This project of the Raising Resilient Children Foundation disseminates information to assist adults to raise, support, and develop stress hardy children. Among the resources available at this site are monthly newsletters from Dr. Sam Goldstein (at http://www.samgoldstein.com/) and Dr. Robert Brooks, a resiliency quiz, books and videos. Founded by Goldstein and Brooks, based upon a research proven framework for fostering resilence and hope in children.
Parenting
Circle of Security: Early Intervention Program for Parents and Children
Every once in a while I get a pleasant surprise. This web site is one of them. Psychotherapists at the Spokane, Washington Marycliff Institute and the University of Virginia spent most of the 1990s intensely studying emerging data on the importance of early childhood. By the mid-nineties they were applying their new understandings to experimental classes for young mothers and fathers in Spokane. The result is the Circle of Security Program, an early intervention program designed to alter the developmental pathway of parents and their young children.
The Circle of Security program has been designated an exemplary practice by National Head Start, has won a Washington State early childhood development governor’s award, and is being promoted as a model for early childhood education in the UK.
A series of seminars on the Circle of Security are being conducted in Arizona (Phoenix and Tucson), Oregon, Nevada (Las Vegas and Reno), and Washington in June, 2005. These are reasonably priced, one-day seminars and will earn participants continuing education credits.
There is a Baby Bonding video to watch and a 7 page pdf file, Changing the World, One Baby at a Time on the site home page.
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This web site provides tools for men so they can become better fathers and advocates for their daughters. Resources on this site include the Daughters newsletter, resource library, workshops and research.
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The Center for Improvement of Child Caring reviews in detail this comprehensive resource about what is known scientifically about being a parent in today’s challenging times. In hardcover the handbook is a five-volume set. It is also available on a single CD-ROM. Given the sheer size of the handbook, the price is not out of line.
The hand book covers:
 | Different types of parents – mothers, fathers, single, adolescent and adoptive parents. |
| Basic characteristics of parents – behaviors, knowledge, beliefs, and expectations about parenting. |
| Forces that shape parenting – how employment, social class, culture, and environment contribute to parenthood. |
| Problems faced by parents |
| Special circumstances of handicapped, unhappy marriage, or drug addiction |
| Practical concerns of parenting – how to talk to pediatricians, promote children’s health, foster social adjustment and cognitive competence, interact with schools, and mediate with children’s peers. |
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What We Know About Unmarried Parents
The Building Strong Families project presents this brief which summarizes information from the study about the characteristics and relationships patterns of unwed parents. It draws heavily on findings from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, a study that follows about 3,700 unmarried couples who gave birth between 1998 and 2000 in 20 large cities throughout the country. Contrary to what you might think, this study says most romantically involved unmarried parents are beyond their teen years. Almost three-quarters of the mothers, and even more of the fathers, are age 20 or older. 8 page pdf file.
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Leaving the Street: Young Fathers Move from Hustling to Legitimate Work
The Fathers at Work is an initiative designed to help low-income, noncustodial fathers secure a living-wage job, increase their involvement with their children and manage their child support obligations. It was launched in 2001 at six sites across the country in response to society’s increasing demand that poor, noncustodial fathers take responsibility for the financial well-being of their children. At the same time, recent studies have provided insight into the factors that make it difficult for low-income, noncustodial fathers to provide for their children. Research has largely dispelled the notion that they are uncaring, deadbeat dads.
This report from Public Private evaluates the program and makes recommendations for the program’s improvement. 50 page pdf file.
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The Center for the Improvement of Child Caring’s latest Effective Parenting Newsletter presents books and videos on raising teenagers, studies that confirm that teenagers still want and appreciate effective parenting, programs that help parents to be effective, and a program for teenage parents and their families.
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The Yale University School of the 21st Century has published a Resource Guide for Professionals Working with Immigrant Families. The guide is designed to translate the current research on young immigrant families into useful information for the professional who works with the immigrant population on a daily basis. 30 page pdf
An accompanying guide, for professionals to share with immigrant parents, provides information on child development, child care, and issues pertinent to immigrants. 12 page pdf.
