Rationale: The rationale for this small-scale research project arose from discussions at a national youth offending special interest group for educational psychologists (EPs). The Education Health and Care Plan (EHCP) was introduced following revisions to the SEND Code of Practice based on the Children and Families Act (2014) to support children…

This Research-to-Impact brief is the third in a series by Chapin Hall's Voices of Youth Count on understanding and addressing youth homelessness. It details the unique challenges faced by young people experiencing homelessness who are pregnant or parenting. The brief's findings suggest that many of the nearly 4.2 million adolescents and young…

Youth homelessness in the United States is a serious challenge. Recent national research by Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago found concerning rates of homelessness among adolescents and young adults ages 13-25. An estimated one in 30 adolescents (ages 13-17) and nearly one in 10 young adults (ages 18-25) experienced some form of…

The overall purpose of a child protection conference is to safeguard children. The conferences are multi-agency meetings that aim to ensure children's safety, promote children's health and development, and identify when a child is at continuing risk of significant harm. Law and policies in the United Kingdom highlight that parents and children…

To promote children's healthy development and give them opportunities to flourish, families need a wide range of support services. These services are often disconnected from each other. Early care and education (ECE) has a particularly fragmented system (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine 2018). Systems with myriad processes…

Programs that address the needs of low-income parents and children at the same time may hold promise for reducing the transmission of poverty across generations. Contemporary programs of this type address some key weaknesses that may have limited the effectiveness of earlier such approaches, including too little attention paid to the quality,…

The Strengthening At Risk and Homeless Young Mothers and Children Initiative, funded by the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, aims to improve the housing, health, and development of homeless and at-risk young families. This article describes the services provided in four program sites (Pomona, CA; Antelope Valley, CA; Minneapolis, MN; and Chicago, IL)…

Nationally, families of color--particularly African American and American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN)--are over-represented in child welfare systems. These families also tend to have worse outcomes--such as children more likely to be removed from their homes, less likely to receive family preservation services, and in the case of African…

D. Wayne Osgood, E. Michael Foster, and Mark E. Courtney examine the transition to adulthood for youth involved in social service and justice systems during childhood and adolescence. They survey the challenges faced by youth in the mental health system, the foster care system, the juvenile justice system, the criminal justice system, and special…

This is the fifth and final report of a longitudinal study examining the use of a comprehensive system of prevention and early intervention services in Palm Beach County, and how its use relates to the outcomes of children and families living in four targeted geographic areas (TGAs) with high rates of poverty, teen pregnancy, crime, and child…

Background: This article is concerned with professional learning within multi-agency settings. Since the publication of the government document "Every child matters" in 2003, professionals involved in working with children and young people have been moving into newly organized services that are required to deliver improved services for…

In Scotland's unified system of juvenile justice and child welfare, the Children's Hearings system deals with over 60,000 referrals annually. If the hearing officer is satisfied that compulsory measures of supervision are necessary, it may require home supervision when the child remains at home. In 2001, over 6,000 children were on home…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to describe how Engestrom's "third generation" activity theory, with its emphasis on developing conceptual tools to understand dialogues, multiple perspectives and networks of interacting activity systems, has informed research into professional learning in multiagency service settings in England.…

Because of a lack of program coordination and community accountability, services to children and youth are failing to address the problems of young people at risk. Collaboration among agencies can help social services to bypass program mentality. Communitywide interagency cooperation will include local scorecards, program linkages, and strategic…

This article by the editors of this issue describes key elements of high-quality services for teen parents and their children. Programs for teen parents and their children can promote dual development by: a) acknowledging the role of multiple risk factors in the lives of the children of teen parents; b) integrating services from a variety of…