Women are at greater risk of exposure to interpersonal violence during pregnancy. The influence prenatal violence has on children's behavioral adjustment is generally understood to stem from its impact on mothers, but there is a dearth of prospective research to test these models. The current study evaluated the influence of interpersonal violence…

Hiring people who have served prison sentences has never been a priority in the United States. For men and women who were once incarcerated, finding any job is difficult; finding a sustainable, family-supporting job is nearly impossible. Today the country is at a critical crossroads on this issue, and it's time for change. As the nation works in…

The Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program (EFNEP) is the nation's first federal nutrition education program for low-income populations. Without question, accelerating equity in programming has long been a priority of EFNEP. Historically underserved populations with limited financial resources are often people of color and at increased risk…

Objective: This study tested the effectiveness of Parent Management Training, Oregon (PMTO) model on child social-emotional well-being. Methods: Using a randomized controlled design and three measures of social-emotional well-being, the study investigated effectiveness of PMTO with families of children in foster care with serious emotional…

This implementation research report describes the local programs, home visiting staff, and families who participated in the Mother and Infant Home Visiting Program Evaluation (MIHOPE), a national evaluation of the federal Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV) program launched in 2011. This national evaluation is…

In the United States, foster care is provided to children to avert maltreatment and abuse of children in distressed families by providing a temporary home or a foster home. Courts with jurisdiction over families have been charged by Congress to find appropriate homes when necessary circumstances occur. In fiscal year 2009, there were 423,773…

This annual report for 2012-2013 features a collection of stories from individuals in the school-based health care movement who have been affected by the work of the School-Based Health Alliance. At the 2013 National School-Based Health Care Convention in Washington, DC, the new name, logo, and tagline for the organization: School Based Health…

This study examined the efficacy of a multimodule parenting intervention, "My Baby & Me," that began prenatally and continued until children reached 2.5 years of age. The intervention targeted specific parenting skills designed to alter trajectories of maternal and child development. Of 361 high-risk mothers (193 adolescents, 168…

Universal screening and referral are crucial for maternal, infant, and early childhood home visiting programs to improve maternal, infant, and early childhood outcomes. The purpose of this article is to describe a county-wide, centralized intake and referral system. The authors report results and lessons learned for reducing service duplication…

Research indicates that families of children with disabilities are at risk for a lower quality of life than families of typically developing children, as the impact that a child with a disability has on a family's quality of life (FQOL) is both substantial and complex (Zuna, Selig, Summers, & Turnbull, 2009b; Zuna, Summers, Turnbull, Hu &…

Community studies indicating that affluence has social-emotional consequences for youth have conflated family and neighborhood wealth. We examined adolescent boys' delinquency and adolescent girls' anxiety-depression as a function of family, neighborhood, and cumulative affluence in a sample that is primarily of European-American descent, but…

Kansas Early Head Start (KEHS) provides comprehensive services following federal Head Start Program Performance Standards for pregnant women and eligible families with children from birth to age 4. KEHS was implemented in 1998 using Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) quality set-aside dollars augmented by a transfer of federal…

Background: In recent years, several states have created mandatory prison-diversion programs for felony drug possessors. These programs have both individual-level goals of reducing recidivism rates and system-level goals of reducing prison populations. Objective: This study examines the individual level and system level impact of Kansas' Senate…

MDRC is conducting the Enhanced Services for the Hard-to-Employ Demonstration and Evaluation Project under a contract with the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). As part of the multisite Enhanced Services for the Hard-to-Employ Demonstration and Evaluation Project, MDRC,…

Children living in poverty face considerable developmental risks. This report presents interim results from an evaluation of parental employment and educational services delivered within a two-generational, early childhood program targeting low-income families who are expecting a child or who have a child under age 3. This study is part of the…