Recent research on parental involvement has explored connections between parental involvement in school and children's academic achievement. While many schools have active parent organizations and a base of parents who offer additional support, others struggle to make connections with their parents or community members. Even in places with active…

The research reported here tested the factor structure of a measure for sense of community in community organizations, and it evaluated sense of community's potential as an empowering organizational characteristic within an organizational empowerment framework. Randomly selected community organization participants (N = 561) were surveyed as part…

Poverty and unemployment aren't spread evenly across cities or regions, but rather are concentrated in disinvested urban neighborhoods and rural communities around the country. These communities are home to the nation's most vulnerable children and families. Despite some signs of improvement in economic conditions for families in the United…

This qualitative study is based on in-depth interviews with 40 representatives from 12 community-based organizations (CBOs) working with the Steans Center for Community-based Service-Learning at DePaul University in Chicago. These CBOs see themselves as partners with the University in educating college students about the realities of racial and…

"Vision for the Nineties...A Plan of Action" (1991) noted that, to achieve excellence in schools, school-based coordinated services needed to be enhanced by improving interdependent and interagency coordination. It was further noted that school jurisdictions needed assistance to improve the availability of a range of coordinated,…

A critical national problem facing the United States is the steady decline in voting of the citizenry. Surveys of the 44 largest public school systems from across the country and of 100 corporations from the Fortune 500 group as well as individual interviews and roundtable discussions with teachers, executives, members of Congress, local and state…

This toolkit presents emergency contraception (EC) as a method to help adolescent women avoid pregnancy and abortion after unprotected sexual intercourse. The sections of this toolkit are designed to help increase your knowledge of EC and stay up to date. They provide suggestions for increasing EC awareness in the workplace, whether it is a school…

This booklet explains the concept of a community exchange system (CES), or barter system, for the exchange of goods and services and describes how to set one up. The booklet is concerned only with nonprofit, voluntary organizations. The booklet is organized in four sections. The first section introduces the community exchange systems idea and…

This guide is designed for persons who need to plan education programs in world affairs for presentation to an organization. Such a person might be a program chair of a local League of Women Voters or a community Rotary Club. The guide is organized in five sections, each of which presents information on one of five steps to program planning. The…

The first guide shows individuals how to organize a series of small-group discussions in order to help participants consider ways to prevent crime and violence in their homes, schools, and neighborhoods. Based on the concept of a study circle--small-group, democratic, and highly participatory--these groups bring people together to discuss…

This book traces the progress of the parent movement for drug-free youth, and describes a set of varied approaches to drug problems. Chapter 1 focuses on the actions of the city of Atlanta, Georgia in confronting drug problems and shows how that initial parent activism contained the seeds of the current national movement. Chapter 2 documents the…

For almost 20 years, from 1917 to the 1930s, the traveling Chautauqua circuits and festivals brought education, inspiration, and entertainment to remote and not-so-remote communities. Now in the 1980s, emphasis is once more being placed on the value of local community life, on self-reliance and mutual help with respect to the social, cultural, and…

During the past decade, community-serving organizations have encountered increasing pressure to implement comprehensive screening of program staff to reduce the risks inherent in working with vulnerable populations, such as young children. This screening "tool kit" suggests a process of staff screening based on the requirements of the position,…

This guide for community coalitions is designed to help them assist college and university officials address alcohol and drug problems on their campuses. The guide answers: (1) "How do college officials think about alcohol and other drug prevention?"; (2) "Why should community-based prevention coalitions include campus representatives?"; (3) "Who…

"Engaging Residents to Improve Results for Children and Youth, Families and Communities" is a "Toolkit" that is the product of an international working group composed of delegates from six participating nations--Chile, Ireland, Israel, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States. In 2002, the working group set out…