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This bulletin profiles a program, Families and Schools Together (FAST), that brings at-risk children and their families together in multifamily groups to strengthen families and increase the likelihood that children will succeed at home, at school, and in the community. Drawing on research and family therapy, FAST builds protective factors for children and increases parent involvement with the family, other parents, the school, and the community. Families participate in an initial 8-week program, followed by 2 years of monthly meetings of a school-based group that provides a social support network. Evaluations have shown that FAST has a statistically significant positive impact on children and families. Communities in search of a school-based approach to interventions for at-risk children and families will find ideas in this bulletin. (Contains 5 tables, 2 figures, and 72 references.) (SLD)

Although progress has been made over the last 20 years, the burden of a low income in old age is still carried by unattached women. Few researchers, however, have examined exactly where the burden of poverty falls within the category of unattached older women or what the nature of this poverty is. Like any other group of older Canadians, unattached women are not a homogeneous population. The category of unattached includes the separated, divorced, widowed, and ever single, all of whom face different circumstances in old age because of differences over the life course. Using Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics (SLID) data, we examine income and sources of income from 1993 to 1999 to identify differences among these groups. The findings indicate that the separated and divorced are the poorest of all older unattached women in Canada. A key source of the difference is the differential growth in private pension incomes.