The ChapinHall Alert
December 2008
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Events Forum and Webcast: Combating Child Poverty through Place-Based Initiatives

Research Report Explores How Finances Affect Parenting in Foster Families
Features Size of Drug Problem in Juvenile Justice Depends on Where You Look
News Chapin Hall Launches Its New Look
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Events
December 11, 2008 LocationForum and Webcast: Location, Location, Location: Combating Child Poverty through Place-Based Initiatives
University of Chicago Gleacher Center, Chicago, IL

Join Chapin Hall and the Urban Institute for a Thursday's Child public policy forum to discuss community-based activities aimed at stemming the cycle of concentrated, intergenerational poverty. Chapin Hall research fellow Robert Chaskin will discuss the research agenda needed to strengthen new and continuing efforts. Panelists will also discuss models of initiatives that integrate services for high-need young people and families, and will explore how they can complement comprehensive neighborhood development work. . The role of federal urban policy and programs for children, youth, and families will also be discussed. Matthew Stagner, Chapin Hall executive director, will moderate the program.
 
Register to attend the Chicago event in person.
 
Register to attend the live audio webcast.
 
View related Chapin Hall resources, Toward Greater Effectiveness in Community Change: Challenges and Responses for Philanthropy by Prudence Brown, Robert J. Chaskin, Ralph Hamilton, and Harold Richman 
 
October 23, 2008
AudioRealCostsAudio Recording: The Real Costs of Teen Pregnancy
  
This Thursday's Child public policy forum in Chicago explored the many costs and varied policy implications of teen motherhood.

Chapin Hall research fellow Robert Goerge discussed the increased risks that children of teen mothers face of being maltreated and placed into foster care. Other panelists analyzed additional challenges, such as higher levels of incarceration. Private and public programs that reduce teen pregnancy and help teen mothers avoid bearing a second child were also explored. Chapin Hall executive director Matthew Stagner moderated the discussion.
 
November 13, 2008 AudioChildrensPolicyAudio Recording: The Children's Policy Agenda in a Time of Transition and Turmoil
 
A panel of experts at this Thursday's Child public policy forum in Washington, D. C. scanned the election results and shared insights into where child and family public policy might be headed, given the nation's economic landscape and past administration and legislative transitions. 
 


Research
FosterFamiliesReport Explores How Finances Affect Parenting in Foster Families
How does financial strain impact the way foster parents carry out their roles? This new Chapin Hall study, based on in-depth interviews with 35 Illinois foster parents, explores motivations behind the decision to become foster parents; foster parents' financial circumstances, family composition, and employment; and the ways in which parents involve their foster children in services and recreational activities.    
 
Read the report, Does Money Matter? Foster Parenting and Family Finances by Cheryl Smithgall, Jan DeCoursey, and Robert Goerge.
HomelessChildrenStudy Highlights Educational Needs of Homeless Children
This study examines a group of homeless children enrolled in the Chicago Public Schools who received shelter from Inner Voice, an agency that provides services to chronically homeless families. Overall, homeless children were found to have high levels of school mobility, academic difficulties, and special education needs. The study includes discussion of policy implications for public schools and homeless shelters to work together to better address the educational needs of homeless children.

Read the report, Educating Homeless Children in Chicago: A Case Study of Children in the Family Regeneration Program by Amy Dworsky
Features
DrugProblemSize of Drug Problem in Juvenile Justice Depends on Where You Look
Chapin Hall research fellow Jeffrey Butts is now a regular contributor to Reclaiming Futures Every Day, an initiative to disseminate news, research, and information on juvenile justice reform and teen drug treatment. In this entry he discusses how drug behaviors of youthful offenders at the earliest stages of justice involvement resemble those in the general population, but increase in severity among youth more deeply involved in the juvenile justice process.

Read the blog entry by Jeffrey Butts.
 
News
CHNewLookChapin Hall Launches Its New Look
Chapin Hall has a new look, as you will see with this edition of the Alert and the two new reports we publish this month. Our new designs will receive even more prominence when Chapin Hall launches its new website early next year. 

Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago began its mission as a policy research center in 1985, focusing on issues pertaining to the well-being of children, youth, families, and communities. Prior to then, Chapin Hall (whose official name was the Chicago Nursery and Half-Orphan Asylum) had operated since 1860 as a group home for the city's disadvantaged children. By the mid-1980s, the group home was facing systemic funding shortfalls. In response, its board of directors redefined the organization as one that would serve vulnerable young people by informing child-family policies and programming through research. 2010 will mark the 150th anniversary of the Chapin Hall orphanage, and the 25th anniversary of Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago.
 
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For More Information Contact:
Carolyn Saper
Director of Communications
csaper@chapinhall.org 		Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago
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Phone: 773.753.5900
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ChapinHall at the University of Chicago | Policy research that benefits children, families and their communities