The ten essential elements comprising a specialized law enforcement-based program are described. Elements are: collaborative planning and implementation; program design; specialized training; call-taker and dispatcher protocols; stabilization, observation, and disposition; transportation and custodial transfer; information exchange and confidentiality; treatment, supports, and services; organizational support; and program evaluation and sustainability.
Recently in Human Services Category
Source: Karen Schulman, Helen Blank, National Women's Law Center, Issue Brief, September 2008
The National Women's Law Center's new nationwide report reveals that states continue to fall short of providing low-income parents the support they need to obtain good-quality child care, despite modest gains in some areas.
This edition of our annual analysis, State Child Care Assistance Policies 2008: Too Little Progress for Children and Families, compares child care assistance policies in 2008 to 2007 and 2001 in four policy areas: income eligibility, waiting lists for assistance, copayment requirements, and reimbursement rates for providers. Some states have made progress since 2007, but most states continue to be behind where they were in 2001.
The Impact of Local Public Services and Geographical Cost of Living Differences on Poverty Estimates
Despite a broad consensus on the need to take into account the value of public services and geographical cost of living differences when measuring poverty, there is little reliable evidence on how these factors actually affect poverty estimates. Unlike the standard approach in studies of the distribution of public services, this paper employs a method for valuing sector-specific local public services that allows for differences between municipalities in unit costs for providing public services. Furthermore, recipient frequencies in various demographic groups are used as the basis for determining the allocation of the value of these services on citizens of the municipalities. Geographical differences in living costs are taken into account by using municipal housing price indices or by replacing the country-specific poverty line with municipal-specific poverty lines. Applying Norwegian register data for the period 1993-2001, we find that disregarding the value of local public services and geographical cost of living differences yields a misleading picture of poverty.
Source: National Resource Center for Family-Centered Practice and Permanency Planning, August 28, 2008
This PDF provides direct links to online licensing standards to states with online access to licensing standards for residential child placement facilities
Source: Mark Washington, Policy and Practice, Vol. 66 no. 2, June 2008
A former social service worker tells what it is like to be in the field facing the possibility of violence.
Source: Policy and Practice, Vol. 66 no. 2, June 2008
In August 2004, Teri Zenner, a Kansas mental health worker, was killed during a home visit to one of her clients. Her husband, Matt, has made a personal quest to tell Teri's story and told "Policy & Practice" why he wants to raise the issue of public human service worker safety to a national level.
Source: Mark Washington, Policy and Practice, Vol. 66 no. 2, June 2008
Kentucky had developed an incident reporting system that replaced the outdated paper method of recording incidents and verbal or physical threats of violence by clients. The new system enables staff at all levels to review the incident and diagnose the leading causes.
Source: Stephen R. Fox, Donna Harmon, Policy and Practice, Vol. 66 no. 2, June 2008
There is no national repository of data about violence against human service workers. Yet this issue touches on the single, most overwhelmingly, deeply personal tragedy of life. In this case, the violence includes the killing of those who serve by those who are served.
Source: Steven D. Schwinn, Clearinghouse Review Journal of Poverty Law and Policy, Vol. 42, p. 107, July-August 2008
From the abstract:
The federal Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) programs provide cash benefits and job retraining to workers and farmers who have been displaced by the off-shoring of U.S. jobs, falling prices resulting from increased imports, and other consequences of international trade. But workers and farmers have been seriously hampered in their attempts to gain TAA benefits by persistent and pervasive mismanagement of the TAA programs by the U.S. Department of Labor and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
This article describes some of the problems that workers and farmers have faced in applying for and receiving TAA benefits. While legislative changes may address some of these problems, the article argues that legal counsel for workers and farmers is a necessary component of any plan to ensure that TAA benefits reach those they were designed to help.
Source: MDRC, August 15, 2008
This month marks the 12th anniversary of the federal welfare reform law, a turning point in the political debate about shifting public assistance toward a system of temporary support with a focus on moving recipients into work. One of the most controversial features of the law was the imposition of time limits on benefit receipt. What have we learned about the effects of time limits since then?
See also:
Welfare Time Limits: An Update on State Policies, Implementation, and Effects on Families
Source: Mary Farrell, Sarah Rich, Lesley Turner, David Seith, and Dan Bloom, MDRC, April 2008
Power in Coalition
Strategies for Strong Unions and Social Change
by Amanda Tattersall
The labor movement sees coalitions as a key tool for union revitalization and social change, but there is little analysis of what makes them successful or the factors that make them fail. Amanda Tattersall—an organizer and labor scholar—addresses this gap in the first internationally comparative study of coalitions between unions and community organizations.
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