2005 HHS Poverty Guidelines
The poverty guidelines are the other version of the federal poverty measure. They are issued each year in the Federal Register by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The guidelines are a simplification of the poverty thresholds for use for administrative purposes — for instance, determining financial eligibility for certain federal programs.
2005 KIDS COUNT Databook by the Annie E Casey Foundation
KIDS COUNT is a national and state-by-state effort to track the status of children in the U.S. This site focuses on an interactive presentation of data from the annual Data Book, the signature product of the KIDS COUNT initiative.
"A Framework for Understanding Poverty"
This book provides a detailed analysis about the ways that social class functions work in our social system. It also provides step-by-step "how to" lesson plans and exercises for helping people learn middle-class skills.
Banking the Poor
"This paper calls for the transformation of financial services for the poor. Better access to financial services is critical for low-income persons seeking to enter the economic mainstream."
America's Neighbors: The Affordable Housing Crisis and the People it Affects
The true extent of the affordable housing crisis in America has not been made explicit because it is usually measured by the number of households that have housing problems. Households are composed of individual people. When all the people who live in households with housing problems are counted, we learn that the affordable housing crisis affects far more people than some other social problems that get more media and political attention.
A Manager's Guide to Communication
As a manager, you are on the front line of communication—about your organization, goals, strategy, personnel, national issues, and how your people turn their mission and strategy into practice every day. You are the person staff and members turn to in order to find out how the organization is doing, what the game plan is, and to get feedback on their own performance. A manager creates an environment in which communication either flourishes or dries up. In the most successful and effective organizations, communication flourishes—at all levels.
Child Trends: Guide to Effective Programs for Children and Youth
Over the past several years, Child Trends has built an extensive knowledge base about programs that "work" to enhance children's development. This Guide offers a way of presenting this knowledge in a user-friendly format for policy makers, program designers, and funders. Based on conversations with these groups, we have developed a visual representation of the stages of childhood and paired these stages with effective programs. This approach is built on the concept that child development is a cumulative process that begins before birth and continues into young adulthood. This "life course" model visually shows that varied program approaches can contribute to children's development, that different approaches are appropriate at different ages, and that developmental inputs build on one another over time, as a child grows. The model also illustrates that development unfolds over time and benefits from investment at all ages. Thus, there is no one "critical stage" where development is set.
Economy That Works
The information and resources on this site are designed to help people who care about building an economy that works for all Americans - one that provides profit to business owners and stable jobs with adequate pay and benefits to employees. All materials are based on extensive research that was conducted for a communications and technical assistance project called For An Economy That Works for All, funded by the Ford Foundation and coordinated by Douglas Gould & Co., Inc., a public interest communications firm.
Encouraging Job Advancement Among Low-Wage Workers: A New Approach
"Policymakers should therefore encourage better job placements for low earners as well as targeted training that is integrated with these placements. Policies to support the creation of more higher-wage jobs for the unskilled should be considered as well. Private labor market intermediaries can play important roles in both processes."
Engaging Employers to Benefit Low-Income Job Seekers: Lessons from the Jobs Initiative
The research also suggests that employers valued JI intermediaries for a distinctive role: reducing the perceived risks of hiring JI participants. In other words, these employers perceived JI clients (and other non-traditional hires) as business risks on account of variable attendance, inadequate customer service skills, etc., and they appreciated the intermediaries for reducing that risk to an acceptable level.
Guide for Peer Match Facilitators: A Companion to Help on the Way
A Unique and Detailed Technical Assistance Tool-Since 1995, as part of a broader effort to rely more intentionally on the direct experience of people working in the field, the Center for the Study of Social Policy (CSSP) has been working with several partners and funders to make peer matches available. Peer matches are structured opportunities for teams of people from different communities to learn from each other’s experiences. The process enables people to develop options for action that build community capacity to improve outcomes for neighborhoods, families and children.
Many Young Children Spend Long Hours in Child Care
Forty-two percent of children under age 5 with employed mothers spent at least 35 hours a week in child care in 2002. The proportion is even greater (50.6 percent) among children whose mothers worked full-time. These findings reinforce the important role that child care plays in the lives of America's youngest children.
