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- Federal Resources
Federal Resources
Share with Youth: Advice to Young Adults from Young Adults: Helpful Hints for Policy Change in the Mental Health System
This resource (PDF, 8 pages) can guide youth- and young adult-led organizations that want to make policy changes in the mental health system. Developed bythe Research and Training Center for Pathways to Positive Futures and Portland State University, it contains recommendations and quotes from a series of interviews with young adult leaders from advocacy groups that focus on mental health challenges or living in foster care.
Resource: Understanding Neurobiology of Psychological Trauma: Tips for Working with Transition-Age Youth
This resource (PDF, 8 pages), developed by Pathways Research and Training Center, introduces service providers to scientifically-informed findings about brain development and trauma specific to young adults, and describes the implications for trauma-informed interventions and trauma-informed engagement of young people in services.
Share with Youth: Changing the Rules: A Guide for Youth and Young Adults with Mental Health Conditions Who Want to Change Policy
This policy guide, developed by Pathways RTC (Research and Training Center), is written for youth- and young adult-led groups and organizations that want to make changes in policies related to mental health and other human services that affect them and other transition-age youth. The guide is intended for use by youth and young adults working together within a group or organization to make specific change, usually in partnership with other agencies, groups, or organizations.
ChooseMyPlate.gov
Choose my Plate offers personalized eating plans, interactive tools to help you plan and assess your food choices, and advice to help you make better choices.'
Stay Healthy at College With MyPlate On Campus
The MyPlate On Campus Initiative aims to spread healthy eating messages to college students to empower them to improve their eating and exercise habits and encourage their peers to do the same. MyPlate On Campus offers tools, such as a tracker that develops personalized nutrition and activity plans for users, and tip sheets on topics such as choosing healthy snacks and creative ways to exercise. Students interested in promoting wellness at their schools can become MyPlate On Campus Ambassadors and gain leadership experience while hosting fitness and healthy eating activities for their fellow students.
Resource: 2015 Behavior Risk Factor Surveillance Survey (BRFSS) Data
This resource includes 2015 BRFSS data and related information. The BRFSS is a state-based surveillance system that uses survey phone calls to collect information on risk behaviors, clinical preventive health practices, and health care access for adults 18 and older.
Report: Expenditures on Children by Families, 2015
This report presents the most recent estimates of expenditures by families on children annually across childhood and adolescence. The report indicates that a middle-income married-couple family will spend between $12,350 and $13,900 annually, or $233,610 from birth through age 17, on child-rearing expenses.
Academic Achievement Trajectories of Homeless and Highly Mobile Students: Resilience in the Context of Chronic and Acute Risk
As featured by the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness, the University of Minnesota released a study, Academic Achievement Trajectories of Homeless and Highly Mobile Students: Resilience in the Context of Chronic and Acute Risk, which examined academic achievement of students identified as homeless or highly mobile as compared with other students in the federal free meal program, reduced price meals, or neither. This study was partially federally funded by the National Institute of Mental Health and the National Science Foundation.
Framework For Evaluating Impact Of Informal Science Education Projects
Details the National Science Foundation's work to advance the informal science education field as a whole and provides an overview of impact evaluation and a look at some of the common issues,concerns, and opportunities in evaluation practice.
Beyond Looking Both Ways
This article describes a study funded by the National Science Foundation's Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences directorate, which is trying to understand the factors that put children at risk when crossing the street on a bike and on foot. The ultimate goal of the study is to provide information to parents that could help them when discussing safety with young children.
Civil Rights Guidance to K-12 Schools on Single-Sex Classes
Guidance from OCR advises schools on how to offer single-sex classes (PDF, 36 pages) while complying with Title IX. Presented in a question-and-answer format, the guidance addresses common scenarios that schools may face when designing single-sex programs.
Supporting the Success of Youth in Juvenile Justice Settings
On February 25, 2015, OCR and the Choice Program at UMBC partnered to host a symposium on supporting the education of young people in juvenile justice settings. At the event, young people who have had brushes with the law shared how the Choice Program is helping them to turn their lives around.
