CDC Announces New Manual: "Evaluation for Improvement: A Seven-Step Empowerment Evaluation Approach"

This manual is designed to help violence prevention organizations hire an empowerment evaluator who will assist them in building their evaluation capacity through a learn-by-doing process of evaluating their own strategies. It is for state and local leaders and staff members of organizations, coalitions, government agencies, and/or partnerships working to prevent violence. Some parts of the manual may also be useful to empowerment evaluators who work with these organizations. View, download or print at:  http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pub/evaluation_improvement.html

Child Abuse Drops Drastically in the US

A massive new federal study has shown a decrease in the number of incidents of serious child abuse, especially sexual abuse. Research shows that 553,000 children suffer from child abuse in 2005, which is down 26 percent from the 743,200 in 1993. Experts explained these findings by stating that the crackdown and awareness of child abuse is becoming more open in society. People aren't as afraid to say something and talk about abuse or get help for their problem.

The study was able to take off on the fact that over 10,000 "sentinels", such as child social workers, teachers, police officers and day care workers reported less abuse than before. The number of sexually abused children decreased 38 percent, the number of physically abused children decreased 15 percent, and the number of emotionally abused children fell 27 percent.
Experts try to explain this substantial decrease with a growing concern and public intolerance for child abuse. More people are less afraid to come forward if it is their family or someone they know. There has also been an increase in the number of programs and support lines for abusive parents and potential abusers.

The trend called the "troop surge" also led to this decline in abuse. Violent acts by parents are more punishable by the law and jail time is likely for any potential abusers. A greatly expanded use of medication has also helped in the decline of abuse. More and more parents are able to control their anger that otherwise would have been taken out on the child. With these medications being given more leniently, a growing number of parents are able to handle their problems in a calmer way and therefore leading to less physical and emotional strain.

New Resources

America's Families and Living Arrangements: 2007


OJJDP Strategic Planning Tool

Social Science Rising: A Tale of Evidence Shaping Public Policy

The Team Around The Child (TAC) and the Lead Professional: A Guide for Managers

The Team Around The Child (TAC) and the Lead Professional: A Guide for Practitioners

The Forgotten Fifth: Child Poverty in Rural America

Evidence-Based and Evidence-Informed Programs: Prevention Program Descriptions Classified by CBCAP Evidence-Based and Evidence-Informed Categories

Factors Influencing Child maltreatment Among Families Leaving Temporary Assistance to Needy Families

Policy and System Change: Creating a Successful Action Plan

Re-forming the Social Service Business Partnership: Setting out the Vision and Strategies for Reform

Financing and Budgeting Strategies

Setting a Community Agenda

Strategies to Achieve Results

The Data Difference: The Data User's Guide: Using Data for Better Decisions

What Works for Parent Involvement Programs for Children and Adolescents

Parents can play an important role in helping their children acquire or strengthen the behaviors and skills that promote physical and mental health and overall well-being. Two new Child Trends fact sheets synthesize the findings from evaluations of parent involvement programs for children ages 6-11 and adolescents ages 12-17. The authors identify the components and strategies associated with successful programs. What Works for Parent Involvement Programs for Children and What Works for Parent Involvement Programs for Adolescents.

Child Welfare Information Gateway Updates

In advance of National Child Abuse Prevention Month in April, several prevention-related areas of the Information Gateway website have been enhanced. In addition to updated resources throughout the Preventing Child Abuse & Neglect section, some of the major improvements you will notice on the website include:

Reorganized and updated content in the Evaluating Prevention Programs
http://www.childwelfare.gov/preventing/evaluating/

An updated Early Childhood and Child Care Services
http://www.childwelfare.gov/systemwide/service_array/earlychildhood/

An updated Respite Care Services
http://www.childwelfare.gov/systemwide/service_array/respite/

FRIENDS—the National Resource Center for Community-Based Child Abuse Prevention's Evidence-based Parenting Directory

This new directory can be downloaded from http://www.lapen.org/uploads/1FRIENDSappendixA.pdf

Additionally, FRIENDS has compiled a Program and Practice Matrix that shows how the different sites compare in ranking the same programs. This matrix can be downloaded at http://www.friendsnrc.org/download/eb_prog_direct.pdf beginning on page four.

