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This document summarizes the status of current research activities funded in Fiscal Year 1997 by the Office of Human Services Policy (HSP) of the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). HSP is focusing its attention on tracking the condition children and families in poverty (including immigrants). Research projects include studies on the economic context (including the low-wage labor market) and implementation of welfare reform, service delivery systems, documenting impacts of policy changes on disadvantaged populations, technical assistance, and enhancing data and analysis capabilities.
The Impacts of Employment on AFDC Recipients in Wisconsin.Measurement of the Impacts on Children in Evaluations of State Welfare Reforms
The Impact of Welfare Reform on the Economic and Health Status of Immigrants, their Communities and the Organizations which Serve Them
Welfare Reform and State Strategies for Tracking Applicants and Former Recipients.
Supporting State Efforts to Link Administrative Data Systems for the Purpose of Studying the Effects of Welfare Reform on Other State and Federal Public Assistance Programs
National Evaluation of Welfare-to-Work Strategies
Review of the Low-Wage Labor MarketStudy of Ancillary Services
State Diversion Programs and Medicaid
Domestic Violence and Welfare: An Early Assessment
Child Health and Development Programs in the Context of Welfare Reform
Panel Study of Income Dynamics - National Academy of Sciences
The Joint Center for Poverty Research
Institute for Research on Poverty
Mandatory Review and Modification of Child Support Orders in TANF Cases
Parents' Fair Share
Child Support Research Clearinghouse
OCSE National Consumer Survey Design
Annual Report on the Well-being of Children and YouthEvaluation of Family Preservation Services
Early Head Start Research and Evaluation Project-Father Studies Collaboration
The Science of Early Childhood Development
Adolescent Decision Making
Family Impact Seminars on the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy
Teen Pregnancy Prevention and Partnerships
Community Change for Youth Development
Preventing Abusive Intimate Relationships Among Adolescents
Teen Pregnancy Prevention Efforts Targeting Boys
What Works for Youth - An Examination of Evaluations
Abstinence based Teen Pregnancy Prevention Efforts Targeting Boys
MEASURING THE OUTCOMES OF WELFARE REFORM
The Impacts of Employment on AFDC Recipients in Wisconsin.
ASPE in conjunction with the Administration on Children and Families, is funding a project to get early results on the economic and employment outcomes of women who leave the AFDC rolls in Wisconsin -- a state that has experienced a rapid decline in caseloads over the past ten years. While no data are available on women who leave the rolls under the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) program, this project will be our first chance to examine women as they make the transition from welfare to work in a state that began many "TANF-like" welfare reforms before the passage of PRWORA. The analysis will be conducted using linked administrative data from the state of Wisconsin including: (1) AFDC, Food Stamps, and Medicaid data, (2) earnings data from the Unemployment Insurance records database (UI), and (3) income and family status data from the state tax record database.
This project will not explain caseload decline; rather, it will describe the characteristics and outcomes of two groups of women who have left the AFDC program in Wisconsin. The first group will be composed of recipients in January of 1995 who left AFDC during 1995 and the second group will be composed of recipients in January of 1990 who left AFDC during 1990. The project will include: (1) a descriptive analysis of those who left the rolls, (2) a descriptive comparison of the economic status of women before and after leaving welfare, and (3) a detailed comparison of both the characteristics and outcomes of those who left AFDC in 1995 and those who left AFDC in 1990. The project is being conducted by the Institute for Research on Poverty.
Susan Hauan is the ASPE contact.
Measurement of the Impacts on Children in Evaluations of State Welfare Reforms
With other federal partners and foundations, the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) and the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) are working together with states to improve the measurement of child outcomes in state welfare evaluations and in other state data systems. States received grants to augment their evaluations of welfare reforms (instituted under waivers) with measures of child impacts and to expand their data capability to measure and track child outcomes on an ongoing basis. States receive technical support on these activities from leading researchers who are members of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Research Network on Family and Child Well-Being. The research technical support effort is led by Child Trends.