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Party Mom Just Wanted to Be ‘Cool’
A Colorado mother has been accused of throwing parties for teens with sex, drugs, and alcohol and of having sexual contact with five teen boys. In court documents Silvia Johnson said she “was never popular with classmates in high school” and providing alcohol for teens at parties helped her feel “like one of the group.”
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Year 2004 Tax Benefits for Parents of Children with Learning Disabilities -- Brief summary of the most significant tax benefits for families with a child with a severe learning disability. ADHD, other physical, mental or emotional impairment may qualify.
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Parenting Classes Draw Parents Who Are Already Doing OK, but Want to Do Better
Parents across the country are signing up for parent education programs that offer instruction on everything from discipline and anger management to improving communication skills. Far fewer members of parenting classes are court-ordered than in the past. Students are people who are already very good parents who want to be better.
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The latest issue of Prevention Researcher is devoted exclusively to teen fathers. While you can read only the abstracts of the articles in this issue online, the issue also presents an extensive bibliography that ought to be handy for those of you engaged with this population. There are a number of articles on other subjects available to read in their entirety online.
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Free Parenting Tools
The Discovery Tool and Referral System, available for use on the Internet, consists of a series of age-specific questions that parents and others can employ to quickly identify a variety of learning, communication, motor skill, and behavioral problems that may have been overlooked.
According to the Center for the Improvement of Child Caring, close to 75% of the 3 million children under age 5 who have disabilities and other special needs are not being identified and treated before entering school. Parents and adult caregivers can use these tools to help identify whether a young child may have special needs that require professional education and to connect with a range of professionals, resources and education materials.
The CICC has also launched a free electronic newsletter, Effective Parenting, on how to raise healthier, more confident children. To sign up go to http://www.ciccparenting.org/ and click on “Add me.”
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Generation Meth – A Series About Young Women who are Meth Addicts
The Utah Deseret News ran a six-part series this past week on the downward spiral of methamphetamine abuse and its affects on primarily young women addicts. Meth use in Utah is overwhelming law enforcement, child welfare, and drug-abuse treatment centers. The series includes an appeal to the state legislature.
The series is 50 pages long and includes a very nice graphic the effects of meth, how it works, how it is produced, the cost of methamphetamines, and its side effects. Since I’ve already downloaded the entire series, I’ll make the same offer I’ve made before in these circumstances. Send me an email with your post office mailing address and I’ll send you a copy of the series.
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A Guide for Women Leaving Prison
Reuniting: Money, Family and You: A Guide for Women Leaving Prison is the end result of focus groups held with women under supervision and staff working with those women. It contains information for women still in prison; advice regarding re-entering the community, finding, and keep a job; locating affordable housing; access medical and legal benefits, and more. The manual is free from CWLA. It is not available online, but it can be ordered online, and you’ll have to pay shipping charges. The Child Welfare League of America is the site of the Federal Resource Center for Children of Prisoners
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Child Trends’ latest Research Brief takes a stab at this question. It examines the concept of healthy marriage and the elements that, taken together, help define it – such as commitment, marital satisfaction, and communication as well as two elements that pose obvious threats to marriage – violence and infidelity. 8 pages.
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Grandma and Grandpa Taking Care of the Kids
This Child Trends Research Brief looks at patterns of child care assistance provided by grandparents and the positives and negatives associated with it. Close to 47% of grandparents with young children living nearby reporting providing some type of child care assistance.
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An innovative program offered via an interactive CD-ROM or videotape that parents and children can use in their homes, in a neutral setting, or in a group session. The entire program takes about three hours. In it a series of scenarios depict common programs parents encounter and several possible ways to respond. SAMHSA and OJJDP have designated Parenting Wisely as a model program.
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The ARCH Center promotes respite services for families with children. Its online resources include a fact sheet on Respite Services for Families with Adolescents at Risk of Abuse or Neglect.
