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- Federal Resources
Federal Resources
National Center for Safe Routes to School
The National Center for Safe Routes to School assists states and communities in enabling and encouraging children to safely walk and bicycle to school. The National Center serves as the information clearinghouse for the federal Safe Routes to School program. The organization also provides technical support and resources and coordinates online registration efforts for U.S. Walk to School Day and facilitates worldwide promotion and participation.
Videos: Reminding Kids About Street Safety Ages 5-18
Pedestrian Safer Journey has created videos for multiple age groups that can help teach young people about pedestrian and bike safety. Each video is accompanied by a quiz or discussion and resources for educators. Access materials on pedestrian safety for ages 10-14 and 15-18 and resources on bike safety for ages 10-14 and 15-18.
Program Evaluation: A Variety of Rigorous Methods Can Help Identify Effective Interventions
This GAO report describes how program evaluations can help identify effective interventions.
Report: Access to Federal Financial Assistance for Homeless and Foster Youth
This report highlights obstacles faced by homeless youth and youth who have been in foster care in securing financial aid for college. The report includes six recommendations to improve access to financial assistance for these youth, including centralizing college information and considering legislative proposals to simplify federal requirements.
4-H Afterschool
4-H Afterschool is a special focused effort within the 4-H Youth Development Program that helps 4-H and other youth-serving organizations create and improve after-school programs in urban, suburban, and rural communities across the United States.
4-H Youth Development Program
The 4-H Youth Development Program is the only national organization that is federally mandated to conduct positive youth development programs. The program works to improve knowledge and skills of young people (their Heads, Hearts, Hands, and Health) and the quality of life in the communities in which they live.
Children, Youth, and Families at Risk
This site provides information on the state and community Children, Youth, and Families at Risk programs funded by the National Insitute of Food and Agriculture.
Children, Youth, and Families Education and Research Network
CYFERnet is a national network of Land Grant university faculty and county Extension educators working to support community-based educational programs for children, youth, parents and families. It provides program, evaluation and technology assistance for children, youth and family community-based programs and is funded as a joint project of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's NIFA and the Cooperative Extension System
Cooperative Extension System
The CES, administered by over 130 land grant universities and anchored in all 3,150 counties across the country, is a network of academically trained university faculty and staff who provide a broad array of staff training, curriculum, community collaboration building, evaluation, resource development, and other expertise and resources to out-of-school time programs.
Enhancing Program Performance with Logic Models
This course, from the University of Wisconsin Extension, provides a holistic approach to planning and evaluating education and outreach programs. It helps program practitioners use and apply logic models - a framework and way of thinking to help us improve our work and be accountable for results. You will learn what a logic model is and how to use one for planning, implementation, evaluation or communicating about your program.
Families, Youth, and Communities
This site provides resources on families, youth, and communities from Cooperative Extension experts around the country.
National 4-H Headquarters
National 4-H Headquarters, United States Department of Agriculture. 4-H is the largest youth organization in the United States for children and youth ages 5 to 19. Visit the Cooperative Extension Office near you to find a 4-H program in your community
National Institute of Food and Agriculture
The National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) advances knowledge for agriculture, the environment, human health and well-being, and communities by supporting research, education, and extension programs in the Land-Grant University System and other partner organizations. NIFA replaced the former Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service (CSREES), which had been in existence since 1994.
National Network for Child Care
NNCC unites the expertise of many of the nation's leading universities through the outreach system of Cooperative Extension. Our goal is to share knowledge about children and child care from the vast resources of the land grant universities with parents, professionals, practitioners, and the general public.
Program Evaluation Tip Sheets
These tip sheets, developed by Penn State Extension, are teaching tools that apply scientific and communication principles to an extension evaluation problem in the field.
The Revolution of Responsibility
4-H is encouraging young people to give a voice to the dedication and commitment they’ve shown in addressing challenges in their communities and creating lasting, positive change. Read the stories of 4-H youth who joined the Revolution of Responsibility by using creative ideas to address issues in their community.
USDA Announces Grants for Childhood Obesity Prevention Programs
USDA’s NIFA has announced the award of $9 million in grants, through the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI), to develop childhood obesity intervention programs through colleges and universities in 12 states and Puerto Rico. NIFA anticipates making $42 million available over the next five years for the AFRI Childhood Obesity Prevention Challenge Area.
Resource: Clearinghouse for Military Family Readiness
This clearinghouse helps providers identify, select, and implement evidence-based programs and practices to address wide-ranging family and mental health issues. The searchable database includes effective and promising intervention programs as well as resources and strategies to ensure the welfare of military families.
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.
Adolescent Literacy Research Network
The Adolescent Literacy Research Network is a partnership of The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) and the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Vocational and Adult Education (OVAE), and Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS), designed to support each agency's effort to enhance literacy and employment skills of young American adults.
Rural Education Resource Center
The Rural Education Resource Center is designed to disseminate information regarding research and practice to stakeholders on a wide range of topics of particular importance to schools and communities in rural America and to bring renewed attention to the problems and issues of students in rural schools.
Prevalence and Implementation Fidelity of Research-Based Prevention Programs in Public Schools
This report from the Study of the Implementation of Research-Based Programs to Prevent Youth Substance Abuse and School Crime offers the following information which can be applied to gang prevention efforts: collecting background information on substance abuse and school crime, identifying research-based programs and practices, using data collection instruments, developing implementation fidelity measures, and collecting, processing, and analyzing data.
Report: Advancing Diversity and Inclusion in Higher Education
This report (PDF, 94 pages) provides key data that illustrate the educational inequities and opportunity gaps that continue to exist for students of color and low-income students in accessing and completing a quality postsecondary education. It also highlights the Obama Administration’s efforts to promote diversity in institutions of higher education, and provides recommendations for states, colleges, and universities to promote higher education access and inclusion for all students.