The project has two phases. The one year planning phase has been completed. Twelve states participated in this first phase: California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Oregon, Vermont, and Virginia. For the operational phase beginning September 31, 1997, five states have received additional awards to support large-scale data collection activities: Connecticut, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, and Minnesota. In addition to the core funding provided by ACF and ASPE, it is anticipated that other federal agencies and private foundations will provide supplementary funding to support a broader range of activities and participants.
Martha Moorehouse is the ASPE contact.
The Impact of Welfare Reform on the Economic and Health Status of Immigrants, their Communities and the Organizations which Serve Them
ASPE along with the Administration for Children and Families, the Health Care Financing Administration, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture are funding this study.
The Urban Institute, in collaboration with the University of California at Los Angeles, will conduct research on the economic and health status of immigrants, their communities and the organizations that serve them. The research will describe the status of immigrants with regard to health, employment, and participation in programs administered by public and private agencies - with special attention to distinguishing different categories of immigrants and drawing comparisons with the non-immigrant population. The project will explore the impacts of welfare reform on immigrants, communities, and the organizations that serve them with special attention to both individual and institutional adaptations. Since the loss of eligibility to participate in the Food Stamp program appears to be the most far-reaching and permanent change affecting current legal immigrants, its impact on immigrants and their families will be a particular focus of the study.
The project will supplement an examination of existing secondary data with intensive data collection in two areas that together account for one-fourth of the immigrant population in the United States - Los Angeles and New York. Primary data collection in Los Angeles and New York has been designed to develop profiles of immigrants in these cities and the agencies that serve them. This effort has several components including: (1) interviews with more than 1,200 immigrant households in each city; (2) telephone interviews with most of the nonprofit agencies providing services to immigrants in these cities; (3) in-depth interviews with 100 immigrants who lose Food Stamps and additional immigrants who retain Food Stamps in each city, and (4) in-depth interviews with administrators and staff in public and private agencies in each city. The project is being conducted by the Urban Institute in collaboration with the University of California at Los Angeles.
David Nielsen is the ASPE contact.
Welfare Reform and State Strategies for Tracking Applicants and Former Recipients.
A meeting of state officials on state best practices and lessons learned in tracking to welfare recipients and their families after they leave the welfare rolls and families that are diverted from assistance is planned for early winter 1998. The National Governors' Association, the American Public Welfare Association, and the National Conference on State Legislatures will organize the meeting and write a follow-up issue brief for dissemination.
Audrey Mirsky-Ashby is the ASPE contact.
Supporting State Efforts to Link Administrative Data Systems for the Purpose of Studying the Effects of Welfare Reform on Other State and Federal Public Assistance Programs.
This grant program provides funding for efforts to link administrative program data from a variety of low-income assistance programs in order to analyze the collateral impacts PRWORA has on recipients and on other state and federal assistance programs. Particular areas of interest, include: foster care/kinship care, mental health and substance abuse, teen pregnancy, out-of-wedlock childbearing, domestic violence, and work and work-related support services. South Carolina, Maryland, Wisconsin, Massachusetts, and Mecklenburg County, North Carolina have received funding.
Barrett Graf is the ASPE contact.
National Evaluation of Welfare-to-Work Strategies
The National Evaluation of Welfare-to-Work Strategies, funded by the Administration for Children and Families, ASPE, and The U.S. Department of Education is designed to rigorously measure the effects of different JOBS approaches on both economic and non-economic outcomes for welfare recipients and their children. The study also presents a unique opportunity to examine how programs intended to change the behavior and economic situations of low-income single mothers might affect their children's well-being. Four types of child outcomes are being measured: cognitive development and academic achievement, safety and health, problem behavior and emotional well-being, and social development. The evaluation uses a combination of administrative and survey data. Data from the two-year follow-up survey has been analyzed and the five-year follow-up survey is currently being fielded. The Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation is conducting the evaluation.
