Schools can be more than vibrant places for learning, they can also be year-round hubs
that connect families and communities to resources and services. This brief from the
National Human Services Assembly looks at schools that doing just that and outlines
what it would take to make school-linked services available in a greater number of
communities. For more great tools, check out the National Assembly's Family
Strengthening Center.

How can we improve the odds for young people? This Forum for Youth Investment Ready by
21 webinar examined the major child and youth development frameworks and offered
real-world experiences of how a coordinating a framework can improve youth programs and
policies -- and outcomes for children and youth.

This toolkit from Next Gen toolkit is designed to help organizations collect and use
local survey and focus group data about frontline youth workers to make the case for
investing in workforce development. The tools include a guide, survey and focus group
instruments, data entry and analysis worksheet and a sample presentation. (Find more
resources in the July 2008 Next Gen Bulletin, now online.)

To make positive change for kids, you need to know where things stand, what’s working and what needs to be improved. The annual KIDS COUNT Data Book offers both data and context for 10 indicators of child well-being—and drills down to a state and local level. This year’s essay offers a “roadmap for reform” in juvenile justice. CFK summer intern Maria Allen attended the June 2008 launch event in DC and has this overview.

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.

“Because I have a strong belief in the power of community action and citizen engagement in all areas of child well-being, I constantly comb major Websites and print publications for relevant Real People, Real Results stories to share with CFK readers,” writes Hershel Sarbin. A recent find in Casey Family Services Voices publication prompted his thoughts on how nonprofits can do a better job reaching a broad audience.

Tracking the reach and results of the work is a challenging task for many child and youth organizations. In our ongoing Scorecard series, CFK and Child Advocacy 360 highlight examples of organizations' efforts to measure impact and results. Here, Children's Rights, Inc., shares its follow-up to the groundbreaking Hitting the M.A.R.C. foster care reimbursement study.

A few months ago, in this column, Hershel Sarbin challenged child advocacy organizations to do a better job of showing Return on Investment from research and surveys on critical issues in child well being. Here's what he's found so far.

Hershel Sarbin writes: "It is my habit each month to search the sites devoted to child advocacy and child well-being in order to discover and report on Who’s Doing What That Works to make a difference in the lives of disadvantaged children. Whatever the organizational focus, I am always looking for 'The Scorecard'—concrete, specific data on outcomes." In this column, Hershel offers an excellent example of The Scorecard, from the Citizens' Committee for Children of New York, and why tracking performance can bring real results for organizations.

Because, on so many occasions during my Child Advocacy work in recent years—most recently as the founder and editor of the non profit Child Advocacy 360 News Network—I have witnessed such good research on children’s rights and child well-being, and such poor communication of the results, and such miserable follow up in leveraging the findings for the benefit of children that I have pledged to do my own “ What ever happened to….” research on this major area of underachievement, and report it in these blog-like writings. My challenge to Child advocacy researchers : Show us your battle plan post-press release and press notices. Show us the return on investment for children. It’s time for true accountability.