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In this issue:

Model Programs for At-Risk Children

A New Vision--"Within Our Reach"

WITHIN OUR REACH: Breaking the Cycle of Disadvantage is an important new book that looks at programs for children, and says we have the information we need to improve the lives of poor children. It is both an important argument for government action for disadvantaged children and a new vision of how to create workable programs. Written by Lisbeth Schorr with Daniel Schorr, this careful examination of model programs for children looks both at why they work and how they can realistically become a part of the system.

"The more I looked, the clearer it became that in the last two decades we have accumulated a critical mass of information that totally transforms the nation's capacity to improve outcomes for vulnerable children", Schorr writes. "The knowledge necessary to reduce the growing toll of damaged 'lives is now available. But many administrators, academics, practitioners, and public policy analysts are not aware of newly emerging insights, especially from outside their own fields."

In assessing current knowledge about programs for children, and how that information is used, she writes: "As I read academic journals and government reports, learned the results of new studies which had followed children's development from earliest infancy to adulthood and talked with researchers and the people who work on the front lines with families in trouble, I was astonished to find how much we knew. And I was dismayed at how little of this knowledge was being utilized to change the prospects for the children growing up in the shadows, the children most at risk."

The Gap Between Knowledge and Action

"Part of this gap between knowledge and action springs from traditions which segregate bodies of information by professional, academic, political, and bureaucratic boundaries. Complex, intertwined problems are sliced into manageable but trivial parts. Efforts to reduce juvenile delinquency operate in isolation from programs to prevent early childbearing or school failure. Academics burrow for what remains unknown but often fail to herald what is known. Evaluators assess the impact of narrowly defined services and effects of a broad combination of interventions. Successes achieved by health centers, schools and family service agencies have common characteristics which form patterns that are rarely perceived."

Risk Factors in Childhood Equals Rotten Outcomes in Later Life

Schorr argues that social policies for children could reduce the rotten outcomes in adolescence-committing a violent crime, leaving school uneducated, teenage childbearing, and "damage that reaches into the next generation." She points out that we have evidence, that a combination of multiple risk factors produces lasting damage in children's lives. A single risk factor alone, however, such as low birth weight, may not. With this increased knowledge, we should focus our efforts less on "correcting" a certain problem, and more on reducing the many risk factors in poor children's lives.

Four Major Contributions to Our Thinking

According to developmental psychologist Sheldon White of Harvard University, Within Our Reach makes four substantial contributions to our thinking:

1. It clarifies and supports with solid research ideas about disadvantage, poverty, and goals of social action.
2. It describes the special characteristics of 20 or 30 programs that have worked.
3. It suggests reasonable steps for creating more such programs, and
4. It reconciles research findings, administrative considerations, and advocacy in a way that is rare in discussions about policymaking for children.

Programs that Work

The programs "that work" in improving prenatal care, in providing health care and early education to young children, in reducing teen pregnancies, and in improving parenting skills are ALL demonstration programs. The programs share certain characteristics. They are small, flexible and interdisciplinary. They pursue clients problems across professional and bureaucratic boundaries. They look at a child's functioning in the context of what is happening in his or her family, and the family's functioning in the context of its surrounding community.

Model Programs in the Real World...

The problems of replicating model demonstration programs on a larger scale are well known. Such programs are usually comprehensive and expensive. In the face of bureaucratic and political realities, model programs often are "diluted" by cutting specific aspects in the hope of making the programs more affordable. Often, it is the combination of services that makes a program work, and removing one key component lessens its effectiveness. In addition, the programs may cut across bureaucratic and jurisdictional boundaries, and require an unusual degree of interagency cooperation and commitment. Schorr indicates that "rearranging" existing programs or agencies can be more difficult sometimes than creating entirely new ones, because of bureaucracy and "turf guarding".

She believes that whether or not such programs can be replicated exactly, they are useful in that they provide a glimpse of what can be achieved, and suggest what factors make programs effective. In addition, they can provide beginning points for modifications of the larger system that might allow more such programs to exist.

Schorr has a special interest and expertise in health programs, and says that the best programs cannot survive within the existing health care system. She discusses larger scale changes in the health care system that might bring service to poor children and their families.

Building on Successful Programs

Schorr describes six challenges that will have to be met in order to build on successful programs. These are

1. Knowing what works
2. Proving we can afford it
3. Attracting and training enough skilled and committed personnel
4. Resisting the lure of replication through dilution
5. Gentling the heavy hand of bureaucracy, and
6. Devising a variety of replication strategies.

A Valuable Resource...That Asks the Right Questions

A careful, thorough examination of programs and policy, Schorr calls upon an impressive base of data. (The book's supporting notes, bibliography are more than 100 pages, providing a valuable resource for those seeking more information.) But this is not a dry academic book that "has all the answers". Rather, it is the book of an informed, politically astute advocate who is beginning to ask the right questions. As Dr. White says, "There is vision in this book, and there is a realistic understanding of the political and administrative issues to be met in moving toward that vision."

Excerpted from Dr. Sheldon White's review in the November 1988 Young Children Within Our Reach is available in the Legislative Reference Library

Fact Find is published by the Center for Early Education and Development (CEED), University of Minnesota, 1954 Buford Avenue, Suite 425, St. Paul, MN, 55108

ceed@umn.edu (email)
http://cehd.umn.edu/ceed (Web)

CEED provides information regarding young children (birth to age eight), including children with special needs, in the areas of education, child care, child development, and family education. CEED activities include research, training, and publications geared toward improving professional practices, supporting parents, and informing policy development.

The University of Minnesota is an equal opportunity employer and educator. The College of Education and Human Development is committed to recruiting, enrolling, and education a diverse population of students who represent the overall composition of our society. This publication is available in alternate formats upon request.

Copyright © 2004 by Center for Early Education and Development

These materials may be freely reproduced for education/training or related activities. There is no requirement to obtain special permission for such uses. We do, however, ask that the following citation appear on all reproductions:

Reprinted with permission of the Center for Early Education and Development (CEED), College of Education and Human Development, University of Minnesota, 1954 Buford Avenue, Suite 425, St. Paul, MN, 55108; phone: 612-625-2898; fax: 612-625-6619; e-mail: ceed@umn.edu, web site: http://cehd.umn.edu/ceed.