Audrey Mirsky-Ashby is the ASPE contact.
WELFARE REFORM IMPLEMENTATION ISSUES
Review of the Low-Wage Labor Market
As welfare programs require employment or participation in work-related activities, a better understanding of the low wage labor market is critical. While many research projects have focused on issues surrounding the low wage labor market, the results are often presented in a highly technical or academic format, and generally not summarized for a policy audience.
This project commissions a series of papers -- written for policy makers -- aimed at summarizing and interpreting the results of previous research on the low wage labor market. The papers will give policy makers valuable insight on the critical issues surrounding the low wage labor market as they embark upon potential changes in a variety of welfare programs. Each paper will include: a concise review of the literature on that topic in non-academic terms, a summary of additional research needed, and a discussion of the most important policy implications. The Urban Institute is conducting this work.
Kelleen Kaye is the ASPE contact.
Study of Ancillary Services
The focus on employment under TANF will increase the need for information on the potential impact of services beyond education and training. In the past, ancillary services such as addiction treatment, housing needs, legal services, medical needs (including services such as eye and dental care), and mental health services generally have not been significant components of welfare to work programs. In part, this is because families with more complex needs were exempted from participation. However, the presence of time limits and work participation requirements will mean that families who were previously exempted will now need to move toward self-sufficiency. Further, the flexibility provided by the TANF block grant may mean that states will have more ability to pay for these services, as well as for transportation and child care. This project will provide information on ancillary services for both policy makers and state and local level program operators. The project will synthesize and interpret existing research in a non-technical format, identify gaps in knowledge, identify service needs that are not being met and their potential impact, and highlight promising program practices that incorporate ancillary services into a long-term strategy to improve employment outcomes of welfare recipients.
Mathematica Policy Research is conducting this study. Richard Silva is the ASPE contact.
State Diversion Programs and Medicaid
States have option of diverting welfare applicants by giving them a one time lump sum. ASPE and ACF are jointly funding a study by the George Washington University Center for Health Policy Research (CHPR) on state welfare diversion programs and their effects on Medicaid enrollment. The link between AFDC and Medicaid that existed before welfare reform was one of the primary means of entry into Medicaid for poor families. Formal and informal diversion programs, because they limit the contact that poor families have with welfare offices, may also limit their access to Medicaid coverage if steps are not taken to formally assure that applications for Medicaid coverage are processed. This study will investigate how state diversion programs are being conceived and implemented and what their effects are on participants, particularly with respect to Medicaid enrollment. The study will have four parts: (1) an inventory of state diversion programs and policies; (2) case studies of diversion programs in seven sites, including interviews with administrators and staff, interviews and focus groups of participants, field observation, and case reviews; (3) interviews with community-based and safety net providers to gather their perceptions of the effects of diversion programs on Medicaid enrollment; and (4) a brief examination of existing databases to assess potential strategies for monitoring and evaluation of diversion programs and their effects on Medicaid enrollment and safety net providers.
Christopher Snow is the ASPE contact.
Domestic Violence and Welfare: An Early Assessment
This project will study early implementation by states of the TANF Family Violence Option and child support enforcement program responses, including the use of good cause waivers, for battered women. Evidence suggests that some battered women seek employment and child support while some others need specialized assistance in addressing the abuse of partners. To address domestic violence, states may have policies regarding screening and other forms of identification, assessment of a battered woman's needs, service provision, confidentiality, corroboration required, staffing arrangements, agreements with community resources, and other considerations. The study will provide information about these policy issues, the status of program implementation, and descriptions of useful models. In addition, findings will assist ASPE and ACF in providing technical assistance to states on these issues and will suggest directions for further evaluation.
Jerry Silverman is the ASPE contact.
