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Designed primarily for World Bank staff and their colleagues in borrowing countries, this paper summarizes why investment in human capital formation through early child development is worthwhile. Chapter 1 introduces the importance of early childhood programs, noting events that have given new visibility to children's issues at the international level. Chapter 2 presents scientific support, socioeconomic reasons, the intersecting needs of women and children, and the synergistic effects of health, nutrition, and stimulation on early childhood development, as rationale for investment in early childhood care and development. Chapter 3 seeks to determine which early childhood programs provide the most reliable outcomes, given the resource constraints of a developing country. It examines program options and programming experiences with projects both inside and outside the purview of the World Bank. Chapter 4 reviews the essential minimum inputs and approaches to packaging such projects. Policy formation and targeting at-risk populations are considered key elements in any early child development strategy. The next chapter suggests three kinds of actions that the World Bank can take: (1) undertake more projects on integrated early child development; (2) support sector work and policy dialogue to assess needs of integrated child services; and (3) fund research and evaluation. The concluding chapter notes that the Bank should increase its lending for early child development investments. The report's three appendices include evidence from developed and developing countries that supports the case for early childhood care, a summary of Bank-financed projects, and examples of projects packaged with different design approaches. (BAC)

This study suggests that court procedures in Illinois must improve to assure that more children are placed in permanent homes in a timely way. The University of Chicago's Chapin Hall Center for Children examined the timeliness of the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois' Child Protection Division in completing the sequence of hearings and adjudications necessary to achieve permanence (either through permanent placement or family reunification) for children who are abused or neglected. The analysis also identified practices and procedures that appear to influence the Court's ability to achieve timely permanence for children. The analysis found that although the Court is not, overall, in compliance with statutory timeliness guidelines, substantial progress has been made in improving compliance over the last few years and the improvement seems to be continuing. The analysis further found that the Court was not effective in moving toward permanent homes for children in a timely fashion once they have been placed in custody of the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services. Meeting statutory guidelines for timeliness was negatively associated with achieving a timely permanent placement. This negative association may be due to the small number of adoptions completed and the Court's tendency to delay cases where there is a perception that a return home is at all possible. (This document is relevant to the field of education in that permanent placement and family reunification are two strategies that can contribute to children's readiness to learn by increasing stability in their lives.) (JPB)

This report examines the determinants of child labor in conjunction with school participation trends for children ages 7-14 in Ghana. The report is based on data from national household surveys conducted 1987-92. Specifically, the study examined the influence of variables such as child age and sex; parent's education, religion, and employment; and place of residence (rural or urban) on child labor and participation in school. About 28 percent of children ages 7-14 in Ghana were involved in child labor. Child labor had a direct impact on school participation. During 1992 one of every three girls and one of every three boys did not attend school in urban Ghana, while 37 percent of girls and 28 percent of boys did not attend school in rural areas. However, of the 28 percent of children involved in child labor, more than two-thirds were involved in school. The majority of child labor in Africa, and especially in Ghana, is unpaid work and takes place in family agricultural enterprises. Data indicate that 90 percent of children in Ghana between the ages of 7-14 were involved in household chores. The study did not demonstrate that poverty is the main culprit in child labor; in contrast, poverty did affect the decision to school. The high cost of schooling and the low quality and weak relevance of education have pushed many children into work. Among family characteristics, father's education had a significant negative effect on child labor, particularly for girls. Increasing demand for schooling is an effective way of reducing child labor and ensuring that Ghana's human capital is stabilized. Appendices include definitions and descriptive statistics of variables. (Contains 31 references and 19 data tables and figures.) (LP)

Child labor, which is children's work that is exploitative and dangerous, poses a major human rights and socioeconomic challenge. Universal primary education may be the most effective instrument for meeting this challenge. The expansion of compulsory primary schooling could reduce hours of work by children and help them protect themselves against exploitation. This report on the relationship between education and child work contains the following chapters: (1) "Introduction," discussing how welfare activists see education as the best means of eliminating child labor; (2) "Schooling as a Deterrent to Child Labour"; (3) "Combining School and Work"; (4) "Economic Constraints against School Participation"; (5) "Social Causes in Child Work and Low School Participation"; (6) "Family Causes of Child Work and Low School Participation"; (7) "Discrepancies in Education between Rural and Urban Areas; (8) "Gender Differences in Education and Work," including levels of education participation, economic impact, and discrimination; (9) "The Responsibilities of Growing Up"; (10) "School as a Cause of Work," focusing on the shortage of funds for education, a critique of orthodox approaches, systemic problems, and teacher attitudes; (11) "The Educational Function of Work"; (12) "The Impact of Work on Education," including physical and mental health impacts; and (13) "Conclusion: Some Policy Implications Suggested by Research of Education and Work," asserting that genuine reform will be facilitated only by governmental commitment to increase resources to primary education and to support school reform measures--flexibility of scheduling and making curricula and teaching methods more suited for low-income children and families. (Contains 172 references.) (BGC)