Report: Delivering Justice
This report (PDF, 44 pages) describes OCR’s efforts during the last year to protect students’ civil rights and increase educational equity. The report includes examples of OCR’s enforcement activities, highlights of notable cases, and the guidance documents OCR released in 2015.
Report: Sexual Victimization in Prisons, Jails, and Juvenile Correctional Facilities
This report (PDF, 97 pages) presents the findings of the Review Panel on Prison Rape. The Panel gathered information on the practices of selected correctional institutions that had either a low or a high prevalence of inmate sexual victimization and made recommendations that aim to help eliminate sexual victimization in prisons, jails, and juvenile correctional facilities.
Resource: Combatting Discrimination Against AANHPI and MASSA Students
This policy fact sheet (PDF, 1 page) supports educators and community leaders as they work to protect all students, including Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) and Muslim, Arab, Sikh, and South Asian (MASSA) students, from discrimination and to create safe and supportive learning environments.
Resource: Dear Colleague Letter on Gender Equity in Career and Technical Education
This Dear Colleague Letter (PDF, 17 pages) emphasizes that students, regardless of their sex, must have equal access to the range of career and technical programs offered. It also provides examples of how schools could fail to comply with these requirement and the actions they could take to remedy any violations.
Resource: Civil Rights of Students with ADHD
This guidance (PDF, 42 pages) clarifies the obligation of schools to provide students with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) with equal educational opportunity under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.
Resource: Protecting Students from Religious Discrimination
This website features federal resources regarding religious discrimination, as well as policy guidance and examples of OCR case resolutions involving religious discrimination claims.
Report: Securing Equal Educational Opportunity
This annual report (PDF, 44 pages) summarizes OCR’s compliance and enforcement activities in FY 2016. OCR received a record 16,270 complaint filings, resolved 8,625 cases, and initiated 13 proactive compliance reviews.
Resource: Parent and Educator Resource Guide to Section 504 in Public Elementary and Secondary Schools
This resource guide (PDF, 52 pages) summarizes key requirements of Section 504, the federal law that provides a broad spectrum of protections for students against discrimination on the basis of disability, and explains how Section 504 applies in various situations within public elementary and secondary schools. This guide can help members of the school community better understand Section 504 and assist parents of students with disabilities in ensuring their children secure all the services they are entitled to receive.
Resource: Restraint and Seclusion of Students with Disabilities
This Dear Colleague Letter (PDF, 124 pages) describes restraint and seclusion, and the limits federal civil rights laws impose on the use of these practices by public schools. This resource, and an accompanying question and answer document (PDF, 2 pages), can help schools and school districts understand how the use of restraint and seclusion may result in discrimination against students with disabilities.
Education: A Key Social Determinant
In response to data reflecting low graduation rates among some racial and ethnic minorities, the Institute for Research and Reform in Education developed First Things First (FTF) a comprehensive school reform initiative. FTF aims to engage students intellectually and emotionally in their schools through instructional improvement, small learning communities, and family and student advocacy systems. FTF is currently implemented in schools throughout the country, reaching over 60,000 students, and successfully increasing high school graduation rates.
21st Century Community Learning Centers
This program supports the creation of community learning centers that provide academic enrichment opportunities for children, particularly students who attend high-poverty and low performing schools. The program: helps students meet state and local student standards in core academic subjects, such as reading and math; offers students a broad array of enrichment activities that can complement their regular academic programs; and offers literacy and other educational services to the families of participating children.
Choice for Parents: Supplemental Educational Services
Information for parents regarding Supplemental Educational Services including, service providers, state contacts, pilot programs, information regarding No Child Left Behind, technical assistance, and additional resource links.
Comprehensive Centers Program
This program awards discretionary grants to establish comprehensive technical assistance centers to help low-performing schools and districts close achievement gaps and meet the goals of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. Awards have been given to Fifteen (15) Regional Centers to provide technical assistance to States within defined geographic boundaries; and Five (5) content focused centers to provide expert assistance to benefit States and districts nationwide on key issues related to the goals of NCLB.