Child Health and Development Programs in the Context of Welfare Reform
This project will identify and present profiles of promising federal, state and/or community-based health and human services programs believed to be enhancing the health and development of children in the context of welfare reform. Targeted activities may include case management strategies, child assessment programs, links between Pre-Kindergarten and child care programs, school readiness programs, and the use of formal child care versus informal child care arrangements. This project is being conducted by Mathematica Policy Research with cooperation from the National Center for Children and Poverty.
Jennifer Appleton is the ASPE contact.
Panel Study of Income Dynamics - National Academy of Sciences
ASPE provides core funding support for the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID). The PSID is a longitudinal survey of a representative sample of men, women, children and their families. Data collection began in 1968. This survey is conducted by the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research. ASPE's partial support provides for the continued collection of longitudinal data relevant to research on economic factors and income support mechanisms affecting the poor and the elderly.
Don Oellerich is the ASPE contact.
The Joint Center for Poverty Research
The Northwestern University/University of Chicago Joint Center for Poverty Research is a national, interdisciplinary community of academic researchers whose work focuses on the causes of poverty and the effectiveness of policies aimed at reducing poverty. Key areas of research include: changing labor markets and the causes of inequality in the current labor market; family functioning and the well-being of children; the impact of concentrated urban poverty; and the effects in these domains - and others - of changing policy and new programs. The Center also facilitates the collection of new data, including state administrative data sets, that will be critical for advances in poverty research over the next several years.
In 1997 the Advisory Panel on Research Uses of Administrative Data, convened by the Joint Center in 1996, continued to solicit input from state, federal and academic sources and to develop recommendations for facilitating research on poverty and child well-being using administrative data. As part of this effort, and with the assistance of staff at the University of California Data Archive and Technical Assistance (UCDATA), the Joint Center is developing an inventory of ongoing and completed administrative data initiatives in various states and attempting to foster lines of communication between those working to develop and use these administrative data sources.
Don Oellerich is the ASPE contact.
Institute for Research on Poverty
The Institute for Research on Poverty is a national, university-based center for research into the causes and consequences of poverty and social inequality in the United States. It is nonprofit and nonpartisan.
The Institute was established in 1966 at the University of Wisconsin-Madison by the U.S. Office of Economic Opportunity, the organization given responsibility for reducing poverty in America. In the years since then, the Institute's multidisciplinary affiliates have formulated and tested basic theories of poverty and inequality, developed and evaluated social policy alternatives, and analyzed trends in poverty and economic well-being.
Most affiliates of the Institute hold regular teaching appointments at the university and divide their time between teaching and research. Some Institute affiliates are faculty members at other institutions who visit the Institute regularly to consult with colleagues and to present seminars. Research associates are faculty members at other institutions who maintain a professional connection with IRP. The Institute also hosts visiting scholars who, on leave from their permanent affiliation, come to IRP to conduct poverty-related research.
The principal activities of the Institute are sponsorship of the original research of its members and dissemination of their findings. Seminars, workshops, conferences, and a publications program that includes print and electronic dissemination are designed to achieve those ends.
Don Oellerich is the ASPE contact.
Mandatory Review and Modification of Child Support Orders in TANF Cases
This project will examine the impact of a change in child support review and modification policy under PRWORA. The law prior to the enactment of PRWORA required that all AFDC child support cases be reviewed every three years and adjusted if the child support award was inadequate. PRWORA made review and modification in TANF cases optional. A number of states, perhaps a majority, may discontinue review and modification in TANF cases. This research project will examine the fiscal impact on Federal and State governments and the financial impact on child support obliges leaving welfare if states exercise the option to discontinue mandatory review and modification. This project is being conducted by Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin.
Linda Mellgren is the ASPE contact.
