|
What Challenges Are Boys Facing and What Opportunities Exist to Address Those Challenges? (Project)
|
Organization(s): JBS International
|
This project gathers and synthesizes statistics and research related to risks for boys across multiple domains, examines key trends in greater depth, and identifies successful interventions. The project (1) identifies and builds on past work done on boys; (2) gathers and synthesizes research and statistics related to risks for boys; and (3) looks for prevention and intervention programs that have been effective for boys. This project reviews and synthesizes existing literature on the risks for boys across multiple domains and successful interventions. Research on mortality and victimization; delinquency and violence; substance abuse; education; and positive youth activities are included. The literature review includes both material published in peer-reviewed journals and also reports prepared by state, local, and private sources, as well as in-house work by ASPE staff on issues for boys. This project enhances our understanding of risks for boys, and investigates differences by income, race/ethnicity, and gender to see which boys are most at risk. It also identifies promising interventions for boys. |
Completed;
Year Funded: 2007
|
| |
Adolescents in Multiple Service Systems and Their Transition to Adulthood (Project)
|
Organization(s): Child Trends
|
This project will examine the trajectories of adolescents with mental health needs as they transition to adulthood, paying particular attention to adolescents who have had contact with multiple service systems, including child welfare, juvenile justice, and runaway/homeless youth programs. The contractor will analyze multiple waves of data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health to investigate how multi-system service utilization and risky behaviors in youth relate to adult outcomes across a variety of domains, including education, employment, criminal activity, and non-marital childbearing. Analysis of this data and the corresponding final report will inform decisions surrounding the coordination of child and family service systems. |
Ongoing;
Year Funded: 2006
|
| |
Assessing Child Welfare Privatization Efforts (Project)
|
Organization(s): Pal-Tech
|
This project identified key issues and challenges surrounding the privatization of child welfare services, developed issue papers intended to assist state and local child welfare agencies consider how their initiatives will address these issues, and developed options for future research that will better inform future child welfare privatization efforts. Through targeted literature reviews, meetings, and conference calls with knowledgeable state and local officials, researchers, and others, information was gathered and synthesized in a series of papers on key topics. One paper concentrates on research gaps and identifies potential options to address them. Others lay out key choices and decision points in shifting from a public to a private system, and the implications and effects on clients as well as on both public and private agency roles and operations. |
Ongoing;
Year Funded: 2006
|
| |
Center for Research and Evaluation on Abstinence Education (Project)
|
Organization(s): Lewin Group
|
The purpose of this project is to develop a Center for Research and Evaluation on Abstinence Education that would build capacity for sound research related to program evaluation in the field. To ensure that program evaluation is useful and credible, the research should be sound, meaning that it employs widely-accepted scientific practices for sampling, measurement, design, analysis, and interpretation of findings in relation to the strengths and limitations of the design. The Center's activities will focus on assisting HHS grantees during the planning and initial implementation process as they prepare to track program outputs and outcomes, and conduct evaluations. ASPE has identified four priority areas of activities for the Center: a) conduct a needs assessment to identify gaps in abstinence education evaluation and technical assistance needs; b) develop materials on abstinence education evaluation; c) deliver technical assistance and capacity building activities related to program evaluation; and d) develop several research reports related to abstinence education. The proposed Center will work to link people and resources, with the goals of stimulating greater collaboration and quality implementation and outcome evaluation research of abstinence education programs. |
Ongoing;
Year Funded: 2006
|
| |
Child Welfare Fathers Follow-Up (Project)
|
Organization(s): Urban Institute
|
This project will fund the acquisition and analysis of administrative data regarding case outcomes for children included in ASPE's study of fathers' involvement in child welfare services and permanency planning, now nearing completion. Its intent is to understand whether caseworkers' success in identifying, locating and involving nonresident fathers (as reported in the April 2006 report What About the Dads?) is related to improved case outcomes for the children. The original study, which collected data through interviews with caseworkers in 2004, could not look at case outcomes because all the children were still in foster care at the time of the interviews. The contractor will include additional data at this time to look at case outcomes nearly two years after the baseline. All four states that participated in the original study (Arizona, Massachusetts, Minnesota and Tennessee) have agreed to provide administrative data for the follow-up. |
Completed;
Year Funded: 2006
|
| |
Educational and Social Outcomes Related to Sexual Activity with Older Partners (Project)
|
Organization(s): Office of Population Affairs (OPA), HHS
|
