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- Federal Resources
Federal Resources
Children and Identity Theft
This resource from the Federal Trade Commission offers steps to help parents avoid, recognize, and repair the damage caused by child identity theft.
Frequently Asked Questions about the Children's Online Privacy Protection Rule
Understanding the requirements of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Rule has been simplified by the Federal Trade Commission through this set of frequently asked questions.
Heads Up! A Guide to Online Safety
This blog entry from the Federal Trade Commission illustrates the risks that young people encounter when communicating and socializing online and provides a few key questions for teens to ask themselves before posting to social networks.
Keeping Up with Kids’ Apps
This blog post from the Federal Trade Commission highlights a new infographic, titled “Keeping Up with Kids’ Apps” that can help parents as they make decisions about what apps their children should download.
Mobile Apps for Kids: Current Privacy Disclosures Are Disapointing
This report by the Federal Trade Commission, “Mobile Apps for Kids: Current Privacy Disclosures Are Disappointing,” reveals that mobile app developers and distributors are not providing information around what data is being collected when children use apps, and how this data is shared.
Net Cetera: Chatting with Kids About Being Online
The FTC developed “Net Cetera: Chatting with Kids About Being Online,” a booklet for parents, teachers, and other adults to use when having conversations with young people about online safety. Recent updates to the booklet include tips on using mobile apps and Wi-Fi, ways to recognize text message spam, and changes to the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act.
OnGuard Online
The Federal Trade Commission manages OnGuardOnline.gov, in partnership with other federal agencies. OnGuardOnline.gov is a partner in the Stop Think Connect campaign, led by the Department of Homeland Security, and part of the National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education, led by the National Institute of Standards and Technology. This is an educational website, providing educators, parents, kids, and others with information on online safety.
Resources on Children's Online Privacy
The Children's Online Privacy Protection Rule (COPPA) requires commercial website operators to get parental consent before collecting any personal information of kids under 13.
These Online High Schools Didn’t Make the Grade
FTC has charged companies known as “diploma mills” for selling fake high school diplomas that they promise can be used to apply for college and employment. Users may be dealing with a diploma mill if the company states that they charge a flat fee; can provide a diploma in months, weeks, or days; require little or no coursework; or can offer a degree solely for “work or life experience.”
Vital Signs: Demographic and Substance Use Trends Among Heroin Users — United States, 2002-2013
FDA and CDC analyzed data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health and National Vital Statistics System during 2002-2013 to assess trends in heroin use among demographic and particular substance-using groups. Results show that heroin use has increased significantly across most demographic groups. Results also suggest an increase in heroin abuse or dependence parallels the increase in heroin-related overdose deaths, and reflects heroin use is occurring in the context of broader poly-substance use.
Report: Frequency of Tobacco Use Among Middle and High School Students
Researchers from CDC and FDA analyzed data from the 2014 National Youth Tobacco Survey to determine how frequently middle school and high school students in the United States used cigarettes, e-cigarettes, cigars, and smokeless tobacco products. Among current users in high school, frequent use was most prevalent among smokeless tobacco users, followed by cigarette smokers, e-cigarette users, and cigar smokers. Among current users in middle school, frequent use was greatest among smokeless tobacco users, followed by cigarette smokers, cigar smokers, and e-cigarette users. Current use of two or more types of tobacco products was common.
Report: Flavored Tobacco Product Use Among Middle and High School Students
Researchers from CDC and FDA analyzed data from the 2014 National Youth Tobacco Survey to determine the prevalence of current use of flavored e-cigarette, hookah tobacco, cigar, pipe tobacco, or smokeless tobacco products, and menthol cigarettes among middle and high school students. An estimated 70% of all current youth tobacco users had used at least one flavored tobacco product in the past 30 days. Among current users, 63.3% used a flavored e-cigarette, 60.6% had used flavored hookah tobacco, and 63.5% had used a flavored cigar.
Share with Youth: This Free Life
This campaign aims to prevent and reduce tobacco use among lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) young adults, ages 18-24, who are occasional smokers. As highlighted in a recent blog post describing the campaign, LGBT young adults in the United States are nearly twice as likely to use tobacco as other young adults.
Resource: New Tobacco Product Regulations
These regulations extend FDA authority to regulate all tobacco products, including e-cigarettes, hookah, and cigars. According to the new rules, retailers will no longer be able to sell e-cigarettes, cigars, or other covered tobacco products to anyone under age 18 and all tobacco sales to those 26 and under will require photo identification.
Report: Tobacco Use Among Middle and High School Students — U.S., 2011–2016
This report analyzes data from the 2011–2016 National Youth Tobacco Surveys to determine recent patterns of current use of seven tobacco product types among U.S. middle and high school students. Decreases in cigarette and cigar use during 2011–2016 were offset by increases in hookah and e-cigarette use, resulting in no significant change in any tobacco use. In 2016, e-cigarettes remained the most commonly-used tobacco product among high school and middle school students.
Bullying, Sexual, and Dating Violence Trajectories From Early to Late Adolescence
This report describes a longitudinal study of 1,162 high school students that examined the impact of family abuse and conflict, self-reported delinquency, and peer delinquency on the development of bullying perpetration, sexual harassment perpetration, and teen dating violence perpetration.
Changing Lives: Prevention and Intervention to Reduce Serious Offending
This bulletin provides a review of effective early childhood, juvenile, and early adulthood programs that mitigate risk factors for delinquency and have demonstrated measurable impacts on offending (PDF, 8 pages). These programs are grouped by family, school, peers, and community, individual, and employment.
Changing Course: Preventing Gang Membership
The NIJ and CDC have jointly published a book that uses current research and evidence on youth gang involvement to form recommendations for policymakers on the effective use of taxpayer dollars in gang membership prevention. Each chapter includes an interview with a practitioner and highlighted policy implications.
Criminal Career Patterns
The National Institute of Justice and the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention developed the bulletin, "Criminal Career Patterns" as part of the Justice Research Series. This bulletin describes criminal career patterns in adolescence and adulthood.
Explanations for Offending
The National Institute of Justice and the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention developed the bulletin, "Explanation for Offending" as part of the Justice Research Series. This bulletin examines various developmental, biological, social, and psychological explanations for offending.
National Institute of Justice
NIJ is the research, development and evaluation agency of the U.S. Department of Justice and is dedicated to researching crime control and justice issues. NIJ provides objective, independent, evidence-based knowledge and tools to meet the challenges of crime and justice, particularly at the state and local levels.
Prediction and Risk/Needs Assessment
The National Institute of Justice and the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention developed the bulletin, "Prediction and Risk/Needs Assessment" as part of the Justice Research Series. This bulletin explores predictions of young adult crime from juvenile histories and assessments of risk, needs, and protective factors.
Teen Dating Violence: How Peers Can Affect Risk & Protective Factors
This brief (PDF, 24 pages) draws on NIJ-funded research, as well as broader literature, to illustrate the ways teens shape each other’s relationship experiences and decisions to enter and leave romantic relationships that turn violent.
Understanding Teen Dating Violence
In this interview, Dr. Peggy Giordano of Bowling Green State University describes her research on teen dating violence and how it changes over time. Dr. Giordana conducted a longitudinal study following 1,200 youth from age 13 into young adulthood and found conflict in key areas of a relationship can increase the risk of violence.
Child Trauma and its Effects: Implications for Police
This article describes child trauma and the negative impact it can have on development, and the implications this has for police, especially for those working in poor communities of color. The article also suggests police be trained on the high prevalence of severe childhood trauma in such communities, its effects on the developing child, and its impact on adolescent and adult functioning to increase their capacity to address this major public mental health issue.