Parents' Fair Share
Parents' Fair Share is a demonstration project for unemployed non-custodial parents (usually fathers) of poor children who owe child support but are not paying it. The project's central goals are to encourage and require their fathers to establish paternity and pay child support, to increase the earnings of the fathers who are unemployed and unable to adequately support their children, and to assist them in providing other forms of support when appropriate. Parents' Fair Share is the only demonstration program for low-income fathers that has the capacity, through its random assignment evaluation design, of measuring program impacts. This effort was authorized by the Family Support Act of 1988 and is a unique public/private partnership that includes HHS, the Department of Labor, the Department of Agriculture, the Pew Charitable Trusts, the Ford Foundation, the AT&T Foundation, the McKnight Foundation, the Northwest Area Foundation and the Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation. Sample selection was completed in June of 1996. Implementation Report and Interim Impact Report will be released in January of 1998. The final report is due in FY 1999.
Linda Mellgren is the ASPE contact. The Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation is conducting this study.
Child Support Research Clearinghouse
ASPE and the Administration for Children and Families are supporting the National Child Support Enforcement Association (NCSEA) to develop an Internet-based child support research clearinghouse. The purpose of the clearinghouse is to develop a comprehensive list of child support research and evaluation studies in order to facilitate the dissemination of this information to policymakers, program managers and researchers.
The site will contain abstracts of commercially available articles, monographs and books and full-test copies of recent state and federal publications. This project is a collaborative effort between NCSEA, federal and state governments, universities, and foundations.
Linda Mellgren is the ASPE contact.
OCSE National Consumer Survey Design
This project, funded with the Office of Child Support Enforcement, will assess the feasibility of developing and conducting a nationally representative child support enforcement (CSE) customer service survey. Current information about the level of satisfaction fathers and mothers have with the CSE Program's service delivery is primarily anecdotal. While some researchers have interviewed custodial and non-custodial parents, and some major child support surveys ask questions about services, such accounts are not sufficient to enable policy makers to speak with confidence about appropriate means of improving CSE services from the perspective of the consumer. A nationally representative CSE survey, if shown to be feasible, would provide a method of measuring levels of satisfaction of custodial and non-custodial parents with the services of the CSE Program. This information would then be used to develop strategies to increase program responsiveness and performance, and tools for ongoing measurement of client satisfaction with program performance.
Nora Andrews is the ASPE contact.
Annual Report on the Well-being of Children and Youth
The report on Trends in the Well-being of Children and Youth was first published in 1996. It will be updated annually to both provide new data in areas already covered and to broaden the coverage of issues. In producing the 1997 report, the contractor has maintained a list of indicators that could be added by working with existing data sets. These indicators have not been included in the 1997 report because of funding limitations and the short production time frame. The Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics is creating a small working group that will advise the contractor on the availability and use of new material.
Chris Snow and Matt Stagner are the HHS contacts.
Evaluation of Family Preservation Services
This evaluation attempts to document the impacts of a variety of family preservation programs on children and families. Family preservation programs are defined to include (1) placement prevention services aimed at preventing children from entering substitute care and (2) broader family preservation services that may be less intensive and of longer duration than placement prevention services, and (3) reunification services to speed the return of children to their homes after entering substitute care. Measures of program success include prevention of placement of children into substitute care (for pre-placement services), successful reunification (for reunification services), reduction of the recurrence of child abuse and neglect, improved child psychological well-being, improved child behavior, and improved family functioning. A rigorous random assignment design is being used to assess differences between families who receive family preservation services and those who do not. The evaluation is underway in five sites: Kentucky (Louisville), Tennessee (Memphis), Pennsylvania (Philadelphia), New Jersey (eight counties), and New York (New York City). Field work is underway in all five sites. An interim report with initial findings will be produced in late 1997.
This evaluation is being conducted by Westat, Inc. Chapin Hall Center for Children at the University of Chicago and James Bell Associates are subcontractors.
Matt Stagner is the HHS contact.