This project will examine the association between having sex at a young age with an older individual and outcomes in young adulthood. Among young people ages 15 to 24 in 2002, 13 percent of females and 5 percent of males reported that their first sexual experience occurred at age 15 or younger with an individual who was three or more years older ("statutory rape"). Child Trends has been selected to conduct analyses using the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health data set to further explore the risks associated with early sexual activity with older partners on educational outcomes, sexually transmitted infections and nonmarital childbearing, using a nationally representative data set that follows adolescents into adulthood. |
Ongoing;
Year Funded: 2006
|
| |
Information for Healthy Marriage Interventions (Project)
|
Organization(s): Mathematica Policy Research (MPR)
|
This two-part project will provide a more nationally representative picture of at-risk families that may access healthy marriage services, and will improve the Administration's ability to evaluate the expansion of these services under TANF reauthorization. This project first will analyze existing national data sets, such as the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY97) and the National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG), to characterize potential users of healthy marriage programs, assess how they differ from couples in the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing study (the authoritative data source on these issues), and consider implications for program development. Second, experts will identify which programmatic outcome measures can be replicated in existing data, assemble prototype measures into a national benchmark for key subpopulations, provide guidance on how to update and use the benchmark as programmatic results become available, discuss limitations of the benchmark and suggest data enhancements that would strengthen the benchmark. A set of briefs and user guide for comparing program outcomes to the benchmark will be developed. |
Completed;
Year Funded: 2006
|
| |
Relationship Strengths in Married Families: Effects of Marital Quality and Parent-Adolescent Relationships on Outcomes for Adolescents and Young Adults (Project)
|
Organization(s): NORC, subcontractor Child Trends
|
Available research suggests that the parent-adolescent relationship and parent marital quality are each important factors in adolescent development. This study extends upon this research by using nationally representative, longitudinal data, the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 1997 cohort (NLSY-97), to examine how parent marital quality and parent-adolescent relationships in married couple families influence a range of adolescent and youth well-being outcomes. The study also controls for a range of marital, family, adolescent and environmental characteristics in these analyses. The primary study hypothesis is that adolescents reporting high parent marital quality and positive relationships with both of their parents will have more positive mental health, physical health, substance use, sexual activity, religious activity, and education outcomes during late adolescence and young adulthood than adolescents reporting less positive marital and parent-adolescent relationships. An additional study hypothesis is that adolescents who experience poor parent marital quality and poor parent-adolescent relationship quality will have the poorest outcomes. The study uses latent class analysis to determine the marital relationship quality profiles and latent growth class analyses to determine the profiles for the parent-adolescent relationship. |
Ongoing;
Year Funded: 2006
|
| |
Study of HHS Programs Serving Human Trafficking Victims (Project)
|
Organization(s): Caliber, an ICF International Company, with a subcontractor, Advocates for Human Potential (AHP)
|
This project will develop information on how HHS programs are currently addressing the needs of victims of human trafficking, including domestic victims (i.e., citizens and legal permanent residents), with a priority focus on domestic youth. The project will provide in-depth and timely information to help HHS design and implement effective programs and services that help trafficking victims overcome the trauma and injuries they have suffered, to regain their dignity, and become self-sufficient. Components to the study include a comprehensive review of relevant literature, studies or data (published or unpublished) related to providing services to victims of human trafficking (including domestic victims); 9 site visits to geographic areas (e.g., counties) containing at least one HHS- or federally-funded program currently assisting victims of human trafficking; at least 3 Issue Briefs highlighting interesting, innovative and/or effective experiences, knowledge or information resulting from one or more of the site visits; and a Final Report providing a synthesis of all information obtained under the study. The Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), which manages HHS programs serving trafficking victims, is partially funding this study with ASPE. |
Ongoing;
Year Funded: 2006
|
| |
Support for Abstinence Education Program Evaluation (Project)
|
Organization(s): MPR
|
This project will provide additional resources to complete the existing Section 510 Evaluation of Abstinence Education Programs. This is a congressionally mandated evaluation of programs funded under Title V, section 510 of the Social Security Act. The impact study focuses on 5 targeted programs and is designed to follow a large sample of teens. Each of the 5 programs is being evaluated using an experimental design in which adolescents are assigned to receive either the program services or some alternative set of services. Study participants are being tracked longitudinally through surveys and, in several sites, school records. The FY2006 funds will support data collection activities to ensure an adequate sample size for the final report. |
Ongoing;
Year Funded: 2006
|
| |
|
|
|
Studies by Topic |
Studies by Program |
Studies by Population |
Studies by ASPE Office |
Advanced Search |
Full Text Search
|
