Examines the participation of young people in the Scottish Children's Hearings system, which combines juvenile justice and child welfare. Considers several dimensions of participation in relation to the system and other arenas of decision making. Suggests that participation rights may be more of a reality for young people involved in welfare…

The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 establishes mandatory work requirements. This review article describes the child care provisions of the welfare reform act, addressing some of the issues related to these provisions and highlighting selected state initiatives in this area. (Author)

Objective: The establishment of the Family Violence Option (FVO) in 1997 was met with some controversy, as critics believed waivers from time limit and work requirements would hinder women's ability to leave welfare and find employment. Method: Using administrative and interview data from Maryland, multivariate equations analyze if domestic…

For nineteen years, Mercy Learning Center, a community-based literacy organization, has provided basic literacy instruction to low-income women in Bridgeport, Connecticut. During that time it has grown from three students and two tutors to 450 students, 155 tutors, and five full-time teachers. This growth has been affected by changes in welfare…

Wisconsin's Learnfare program requires 13- to 19-year-old recipients of Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) to maintain good school attendance or risk losing a portion of their families' grants. The program offers those with attendance problems the opportunity to work with case managers to identify causes of their poor attendance, as…

The growing Latino presence in the United States underscores the need to address Latino poverty, previously overlooked in public policy discussions. Latinos are the fastest growing U.S. minority group, and Latino poverty is also rising. In 1990, one in every four Latinos was poor, and 40 percent of Latino children lived in poverty. Latino poverty…

In response to congressional efforts to assess the potential impact that various welfare reform proposals might have on child care availability, continuity, and subsidy programs, this report examines the difficulties parents have trying to identify and secure child care while they work or attend school. The four child care programs created by the…

As of June 1995, the federal government had granted to 28 states waivers from current federal laws and regulations, allowing states to test a wide range of welfare reform approaches. This study, conducted by the National Center for Children in Poverty, examined the evaluation plans of 21 waiver experiments in 17 states, focusing on the impact of…

A survey was conducted in Massachusetts to determine the effect of some welfare policy changes among families who receive public assistance and have experienced domestic violence. Interviews were conducted with a representative sample of 734 Massachusetts women who received welfare between January and June 1996. The survey found that one-fifth of…

The Recycling Fund Concept was conceptualized as a special allocation of money for the purpose of expanding child care services for preschool children of low-income parents who were or had been recipients of Aid to Families with Dependent Children in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. In 1985, North Carolina's Child Care Resources Incorporated…

Whether there is a causal link from attitudes to economic success is investigated in this study, which uses data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. A theory of motivation is proposed which has two components: motives, generalized dispositions to approach or avoid a class of incentives, and expectancies, an individual's assessments of the…

The Family Support Act of 1988 requires each state to set up a Job Opportunities and Basic Skills Program (JOBS) to provide a work/education/training program for recipients of Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) by October 1, 1990. The law provides a broad outline for JOBS leaves the critical decisions to the states; hence, the major…

Changes in the Federal food stamp program have resulted in a reduction in the number of eligible people receiving needed food assistance and a weakening of the "safety net" that protects the needy from poverty, unemployment, and high medical costs. Blacks and Hispanic Americans appear to have been disproportionately affected by these…

The Food Stamp Program is the U.S. government's primary program to prevent the rural poor from going hungry. Food stamp allotments are set each year based on the cost of the "Thrifty Food Plan" (TFP), a minimally adequate diet defined by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), which sets costs by examining average food prices in urban…

This booklet is a review of the State Department's management of Federal funds and voluntary agencies' distribution and use of program funds for refugee reception and placement. Most of the refugees received the required core services with at least 94.3% receiving food, clothing, and shelter; and 84.1% receiving general employment-related services…