This practicum report describes a project to improve safety and health conditions for state-licensed family child care homes. Since the family child care providers in the study area do not have to meet more than minimum state health and safety requirements, providers have limited knowledge of and need to improve health and safety standards in their family child care homes. Telephone surveys and interviews with state officials and providers documented the need for health and safety training, but no group had attempted to meet the need. A literature survey revealed that training would help strengthen the quality of family child care homes and improve the professionalism of providers. Six training workshops were offered to 20 providers on methods to improve health and safety and to deal with emergency/crisis situations. Workshops were supplemented with in-home technical assistance on health and safety. Topics covered were orientation, self-esteem, safety, creating healthy environments, professionalism, and rescue organization. A statewide rescue registration program was also organized. The projected outcomes of the practicum goal were: 15 of the 20 family child care providers would register their homes with local fire/rescue departments; 15 of the 20 family providers would improve the health and safety in their homes (as measured by a checklist); and 5 of the 20 providers would join a statewide rescue committee. At the conclusion, 14 providers had registered, 20 had satisfied the checklist, and 2 had joined the rescue committee. Three appendixes containing the rescue registration form and checklists are included. Contains 32 references. (TM)

A vast literature has examined the impact of family income on the health and development outcomes of children. One channel through which increased income may operate is an improvement in a family's ability to provide food, shelter, clothing, books, and other expenditure-related inputs to a child's development. In addition to this channel, many scholars have investigated the relationship between income and the psychological wellbeing of the family. By reducing stress and conflict, more income helps to foster an environment more conducive to healthy child development. In this paper, we exploit changes in child benefits in Canada to study these questions. Importantly, our approach allows us to make stronger causal inferences than has been possible with the existing, mostly correlational, evidence. Using variation in child benefits across province, time, and family type, we study outcomes spanning test scores, mental health, physical health, and deprivation measures. The findings suggest that child benefit programs in Canada had significant positive effects on test scores, as has been featured in the existing literature. However, we also find that several measures of both child and maternal mental health and well-being show marked improvement with higher child benefits. We find strong and interesting differences in the effects of benefits by sex of the child: benefits have stronger effects on educational outcomes and physical health for boys, and on mental health outcomes for girls. Our findings also provide some support for the hypothesis that income transfers operate through measures of family emotional well-being.

Counselors should begin to think not only of the needs of children involved in the process of their parents' divorce, but of an approach to marriage counseling as a whole. Children participate in the context of divorce as family members in the social interaction that makes a family work or not work; there are, therefore, various stages or points of intervention for counseling children through divorce. Yet research data show that children often are not included in divorce counseling; the fact that marital breakdown occurs in the family system of which childen are an active part, is most often ignored. Research on childrens' roles in family interaction and marital satisfaction from birth onward has shown that children are included in their parents' affairs and must be allowed to preserve those blood ties or at least to understand why their parents decided to sever the marriage bond that produced them. The Australian Family Law Act addressed this right of children in two ways: by specifically stating that the wishes of the child must be considered, as appropriate in the circumstances of the case, and by allowing separate representation of the child. Since 1976, the Family Law Act has provided a court counseling service which is directed toward the well-being of children and the elimination of court hearings. The Family Court has tried to recognize an active and valid role for the children of divorce. The challenge to marriage counselors is clear - children must be involved. Perhaps family counseling should be the name of the game. (MCF)

This paper presents a discussion of the effect of the physical environment on children receiving day care services. Various dimensions of the physical environment which may affect the well-being of infants, preschool and school age children in group or family day care settings are examined. The focus is on the overall well-being and development of children rather than on questions of health and safety. Included in the review are current practices in designing and licensing day care settings, recommendations intended to improve the quality of the day care environment, and current research evidence which suggests ways in which the Physical environment affects the behavior and development of children as well as the behavior of the adults involved in their care. Also included is a discussion of the usefulness of the Federal Interagency Day Care Requirements (FIDCR) as a means to control the quality of the physical environment in day care programs. These issues are examined under six major headings: indoor space, outdoor areas, play equipment, questions of organization and program, contextual constraints, and recommendations for changes in the FIDCR as they relate to the physical environment. (BD)

The goals of this position paper are: (1) to describe some specific roles the federal state and local governments can play in regard to child care standards and regulations and (2) to make some straightforward and down-to-earth suggestions, which should undergird national child care standards and regulations, as these relate to day care. Some of the issues addressed are legal aspects of standards, the work of the FIDCR appropriateness committee, the federal role of improving day care, resolutions of the Region VI child development task force, opinions on day care and social policy, the Texas day care study, and community level cooperation. (MS)

This paper reviews the history leading up to the presentation of the Comprehensive Child Development Act of 1971, its passage in Congress, and the reasons it was ultimately vetoed. The Act, commonly known as Mondale-Brademas, was designed to establish a comprehensive system of child care. The welfare situation was an important part of the history of the act, since child-care legislation would alleviate welfare problems by allowing mothers to work and by providing quality care for children. Another historical impact on the bill was the civil rights movement and the 1960's social clamor to provide services to disadvantaged minorities. The bill passed the senate hearings, but was intensely debated in the House of Representatives where it was amended (The Perkins Amendment). The amendment cut the minimum prime sponsor level from 100,000 to 10,000. It was backed by a coalition of liberals, those with a history in the categorical problems of the 1960's and those from rural states. At this point the bill lost the support of many who were in favor of comprehensive child care. President Richard Nixon vetoed the bill. Some of the reasons why the bill died included politics, power, funding, and morality issues. (Author/AM)