Meeting the Collaboration Challenge: Developing Strategic Alliances Between Nonprofit Organizations and Businesses
Across the world, leaders of organizations from all three sectors increasingly recognize the necessity of leading beyond the walls by developing partnerships that thrive on the shared strengths of their participants. The value of productive alliances for building healthy, cohesive communities has long been clear to leaders of nonprofit social sector organizations. The challenges our society faces cannot be met -- nor our opportunities fully realized -- by any one organization or sector alone. Effective collaboration with other nonprofits, government agencies, and businesses is an imperative.
NASCSP ISSUE BRIEF- Discretion: How State CSBG Offices Utilize Discretionary Funds
The Community Services Block Grant, an anti-poverty program supported by the federal Department of Health and Human Services, funds operations of a state-administered network of local agencies that create, coordinate and deliver programs and services to low-income Americans. Of the funds allocated to each state, up to 5% may be designated as state discretionary funds and up to 5% may be used to administer the program. Application of discretionary and administrative funds must be in compliance with the CSBG statute and accomplish goals subject to the advancement of the capacity of the state and its eligible entities. These funds create an opportunity for states to engage in new initiative or expand upon current programs and systems in the state. This issue brief seeks to highlight some of the innovative and exemplary programs funded in part by state discretionary funds.
Promoting the Emotional Well-Being of Children and Families Policy Paper Series
"This series of policy papers is intended to be a wake-up call and to challenge communities all over the country to attend to the mental health needs of young children and their families," said Jane Knitzer, Ed.D., Deputy Director of NCCP and co-author of the series. "Our hope is that this research leads to efforts that prevent serious emotional and behavioral problems, repair problematic relationships, and help young children develop the emotional skills they need to succeed in school."
Public Attitudes Toward Low-Income Families and Children
With welfare reform still on the national policy agenda, it's important to understand public opinion toward low-income families and the policies designed to assist them. This attitudinal research suggests that support for social welfare spending is increased when poverty is framed as having a social, rather than individual cause.
Public Benefits: Easing Poverty and Ensuring Medical Coverage
By: The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities; " When individuals and families experience crises such as job loss, illness, disability, or divorce, they may face the prospect of falling into poverty (or becoming poorer) and losing health insurance coverage. Various government assistance programs are designed to lessen these hardships. These programs also provide support when families work but have low earnings and when people reach retirement age."
Reality Check: Poor Excuses How Neglecting Poverty Costs All Americans
Poor Excuses: How Neglecting Poverty Costs All Americans reveals that America's poor have been put in double jeopardy - with no new policies being enacted to help improve prospects for low-income households, while federal and state governments are cutting back some existing programs that assist poor families with housing, child care, and health care.
Schools, Community & Development: Erasing the Boundaries
Schools, Community and Development: Erasing the Boundaries describes the remarkable results of efforts in four neighborhoods in three cities to connect community-based revitalization initiatives with school reform programs in the same neighborhoods. In some of the most challenged communities in Baltimore, St. Louis and Atlanta, low income children, schools and neighborhoods are making real progress as a result of these coordinated approaches
The Crisis In America's Housing: Confronting Myths and Promoting a Balanced Housing Policy
By dispelling these myths, we hope that policymakers, journalists, foundations, housing developers, advocates and others will think about the housing debate in a more comprehensive, nuanced and constructive way. We hope that the information provided in this fact book increases understanding of America’s housing crisis and the need for a balanced housing policy, and spurs actions toward that goal.
The State of the Nation's Housing
"Not surprisingly, housing challenges are most severe among those at the bottom of the income distribution. Fully half of lowest-income households spend at least 50 percent of their incomes on housing. Severely cost-burdened households in the bottom quintile by expenditures have little left over to pay for other basic necessities, spending just $161 on average each month on food and $34 on healthcare (Figure 5). By comparison, households in the bottom expense quintile that devote less than 20 percent of their budgets to housing managed to spend $80 more a month on food and $49 more on healthcare on average."
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