No child should be born into poverty, but as we know all too well, millions are. In New York City, nearly one out of every three children is poor. It is the city's highest rate of child poverty in three decades. Poverty is more complex than the lack of financial resources--the most vulnerable children often lack access to adequate food, shelter,…

Only 8 percent of children born into poverty graduate from college by the age of 25. Consider what that means for the estimated 500,000 New York City kids living in poverty. It is a fact: The better educated a person is, the better her chances of upward mobility. So when fewer than one in 10 children born into poverty reach their academic…

School systems often implement character education initiatives in reaction to a violent event. Following the school shootings that occurred in the 1990s, many school systems started to implement character education and violence prevention programs. Unfortunately, because the efforts were reactive, little thought was given to sustainability…

This report identifies the different settings in which summer programs for disadvantaged youth most commonly take place--schools, parks and recreation departments, community--and faith-based organizations, and child-care programs-- and examines the limitations and opportunities presented by each in building better programming. It reviews broadly…

The National Summer Learning Association is the only national organization that focuses exclusively on learning during the summer months. It works to ensure that children and youth in high-poverty communities have access to quality summer learning opportunities that support their academic performance and healthy development through hands-on…

By examining data from interviews with students in the Upward Bound program (a federally sponsored program that provides academic support to students at risk who are preparing for college entrance), this study seeks to strengthen an understanding of the role of trust among urban youth at risk in the educational organizations that serve them. This…

THIRTY-FOUR PUBLIC SCHOOL GUIDANCE COUNSELORS FROM SIX NEW ENGLAND STATES, NEW YORK, AND NEW JERSEY PARTICIPATED IN AN INSTITUTE TO BECOME ACQUAINTED WITH THE PROBLEMS AND SPECIAL TECHNIQUES INVOLVED IN COUNSELING THE URBAN DISADVANTAGED STUDENT. THE PROGRAM CONSISTED OF LECTURES BY OUTSTANDING AUTHORITIES IN THE FIELD, LIMITED DISCUSSION PERIODS,…

OPERATIONAL FEATURES OF SUCCESSFUL 1965 UPWARD BOUND PROGRAMS ARE BRIEFLY SUMMARIZED. THE GOAL OF THE UPWARD BOUND PROGRAMS, WHICH ARE UNIVERSITY-BASED AND ARE CONDUCTED DURING THE SUMMER AND THROUGHOUT THE ACADEMIC YEAR, IS TO PREPARE NORMALLY INTELLIGENT DISADVANTAGED HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS FOR ADMISSION TO AND SUCCESS IN COLLEGE. THE PROGRAMS…

This testimony of the President of Public/Private Ventures (PPV) in Philadelphia (Pennsylvania) is on the subject of designing effective youth services programs, particularly in light of the PPV's experience with its program, Summer Training and Education Program (STEP). Following a description of the background for this and similar programs, the…

This Final Report summarizes five years of development of cooperative summer and school-year programs between the Neighborhood Youth Corps (NYC) and community colleges. NYC Goes to Community College is a combined work and study program for economically disadvantaged youth, cooperatively conducted by local sponsors of Neighborhood Youth Corps and…

The Quantum Opportunities Program (QOP) is an innovative 4-year year-round pilot program that provides learning opportunities, development opportunities, service opportunities, and summer jobs to small groups of youth from families receiving public assistance. In 1994, the Ford Foundation commissioned an evaluation of the QOP. Between 1989 and…

In the summer of 1967 an eight-week session entitled Programs to Excite Potential (Project PEP) was held at Skidmore College in Saratoga, New York for approximately 150 disadvantaged urban junior high school students. These students were drawn from ten urban areas throughout the state. The criteria upon which the participants were chosen were…

This Program Focus discusses the strategies of the Beacon Community Center Program (the Beacons), the history of its crime prevention programs, and general operations. It focuses on the activities of one particular program, Red Hook in Brooklyn (New York City), before analyzing the Beacons' potential for preventing crime. A core concept of the…

This report describes the role of a mentor of young people and a summer program providing mentors for high school students. For two summers, with the help of the Commonwealth Fund, several hundred young New Yorkers were chosen from among high school juniors with little hope of finding a summer job to enroll in a program sponsored by Hunter College…

The issues facing urban Appalachian children and their families in Cincinnati (Ohio) are addressed. Appalachians have the highest school dropout rate in Cincinnati proportionate to their numbers, with low access to jobs and generally poor access to, and use of, public services. Much of the information for this report comes from a survey of 246…