The diverse composition of American families and changing ways of raising our children have become subjects of intense scrutiny by researchers and policymakers in recent years. Shifting demographics and work patterns, growing numbers of women in the work force, teenage pregnancy, single-parent families, and the deinstitutionalization of the elderly, disabled, and mentally ill--all these trends have significantly affected family life. Evaluating Family Programs effectively bridges the gap between researchers and practitioners in order to bring practical, understandable advice to providers of family programs and to program funders and policymakers. Heather B. Weiss and Francine H. Jacobs have collected in this volume works which move outside the traditional approaches of their disciplines to create new models for delivering and evaluating services. This sets a mood of genuine inquiry and excitement about successful aspects of programs while maintaining openness about the limitations of both research and practice. By expanding the research model, this work is an attempt to understand reciprocal influences of extended family, culture, community, and social institutions. It urges those who advocate program accountability to understand that not all types of evaluations are appropriate for all programs, and it notes that limitations in current evaluation technologies make it difficult to evaluate outcomes. Evaluating Family Programs reminds the reader that in order to develop sound family policy we must look at children and families in context. Beacuse policymakers, program administrators, and informed citizens have come to rely more upon the results of evaluation research, we must improve our methods while not losing sight of its limitations. It is a thought-provoking contribution to the efforts of those who seek to support the American family with compassion, understanding, and realism. Heather B. Weiss is the founder and director of Harvard Family Research Project and a senior research associate at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She is an advisor to numerous foundations on strategic grant-making and serves on the advisory board of numerous organizations. Francine H. Jacobs is associate professor in the department of child development and associate professor of urban and environmental policy and planning at Tufts University. She is the author of Evaluating Family Preservation Services: A Guide for State Administrators (with J. Kapuscik).
Provides a comprehensive training framework to guide educators in their efforts to improve teacher training in the critical area of family involvement. Includes illustrations of the framework as applied by a number of colleges and univ. Highlights a range of methods to help student teachers develop communication, problem-solving, and collaboration skills and illustrate the opportunities to develop hands-on training with families, schools, and community institutions. Lays out steps that educators, policymakers, and prof'l. org's. can take to ensure that new teachers are prepared to build partnerships with families and communities to promote children's school success.
This document provides a historical framework for better understanding the emergence of community-based family support and education (CBFSE) programs, their place within the larger service delivery system, and their potential for meeting the needs of children and families living in poverty. The paper is organized into five sections. The first section outlines the core characteristics and underlying premises of the movement. The second section traces a history of CBFSE programs from the early nineteenth century to the present, including an examination of the continuities and discontinuities in underlying purposes and assumptions, social forces stimulating intervention efforts, and approaches to working with families. The third section focuses on the evolution of program evaluation in the field from the late 1960s to the present, approaches to research design and measurement, interpretation of data from selected studies, and current evaluation issues. The fourth section examines emerging patterns of organization and institutionalization among CBFSE programs, patterns of sponsorship and funding, states that are attempting to develop coherent strategies for program development, and related issues. The fifth section outlines the major policy, programmatic, and research issues for upcoming years. Includes 172 references. (JB)
Preparing Educators to Engage Families: Case Studies Using an Ecological Systems Framework, Second Edition encourages readers to hone their analytic and problem-solving skills for use in real-world situations with students and their families. Organized according to Ecological Systems Theory (of the micro, meso, exo, macro, and chrono systems), the text presents research-based teaching cases that reflect critical dilemmas in family-school-community relations, especially among families for whom poverty and cultural differences are daily realities.
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