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| Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys – “Stereotypical notions of masculine toughness deny a boy his emotions and rob him of the chance to develop the full range of emotional resources.” |
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From the most recent issue of CWLA’s Children’s Voice magazine, this article describing three programs that are making a difference for caregivers and children. The article includes contact information for all three organizations and a section on keys to successful parenting programs.
| Parents as Teachers (PAT) begins teaching pregnant women what they need to know before they become parents. |
| The Parenting Project in Orange County, Calif., is offered by the Orange County Sheriff’s Office for parents who are struggling with difficult teenagers. |
| HIPPY (Home Instruction for Parents of Preschool Youngsters) is designed to prepare young children for school while preparing parents for a lifetime. |
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The Role of Fathers in Their Children’s Development
This issue of the American Humane publication Child Protection Leader (September 2003) looks at two recent studies on the importance of fathers in the lives of their children.
One study found the rate of child abuse in single-parent families nearly twice the rate of child-abuse in two-parent households and the other revealed that boys who grew up outside of intact marriages were, on average, more than twice as likely as other boys to end up in jail.
The article looks at fathers in the context of family group decision making, in the child welfare system, and profiles the National Center on Fathers and Families.
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The Parent ProjectThe parent Project is a 10 to 16 week parent training program designed specifically or parents of strong-willed or out-of-control adolescent children. The curriculum teaches concrete identification, prevention, and intervention strategies for the most destructive of adolescent behaviors (poor school attendance and performance, alcohol and other drug use, gangs, runaways, and violent teens).
Parents attend and learn in a classroom setting presented by schools, police and probation departments, mental health agencies, churches and other community-based organizations. Classes are led by trained facilitators. Click on the link above for more information and brief video presentations that will tell you more about this program.
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The Down to Earth Dad organization's web site includes a section on the Dads Matter! project. This project is in place in several Head Start and Early Head Start programs across the country. Dads Matter! recruits fathers, grandfathers, and other good men to become more meaningfully involved in the lives of the children in these programs. The project doubles as a parent education resource for dads, moms, and community partners linked to the program. The Standing Rock Dads Matter! Project, for instance, is in place in the Great Sioux Nation Standing Rock Head Start Program in North Dakota.
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Teen Fatherhood Programs
I did some research on teen fatherhood programs this week. Here are some of the links I found on the Internet:
| National Fatherhood Initiative
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| Young Fathers Program – Camden , Maine |
| A Resource Guide for Best Practices for Teen Father Programs
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| The Connecticut Teen Fathers Program
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| Working Paper - Fatherwork in the Crossfire: Chicano Teen Fathers Struggling to “Take Care of Business* |
| Minority Teenage Fathers: Rights and Responsibilities – Course curriculum designed to be used within high school American History and Language Arts classes |
| Teenage Fatherhood and Delinquent Behavior – OJJDP Juvenile Justice Bulletin |
| Teen Fathers – bibliography of publications about teen fathers. |
*This paper is a product of the Julian Samora Research Institute. If you have any interest in Latino issues take a look at the publications and research at this web site.
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A Cautionary Note about Semester Abroad Programs
The Christian Science Monitor reports about American students studying abroad who have been killed or injured. The article profiles the determined search of a Kansas mother for the killers of her daughter who was murdered while living with a host family in Costa Rica while studying in a university study abroad program.
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Home tests for paternity require genetic samples from the suspected father and the child. The kits come with buccal swabs, which look like oversized Q-tips. Parent and child each swirl a swab in the mouth to collect cells and put the samples in separate envelopes. The cost may vary from $175 to $500, depending upon the company, the test, and the lab’s credentials. Customers need not give their real names.
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Barriers Facing Parents with Criminal RecordsThis downloadable pdf file is a series of eight fact sheets compiled by CLASP (Center for Law and Social Policy). The fact sheets address problems and barriers encountered by parents with criminal records as they attempt to find work, access social services and education, meet child support obligations and a variety of other issues.
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Listening Dads are ChampsThis program from SAMHSA and the Baltimore Ravens promotes active fathering. It is part of the 15+ Make Time to Listen, Make Time to Talk parenting initiative. Recent research points out that fathers who are involved with their children do bettering school and have lower levels of delinquency. So, why is it that while teenagers watch an average of 21 hours of television per week, they spend only 35 minutes per week talking with their fathers?
At this site you can download Ravens Conservation Starter Cards and a Resource List of local and national fatherhood organizations.
