Breadcrumb
- Federal Resources
Federal Resources
Caring for Our Children: National Health and Safety Performance Standards Guidelines for Early Care and Education Programs
These national standards represent the best evidence, expertise, and experience in the country on quality health and safety practices and policies that should be followed in today's early care and education settings. This is the fourth edition of this report (PDF; 626 pages).
Child Health USA
The Child Health USA Databook is an annual report of the health status, well-being and service needs of America's children and youth. Coalitions, program planners and policy makers can identify national trends by examining and comparing data from one year to the next. Indicators for youth, or adolescents, cover multiple issues, including childbearing, substance abuse, violence, mental health treatment, and mortality from traffic and firearms injuries. The section, Population Characteristics, provides information about poverty status and school dropouts. Each topic includes a written summary and at least one graph that clearly depicts key statistical facts.
Health Center Program Technical Assistance
This resource provides technical assistance to health centers. The Bureau of Primary Health Care has developed partnerships with state, regional and other national organizations to provide:
- Training and technical assistance on fiscal and program management
- Operational and administrative support
- Program development/analysis
- Primary care/clinical care development and operations
- Support to meet the needs of special populations
- Support to develop and implement health and other information technology systems
Health Resources and Services Administration
The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, is the primary Federal agency for improving access to health care services for people who are uninsured, isolated or medically vulnerable.
Maternal and Child Health Library
The MCH Library is a virtual guide to MCH information. It offers a combination of MCH information compiled by library staff and pathways to the best MCH information available on other Web sites, from organizations, and in libraries.
Resource: Rural HIV/AIDS Prevention and Treatment Toolkit
This toolkit describes evidence-based and promising models that span the HIV care continuum, as well as ideas for identifying and adapting interventions for people at risk for and living with HIV in rural communities. Developed by HRSA’s Rural Health Information Hub, this toolkit can help organizations in rural communities learn how to develop, implement, evaluate, and sustain rural HIV/AIDS programs.
Using MTSS to Support Student Well-being: Fact Sheets for Schools
Many schools and districts are turning to multi-tiered systems of support (MTSS)—a framework for implementing a cohesive set of evidence-based programs and practices—to promote students’ social, emotional, and mental health. This REL Northeast & Islands blog post highlights five fact sheet designed to support educators' use of MTSS. Topics cover:
- What are Multi-Tiered Systems of Supports?
- Meeting Social, Emotional, and Mental Health Needs with MTSS
- Data is Key to Taking an MTSS Approach
- Don't Forget about Educator Well-being
- MTSS Efforts Thrive When Equity is at the Core
Report: A Quarter Century of Changes in the Elementary and Secondary Teaching Force: From 1987 to 2012
This report illustrates changes in several key characteristics of the teaching force between the 1987-1988 and 2011-2012 school years, including the number of teachers, the level of teaching experience, and the racial/ethnic diversity of the teaching force. The report focuses on how these demographic changes varied across different types of teachers and schools.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
Report: National Survey of Teen Relationships and Intimate Violence
This report (PDF, 18 pages) by NORC at the University of Chicago describes a study that measured the nature and scope of teen dating violence, including who perpetrates such violence and who has been victimized. The study found that approximately two thirds of youth who were in a relationship, or had been in one in the past year, reported they had been victimized (69%) or perpetrated violence (63%).
Resource: Considering Family Context as an Important Element in the Prevention and Intervention of the Development of Teen Dating Violence
This article describes two NIJ-funded studies that highlight the importance of family context in the development of aggression and teen dating violence. Organizations that serve parents of high-risk youth can use this information to inform how they address mental health, marital conflict, and parenting skills.
Report: Predicting Intimate Partner Violence for At-Risk Young Adults and Their Romantic Partners
This report describes a study examining the developmental and familial pathways to intimate partner violence involvement in young adulthood and identified partner influences on intimate partner violence.
Promise Neighborhoods
To address the challenges faced by students living in communities of concentrated poverty, Promise Neighborhoods grantees and their partner organizations will plan to provide services from early learning to college and career, including programs to improve the health, safety, and stability of neighborhoods, and boost family engagement in student learning.
A Guide to Assessing Your Community’s Youth Gang Problem
An important facet to implementing OJJDP's Comprehensive Gang Model in a community is to first assess the youth gang problem. This assessment includes collecting quantitative and qualitative data from community representatives such as law enforcement, school faculty, youth, parents, community leaders, probation officers, gang members, grass roots organizations, and local government. Data collected includes the perception of the gang problem as well as what the community considers as priority needs such as tutoring, jobs training, increased police presence, and mentoring for youth.
Aftercare Services
This Bulletin examines aftercare services that provide youth with comprehensive health, mental health, education, family, and vocational services upon their release from the juvenile justice system.
Best Practices to Address Community Gang Problems: OJJDP's Comprehensive Gang Model
The Comprehensive Gang Model developed by the OJJDP focuses on community prevention and intervention in balance with law enforcement suppression activities. The model involves five strategies for responding to gang-involved youth and their families. These include community mobilization, opportunities provision, social intervention, suppression, organizational change and development. This brief discusses best practices for implementing the model.
Gender-Specific Programming
This resource page from the OJJDP provides a comprehensive summary about girls and delinquency and their involvement in the juvenile justice system. It also covers more in-depth information about how girls develop differently than boys, how this affects their experiences with the juvenile justice system, and why services need to be tailored to their needs. Evaluation of gender-specific programming has shown encouraging results in substance abuse and gang prevention programs for girls.