The Community and Early Childhood Education Project (of the Spafford Community Center in East Jerusalem) conducts a course which trains indigenous mothers to work as paraprofessional instructors of other indigenous mothers. The course includes both theoretical and practical material, and deals with two main areas. The first is a child's development and basic needs, including love, nutrition, and everyday care; phenomena such as fear and jealousy, and the importance of games and play are also discussed. The second area is the mother as an individual within the family, and her role within the family dynamics; the importance of her independence, self worth, and self esteem are stressed. Both these areas are presented in theoretical lectures which are followed by group work in which the trainee mothers participate in discussions, test their own feelings and behavior, and receive immediate, firsthand responses from the other trainees or a staff member. The rationale behind training and employing non-professional supervisors is that because they speak the same language and have the same cultural background as the supervised mothers, their involvement will help to increase client involvement in the project and change the self-images of the mothers through changing the mother-project relationship. (KH)

This country has long debated the question of how to design the welfare system, particularly the federally supported Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program which provides cash assistance to families headed primarily by female single parents. A pressing issue is whether welfare programs should continue to be broad entitlements or whether they should become "reciprocal obligations" whereby work or participation in an activity leading to work is required. Of particular concern in AFDC policy are questions about whether this aid reduces incentives for people to work and, thus, promotes dependency. Findings from a three-year evaluation of workfare programs in Arkansas, San Diego (California), Virginia, West Virginia, and Baltimore (Maryland) include the following: (1) it is feasible, under certain conditions and on the scale at which the demonstration programs were implemented, to tie the receipt of welfare to participation obligations; (2) a number of different ways of structuring and targeting programs will yield effective results; (3) in cases in which states chose to operate mandatory workfare, the interim results do not support the strongest claims of critics or advocates; and (4) programs led to relatively modest increases in employment, which in some cases translated into even smaller welfare savings, but, the changes were large enough to justify program costs. A table illustrating the key characteristics of state work/welfare initiatives and a table summarizing the impact of AFDC work/welfare programs are included. A list of 49 references is appended. (FMW)

The article gives details of all policy papers related to education published by the United Kingdom Government from 21 to 25 November, 2022. Topics discussed include "Call to Action to Ensure the Rights and Wellbeing of Children Born of Sexual Violence in Conflict;" "Action Plan: Small and Medium Sized Enterprises 2022-2025;" and "Digital Skills Divided: Technical provision for 16-to-19-year-olds."

Throughout its 79 year history, the Child Welfare League of America has advocated for public policies that benefit America's children and families. This report presents the League's 1999 legislative agenda, focusing on stopping child abuse and strengthening families. The position statement details four issues identified as top legislative priorities for the first session of the 106th Congress: (1) improvement and expansion of prevention and treatment for substance-involved families in child welfare; (2) increased resources for independent living preparation and support for older youths in foster care; (3) protection of youths in custody and increased support for prevention and effective intervention as part of juvenile justice legislation; and (4) increased opportunities for permanency for children waiting for homes by extending adoption assistance to more children with special needs. The report also discusses the federal budget surplus and presents proposals in the President's budget for investments for children and families. The major part of the report presents background and actions taken for each of the four top legislative priorities, plus recommendations to restore Title XX block grant funds for child protection, invest in quality child care, ensure health care for children, help young people to prevent or cope with early parenthood, and preserve fair housing protections for children and youth. Four appendices define key legislative terms, list members of key congressional committees, discuss priorities for voter registration, and delineate seven steps for advocating for the children's legislative agenda. (KB)

Exclusionary discipline practices differentially harm young children of color. As early childhood education systems seek to close these gaps to ensure all young children have access to high quality early learning experiences, the field requires more evidence-based approaches that can be scaled and replicated. Infant and early childhood mental health consultation (IECMHC) has been associated with lower rates of preschool expulsion; but the field lacks clear guidance on the essential elements of high quality IECMHC. Without such guidance, researchers cannot build a credible evidence base for the causal link between IECMHC and exclusionary discipline. An interdisciplinary research team, with support from the national Center for Excellence in IECMHC, led a consensus-building process to identify the essential activities of IECMHC as implemented across settings. The three-stage Delphi Process resulted in a list of five essential elements and 26 activities that define IECMHC and make concrete its emphasis on relationships and equity. This greater clarity around the activities of IECMHC can help inform future research and evaluation, as well as workforce and professional development. [This paper was published in "Early Childhood Research Quarterly" v66 p24-33 2024.]

The article gives details of all policy papers published by Government departments connected with education as of 17 to 21 February, 2020. It mentions about an overview of child protection legislation in England; and also mentions the effects of high-quality professional development on teachers and students.