Early Head Start Research and Evaluation Project-Father Studies Collaboration
The Early Head Start Research and Evaluation project is a longitudinal study of infants and toddlers in low-income families that will measure a broad range of outcomes, collect extensive information about programs and individual families experiences with them, and conduct state-of-the art analysis to link experience to outcomes. This project expands the EHSREP to collect information about and from fathers more directly. Because of its focus on infants and toddlers, the EHSREP Fathers Studies Collaboration provides a unique opportunity to add to our understanding of program interventions that affect fathering and on how fathers contribute to child well-being. Funding for the EHSREP is provides by the Administration of Children, Youth and Families, major funding for the Father Studies Collaboration is provided by the National Institute for Child and Human Development. The Father Studies Collaboration is being undertaken as part of the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Families Statistics' review and improvement of research and data collection on the role of fathers in families. Mathematica Policy Research, Inc. is the national EHSREP contractor.
Linda Mellgren is the ASPE contact.
The Science of Early Childhood Development
In the wake of widespread national attention to new research on early neurological development, it is critical that this evidence be placed in the context of other research on cognitive-linguistic and social-emotional development of young children, as well as into the context of later development. The implications of this research for parenting education, early intervention, professional training, and standards of practice across a range of early childhood services must also be carefully and clearly articulated. The National Academy of Sciences' Board on Children and Families is conducting a panel study to accomplish this work.
Martha Moorehouse is the HHS contact.
Adolescent Decision Making
Efforts to reduce teen marijuana use, smoking, and pregnancy are not new, but they are now being debated in a policy climate characterized by frustration at past attempts to address high-risk teen behavior and renewed efforts to take relatively strong actions to reduce these behaviors.
The role of decision-making processes in these interventions is a topic that has generated keen interest, as well as a substantial core of new research. This project will convene a January workshop and prepare a summary report to: (1) identify the major lessons learned from the last decade of research on adolescent decision making, particularly as they bear on efforts to reduce high-risk behavior among adolescents; (2) discuss the results of research on efforts to intervene in adolescent high-risk behaviors; and (3) discuss the implications of this research for alternative approaches to reducing high-risk behavior among the nation's youth, particularly in the areas of substance abuse and sexuality.
Elisa Koff is the HHS contact.
Family Impact Seminars on the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy
The Family Impact Seminar is planning a roundtable series on emerging issues in Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention. Each round table will bring together 30 to 50 expert participants from a variety of disciplines, including research, policy and program development, and service provision. While all of the roundtables cover issues for which ASPE has provided policy leadership, two of the round tables are especially compelling--involving males in teen pregnancy prevention and issues of sexual abuse and exploitation.
Linda Mellgren is the ASPE contact.
Teen Pregnancy Prevention and Partnerships
As part of the National Strategy to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, the goal of this contract is to further our knowledge about teen pregnancy prevention programs and the process of building and strengthening partnerships to reduce teen pregnancy and provide a positive future for youth.
Over the next year HHS will work with other federal agencies, regional federal staff, national organizations, and state and local public and private agencies through a series of working meetings to develop tools which will achieve this goal. This project will also provide information and tools to help communities on developing teen pregnancy prevention programs and partnerships.
Jeanine Smartt is the ASPE contact.
Community Change for Youth Development
Previous programs for at-risk youth have been designed around intensive short-term interventions centered on a single problem, e.g., dropping out of school, drug use, violence, teen pregnancy, gangs, etc. These intervention strategies often produce short term changes in behavior which quickly evaporate when the intervention ceases. This project, which is being undertaken by Public/Private Ventures, is intended to demonstrate the design and delivery of services for at-risk youth in diverse communities around a set of core concepts. The five core concepts include: adult support and guidance, work as a multipurpose tool, activities that fill critical gaps and facilitate transitions, individual involvement and peer influence, and continuity of care through adulthood. Six localities have been selected to participate: St. Petersburg, FL; Kansas City, MO; Savannah, GA; Boston, MA; New York City, NY; and Austin, TX.
Richard Silva is the HHS contact.
