A new Child Trends brief helps funders, administrators, and practitioners find evidence-based programs that may be appropriate for their target populations and communities. The Guide provides an overview of 22 resources and 12 searchable online databases that offer information on a range of evidence-based intervention programs.

The Campaign for Youth has developed a national strategy outlining opportunities for federal investment in disconnected youth. These two documents--the full strategy document and its accompanying executive summary--have been circulated to all 2008 presidential candidates.

A Collective Responsibility, A Collective Work: Supporting the Path to Positive Life Outcomes for Youth in Economically Distressed Communities by Rhonda Tsoi-A-Fatt. This paper presents a picture of risk and challenge for youth in distressed communities and outlines how these communities can band together to create a continuum of supportive activities to bolster youth’s success in school and life.

As youth grow and develop, individualized support and exposure to new experiences has a significant impact on their life trajectory. Youth in economically distressed communities deserve to have access to these types of opportunities, which are much more readily available to their peers in other communities. This investment in youth can have a positive effect on academic success, future life earnings, family stability, and the livelihood of the community.

This paper may be helpful in guiding a community’s thinking about how to get started in creating a sustainable support system for all of its youth.

CLASP facilitates the work of the Communities Collaborating to Reconnect Youth (CCRY) Network. The CCRY Network empowers communities to create effective, innovative partnerships among local youth-serving systems; and it promotes collaboration and peer-to-peer networking among communities across the country in order to share ideas, challenges, lessons, and best practices for reconnecting youth.

After weeks of debate, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee just passed legislation to transform our broken health care system. And the House of Representatives recently introduced a similar bill which will be debated in three key committees.

These are major steps forward for health care reform.

Both the Senate HELP Committee and House bills propose significant health care advances that would:

(1) End discriminatory practices by insurance companies that deny coverage to people based on pre-existing conditions, or charge higher rates because of gender or health status;
(2) Help make coverage more affordable by capping families' out-of-pocket costs and providing subsidies for low-income families; and
(3) Keep costs under control by getting more for our health care dollars, for example by rewarding doctors for quality (not quantity) of services provided.

We applaud this progress, but the fight continues. There is still a long way to go in both the Senate and the House!

The House is preparing to mark-up health reform legislation in all three committees with oversight over the issue and the Senate Finance Committee is releasing their draft this week or next. We are very concerned about the possibility of children being left worse off in the legislation and need to keep raising awareness about the important issues for children in health reform. We have drafted the following sign-on letter to the House and Senate.

If your organization would like to sign-on to this letter to the House and Senate, please reply to signon@firstfocus.net or contact Cate Hodgetts at catherineh@firstfocus.net if you have any questions or need additional information. Thanks so much for your consideration!!!

The Nonprofit Risk Management Center's 2009 Risk Management and Finance Summit is an educational event that draws nonprofit leaders from across the country who assist and support nonprofits. The Summit offers a time and place for nonprofit executives, managers and other leaders to network and discuss hot topics and trends that affect the governance and operations of their organizations. At the Summit a spotlight is focused on the topics of risk management, finance and human resources-three disciplines that play a significant role in creating and sustaining a firm foundation on which an effective nonprofit organization can deliver its mission. The Summit is an event for those who want to strengthen the foundations of their organizations, fine tune risk management practices, and thereby enable greater focus and resources to be devoted to mission fulfillment. Sunday to Tuesday, September 20-22, 2009, Austin, TX.

Last month the Section 8 Voucher Reform Act was introduced in the House. H.R. 3045 would streamline and make improvements to the Housing Choice Voucher program and authorize 150,000 new vouchers in fiscal year (FY) 2010.