are expected as states look for ways to expand or maintain coverage while balancing their budgets during extremely difficult times. According to this briefing from the Kaiser Family Foundation, federal waivers can give states additional flexibility to expand coverage to new populations, but financing constraints also mean these waivers could be used to reduce benefits, limit enrollment or impose higher cost-sharing for some current and new enrollees.
http://www.kff.org/content/2002/4028/

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IN BRIEF

**Highlights of the 2000 National Youth Gang Survey
This Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention publication is now available.
http://ojjdp.ncjrs.org/pubs/fact.html#fs200204

**Protecting Children in Cyberspace
Children have embraced the Internet with alacrity, but it is not always a safe place for them to visit. This Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency bulletin describes the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force Program designed to protect children in cyberspace.
http://ojjdp.ncjrs.org/pubs/missing.html#191213

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FOCUS ON THE STATES

**Food Research and Action Center's State of the States Report
The Food Stamp Program is reaching millions fewer poor people, especially the working poor. Other effective programs like school breakfast and summer food reach 1.9 million fewer children a day and 3.1 million fewer children a day, respectively, than if all states simply matched the performance of the top-performing several states, according to this annual report from the Food Research and Action Center.http://www.frac.org/html/news/alert022602.htm

**State Income Tax Burdens on Low-Income Families in 2001
Some states have done a better job than others of ensuring their tax structures distribute the burden fairly among the wealthier and poorer taxpayers. A report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities notes that among the 42 states with an income tax, only Alabama and Connecticut failed to reduce the tax burden on low-income families during the prosperous 1990s.
http://www.cbpp.org/2-26-02sfp.pdf

**Relieving the Recession
How can states assist low-income families during our economic downturn? The Center on Policy and Budget counts the ways ? 19 ways to be exact.
http://www.cbpp.org/2-22-02wel.htm

**State-by-State News

Connecticut
The Hartford Courant reports on Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation research that finds Connecticut's Jobs First program was ?reasonably successful" in moving people to work and paring welfare rolls by nearly 60 percent since 1996, but it has yet to succeed as an anti-poverty program.
http://www.ctnow.com/hc-welfareref0219.artfeb19.story

?Enhancing State Investments Through Smart Budget Choices? from Connecticut's child advocates provides details on a variety of budget-balancing alternatives to cuts in spending on health, education and human services.
http://www.ctkidslink.org

Illinois
The Chicago Tribune reports that divvying up education dollars has sparked some of the nastiest battles the Illinois state legislature has ever seen. Because Illinois relies more heavily than most states on property taxes to fund schools, communities with low tax bases are likely to receive more state funds than wealthier districts. But as suburban school officials face growing budget deficits and tax caps that limit their taxing power, they are reluctant to let go of the state money they receive through grants.
http://chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-0202200035feb20.story?coll=chi%2Dnews%2Dhed

Michigan
Michigan's Children reports that the Governor's recommended fiscal year 2003 budget for the Michigan Family Independence Agency is lean, with few program expansions and no recognition of inflationary increases. Among the programs eliminated or cut are before- and after-school pilot programs, and a clothing allowance for poor children.
http://www.michiganschildren.org/page.cfm/85

Michigan has some limited provisions to enable welfare-to-work parents to continue in college while working, but many of the policies hinder their efforts to get a higher education. In addition, many of the ways front-line welfare offices implement, or ignore, the policies that do exist limit welfare recipients' participation in post-secondary education, according to this University of Michigan Center for the Education of Women report, ?Access and Barriers to Post-Secondary Education under Michigan's Welfare to Work Policies -- Policy Background and Recipients' Experiences.?
http://www.umich.edu/~cew/cfite.html

Ohio
On February 21st in Columbus, Ohio, Children's Hunger Alliance (formerly the Ohio Hunger Task Force) released a report on hunger in Ohio, including recommendations for state policies to promote utilization of the Food Stamp and child nutrition programs.
http://www.childrenshungeralliance.org

Texas
In metropolitan Houston, two vastly different high schools are creating small, 21st century learning communities in which no student slips through the cracks and all students master the subjects they study. This article, co-authored by Linda Clarke of the Houston Annenberg Challenge, a local education fund, examines how some schools are building communities of learners around three components: personalized learning,  integrated curriculum, and service learning. http://www.nassp.org/news/pl_onesize_0202.htm

Keep up the good work, everyone!
Jan

Jan Richter, Policy and Outreach Specialist, and the Connect for Kids team
Jan@benton.org