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All about Fathers
Here are three reports from the Annie E. Casey Foundation about fathers, fathering programs, and fathering initiatives. All three are available both in hard copy and as downloadable pdf files at the link above.
| Making Fathers Count: Assessing the progress of Responsible Fatherhood Efforts – Provides an overview of father involvement efforts over the past quarter century. Examines current challenges facing practitioners and advocates in the fatherhood field.
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| Low-Income Fathers and Child Support: Starting Off on the Right Track – Describes how the current system fails to positively engage fathers early, thus missing a key opportunity to get dads off to a good start on supporting their children, both emotionally and financially.
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| Restoring Fathers to Families and Communities: Six Steps for Policymakers – Information for state and local officials about what they can do legislatively and administratively to help fathers help their children. Each step includes a menu of policy options and provides details on what states, communities, and nonprofits nationwide are already doing to promote responsible fatherhood.
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Collaborative Divorce
A Brevity reader has brought this exciting new concept to my attention. There are, I am told, two approaches to collaborative divorce: one that uses only lawyers, and a second and faster growing approach that incorporates lawyers, mental health professionals (for parents and children) and financial specialists who work together with the parties under an agreement that no one will use the court system.
If you’re interested in talking about collaborative divorce with someone who has experience with and is enthusiastic about it, let me know and I’ll put you in touch. Here are three sites on collaborative divorce to look at:
| Collaborative Law
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| International Academy of Collaborative Professionals of Collaborative Professionals
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| Rapides Parish , Louisiana , District Court
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Girl Scouts Behind Bars
This is a Christian Science Monitor on a girl scouting program conducted within the walls of the prison for the daughters of women confined in the York Correctional Institution in Niantic, Conn. The first such program began in Baltimore 11 years ago. There are now 29 girl scout programs in prisons in 23 states. In this program every two weeks mothers and daughters spend two hours working on projects and chatting leisurely. They learn and reinforce positive values together. They can reconnect, or connect for the first time.
At the end of this article you will find a telephone number for more information about the Girl Scouts Behind Bars program.
Click here to read download a NIJ Program Focus Report - Keeping Incarcerated Mothers and Their Daughters Together: Girl Scouts Beyond Bars was published in 1995.++++++++++
ABA Guide to Family Law
This book addresses the rights and responsibilities of people who are married, divorced, or living together. It contains twelve chapters covering family issues. They range from prenuptial agreements to adoption, divorce, child support and custody and visitation. Each of the 12 chapters is a pdf file you can read and download. Intended for the general public and written in non-legalese.
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The National Center for Fathering
Strengthening Families by Strengthening FathersThis site has everything – tips on fathering, humor (be sure to read one of Ken Swarner’s columns), articles, research – a 1999 poll commissioned by the National Center on Fathering found:
| 80 percent of fathers have helped their children with homework.
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| 58 percent of fathers have never volunteered at their children’s schools and
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| 52 percent have never taken their children to school.
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Parenthood: A Statistical Portrait of Fathers and Mothers in America
Child Trends has just released this new report which presents comparable data for mothers and fathers. Topics include parenting practices, activities with children, child care, parents and schools, custody arrangements and nonresident parents, marriage, divorce and cohabitation, and sexual activity and contraception.
You can either purchase a hard copy of the report at the site (See "Fatherhood") or download the pdf version. Since the report is 220 pages in length I downloaded pages 14 through 20 to get a feel for its contents. Here’s a bit of what I got in the download:
· Most fathers who live with their children participate regularly in some kind of leisure or play activity with them. While mothers are more likely to do “quiet” activities (reading a book or doing a puzzle, for example), fathers are more likely to play an outdoor game or sports activity.
· Men are much more likely than women to believe that two parents are more effective at raising children than one parent alone.
· More than one in five young children in two-parent families have their father as the primary caregiver when the mother is at work, attending school, or looking for work.
· While 40 percent of children whose fathers live outside the home have no contact with them, the other 60 percent had contact an average of 69 days last year.
If you’re doing any kind of writing that may require statistical information in detail on the American family, this strikes me as a particularly good publication to have on hand