What Works Wisconsin: Evidence-based Parenting Program Directory

This directory provides an overview of currently available evidence-based parenting programs, a subset of the larger body of evidence-based programs. It is intended to serve the needs of parent educators, family practitioners, program planners and others looking for effective programs to implement with parents and families. The directory is divided into three sections: section one focuses on parenting education/training for parents of children within a single age range; programs in section two include options for parenting education/training across multiple age ranges; and section three consists of multiple-component programs where one of the components is parenting education.

http://whatworks.uwex.edu/Pages/2parentsinprogrameb.html

Nurse Home Visitation Program Reduces Girls' Potential Criminality Later in Life

Girls whose mothers were visited at home by nurses during pregnancy and the children's infancy appear less likely to enter the criminal justice system by age 19, according to a report in the January issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

"Preventive interventions for parents of young children that improve parental competencies and the early learning environment of the child hold considerable promise as a means of reducing health and developmental problems across the life course and associated costs to government and society," the authors write as background information in the article. Home visitation services that focus on promoting a mother's health and teaching caregiving skills during pregnancy and infancy have received attention recently but have not been assessed over the long term.

Read more online at:  http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/01/100104161756.htm

When the Edge of Certainty is Close Enough

Compelling evidence of a causal link between food coloring and the aggravation of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in certain children has prompted a UK behavioral psychologist to invoke "the precautionary principle” and call for a ban.

Jim Stevenson, professor emeritus in Southampton University's Brain Behaviour Laboratory, likens the state of knowledge of the effects of E-number coloring to what was known about lead and children’s IQ in the 1980s.

In that case, a sequence of statistical adjustments to take into account "confounding social differences" reduced the effect size to 0.17 – a figure "at the margins of certainty".

Sir Michael Rutter announced in 1983: “A marked reduction in the level of environmental lead is likely to make an important difference to some children. Moreover it is important to recognize that a small change in mean IQ or average behavior of the population as a whole will have a much greater effect at the extremes of the distribution […]. Accordingly, actions to cut down the amount of lead pollution of the environment should be worthwhile; there is sufficient justification for action now”.

Action duly followed, Stevenson writes, and it turned out to be a prudent use of the precautionary principle. The current evidence on food colors was comparable and the effect size data similar, but hedged health warnings were the extent of the response.

He reviews the argument in the latest edition of the Journal of Children's Services.

Read more online at: http://preventionaction.org/research/when-edge-certainty-close-enough/5144

Program Evaluation: A Variety of Rigorous Methods Can Help Identify Effective Interventions

Some recent congressional initiatives seek to focus federal funds on interventions that have been found effective in randomized experiments. GAO was asked to examine the process used by the nonprofit Coalition for Evidence-Based Policy to identify interventions meeting such an evidence standard, as well as the types of interventions best suited to that method. GAO compared the Coalition's process to that used by six
federally supported efforts to identify effective interventions. The report addresses the conditions under which randomized experiments are or are not well-suited for assessing effectiveness, and describes several rigorous alternative methods. GAO concludes that requiring evidence from randomized studies will likely exclude many potentially effective practices and notes the role of other considerations in the
decision to adopt an intervention.

Read the report online at: http://www.gao.gov/Products/GAO-10-30

Parenting Education Program Feedback Survey

The Wisconsin Children’s Trust Fund has developed a Program Feedback Survey that grantees use after any parenting education program of more than 4 sessions (and with long-term home visiting participants). It is a retrospective pre-post design and the items relate to the short-term outcomes on our logic model for family resource centers. Materials can be downloaded here: http://wctf.state.wi.us/home/FRCEval.htm (scroll down to Participant outcomes – Parent Education and click on Program Feedback Survey)