The National Partnership has an inspirational new video highlighting victories such as the Family and Medical Leave Act, the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, and the Civil Rights Act of 1991. "We're making more progress all the time, including the first-ever expansion of the FMLA; paid family leave for New Jersey workers; paid sick days for those in the District of Columbia and more," said the National Partnership.

This is an updated version of the 2007 Children's Bureau packet; it offers (1) guidance for service providers in exploring protective factors with families, (2) tipsheets in both English and Spanish, (3) ideas for engaging the community in strengthening families and other tools to prevent child abuse and neglect.

As a companion to its excellent toolkits, the Innovation Center offers strategies, lessons learned, and success stories of effective youth-adult partnerships working to strengthen communities across the country.

60 policymakers and numerous low-income constituents in Colorado, Iowa, Maryland, Minnesota, Ohio, Washington, and West Virginia are spending a month together "walking a mile" in each other's shoes to learn from one another about poverty, public policies and politics. It's part of the national Walk a Mile (WAM) project based in Seattle. Among the object lessons: policymakers will try to feed their family on the amount of money they would receive in food stamps for their family size.

What can every city and town do to strengthen families and improve outcomes for children and youth? The National League of Cities has the answer—its new City Platform details four essential tasks for strengthening families and improving outcomes: (1) identifying needs and priorities, (2) supporting city-school partnerships, (3) engaging young people and encouraging youth leadership, and (4) measuring gains over time. This action agenda includes a look at 21 promising opportunities for city action. Get you copy online or by contacting Michael Karpman at 202-626-3072 or karpman@nlc.org.

As part of the October 27, 2005 White House Conference on Youth, the Bush administration released a step-by-step guidebook for community groups to help disadvantaged young people overcome the challenges they face. The Web-based guide offers tips on getting Census data about your community, information on federally funded programs serving your youth, and up-to-date research on effective youth development policies and programs.

This Web site offers information and resources designed to help people who care about building an economy that allows all Americans the opportunity for stable jobs with adequate pay and benefits. It includes a toolkit for communication and advocacy around living wages.

This W.K. Kellogg Foundation guide helps nonprofits bolster community-based projects by connecting assets in their own organizations to those in their communities. Worksheets help organizations gauge their project's interaction with local residents and institutions, the local economy and resources outside the community. A sample community asset map is also included.

Young people are volunteering in record numbers—so why are they so politically disengaged? In January 2004, Wisconsin college students joined U.S. Representatives Tammy Baldwin and Mark Green to discuss the disconnect between service and politics. Students noted that, for example, working in a soup kitchen prepared them for service work, but it did not prepare them to advocate for policies to decrease homelessness. Students need more ways, in school and out, to engage in realistic political exercises and experience partisanship without advancing one side or the other. These and other findings appear in the CIRCLE Working Paper 27 "From the Horse's Mouth: A Dialogue Between Politicians and College Students."

This tool was created by the Forum for Youth Investment group to help young people and adults develop a common language for talking about how to improve schools.