Preventing Abusive Intimate Relationships Among Adolescents
ASPE has awarded a contract to the Research Triangle Institute to conduct a research project on understanding and preventing abusive intimate relationships among adolescents. The project will run from October 1997 through January 1999. The project would examine the issue through a literature review, analysis of newly available data (from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, the National Survey of Family Growth and other surveys), identification of data needs, focused discussion groups, a summary of promising approaches to prevention and intervention, and recommendations for further research, policy and discussion.
Sandra Howard and Emily Novick are the ASPE contacts.
Teen Pregnancy Prevention Efforts Targeting Boys
This project will develop a research and policy information strategy to inform regional, state and local policy officials and community-based organizations serving children and youth of the program models, primarily directed at boys and young men, that can be implemented to help teenagers avoid premature sexual activity and unintended pregnancies. Project staff will review activities underway within HHS and outside of the federal government to collect information about pregnancy prevention activities targeted at boys and young men; meet with national, state and community leaders to determine information needs; develop information packets; and test strategies to get information to state and community decision makers in a timely and usable format. This project is an integral part of the National Strategy to Prevent Teen Pregnancy and the Administration's Fatherhood Initiative which promotes delaying fatherhood until a man is emotionally and financially ready and encourages fathers to take a more active role in providing support and guidance to their children. It is also being undertaken in collaboration with the activities of the nonprofit nonpartisan National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy. This project is jointly sponsored by the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE), the Office of Population Affairs (OPA); and the Agency for Health Care and Policy and Research (AHCPR). The Project Report will be available in October of 1998. This study is being conducted by the Urban Institute.
Linda Mellgren is the ASPE contact.
What Works for Youth - An Examination of Evaluations
Traditional youth programs address particular problem areas such as youth violence, pregnancy, substance abuse, and others. Until recently, the majority of youth programs were these more problem-focused interventions. We are now seeing a shift in approach as programs move towards a comprehensive, prevention oriented intervention model which focuses on youth development. The purpose of this project is to examine and summarize what we have learned from evaluations of programs designed for adolescents. In particular, the project will attempt to identify elements of positive youth development programs that appear to contribute to success. Specific objectives of this project include identifying key existing and current evaluations of youth programs; synthesizing the literature on methodological and practical issues in evaluating youth programs, including issues such as outcome definition and measurement, and determine what can be done to better evaluate existing and proposed models; and synthesizing the findings of the evaluations, especially those which utilize a youth development approach, including identifying similar components of successful programs and of programs that do not show positive effects.
Elisa Koff is the ASPE contact.
The study is being conducted by the Social Development Research Group at the University of Washington. A final report is expected in May 1998.
Abstinence based Teen Pregnancy Prevention Efforts Targeting Boys
The purpose of this project is to identify abstinence-based pregnancy prevention programs that target boys or both boys and girls; utilize a framework to assess and summarize the state of the field; and provide the information in a format useful to state, local and community policymakers. Adolescent pregnancy is a complex issue and understanding its causes, as well as effective prevention strategies, is still not well developed. Traditionally, adolescent pregnancy prevention research and programs have focused on adolescent girls. It is becoming increasingly clear, however, that adolescent boys and young men must share that focus.
At the same time, there has been a recent influx of funding for programs that use an abstinence based approach. The Office of Maternal and Child Health within HHS/HRSA is awarding $50 million for state block grant abstinence education programs. States and communities have shown interest in providing services and programs for boys and young men, but have also expressed frustration that they do not have access to information about what strategies have been tried, if they have been successful and how they can access funding for the development and operation of these programs. The product will be a final report identifying existing abstinence based teen pregnancy prevention efforts undertaken by youth organizations serving boys, target populations and results of any evaluation activities. It will include information on issues of approach, cost, target group, impact, community support, geography, race/ethnicity, and special needs. This project is an integral part of the Department's National Strategy to Prevent Teen Pregnancy and the Administration's Fatherhood Initiative. The contractor is the South Carolina State Policy Consortium.
Elisa Koff is the ASPE contact.
Updated 10/03/02