In this Issue:
- Family Day 2007
- Teen Survey 2007
- Fragile Families Research Brief
- 2007 Healthy Communities * Healthy Youth Conference
- Recycling Fundraiser
- Lowering Drinking Age to 18 Gets Consideration
- RGK Foundation
- The Power (and Peril) of Praising Your Kids -- New York Magazine
- Childstats.gov: Forum on Child and Family Statistics
- National Institutes of Health
- Tolerance.Org: Teaching Tolerance
1.) Family Day 2007
Family Day — A Day to Eat Dinner with Your Children™ is a national movement to remind parents that what their kids really want at the dinner table is THEM! Family Day encourages parents to frequently eat dinner with their kids and be involved in their children’s lives. The conversations that go hand-in-hand with dinner help parents learn more about their kids’ lives and helps them to better understand the challenges their kids face. Family day is celebrated on the fourth Monday in September. This year Family Day will be celebrated on September 24, 2007.
Link to: www.CASAFamilyDay.org
2.) Teen Survey 2007
Eleven million high school students (80 percent) and five million middle school students (44 percent) attend drug-infested schools, meaning that they have personally witnessed illegal drug use, illegal drug dealing, illegal drug possession, students drunk and/or students high on the grounds of their school according to the National Survey of American Attitudes on Substance Abuse XII: Teens and Parents, the twelfth annual back-to-school survey conducted by The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University.
Link to: http://www.casacolumbia.org/supportcasa/item.asp?cID=12&PID=160
3.) Fragile Families Research Brief
For nearly three decades, the United States has employed crime control policies that have resulted in a tremendous expansion of its prison population. Between 1980 and 2005, the U.S. prison and jail population increased over fourfold, from about 500,000 to 2 million inmates. By the end of 2001, over 5.5 million American adults – one in 37 – had been incarcerated in state or federal prison in their lifetime. Among men without a college education, nearly 4 percent of whites and 20 percent of blacks were in jail on an average day in 2000.
Link to: http://www.fragilefamilies.princeton.edu/briefs/ResearchBrief38.pdf
4.) 2007 Healthy Communities * Healthy Youth Conference
Designed for people who work with or care about youth, this one-of-a-kind conference brings together people from different community sectors nationally and internationally who share a common goal: to work together to promote positive youth development through asset building. During the conference, participants will learn with and from each other, make connections that will prove beneficial in their work and lives, and renew their commitment to asset building through hard work and fun!
Link to: http://www.search-institute.org/hchy/
5.) Recyling Fundraiser
Looking for a great way to raise thousands of dollars for your school, church or club? The EcoPhones Recycling Fundraiser pays up to $300 per item. There's nothing to buy and nothing to sell. Simply ask parents, neighbors, co-workers and local businesses to donate and recycle their used consumer electronics:
- Cell Phones
- Ink Jet Printer Cartridges
- DVD Movies & Videogames
- Portable DVD Players
- Laptop Computers
- MP3 Players
- X-Boxes, Sony Playstations, Wii
- Digital Cameras & Digital Video Cameras (DVRs)
- Digital Picture Frames
- Portable Navigation & GPS Devices (Garmin, Magellan, Tom-Tom)
Earn cash for every item guaranteed! We even pay for damaged, non-working and non-listed models.
According to the Consumer Electronics Association the average U.S. household owns 25 consumer electronics devices. With more than 2 billion DVDs, 30 million digital cameras and 41 million MP3 players sold each year in the U.S. plus the more than 150 million used cell phones stockpiled in U.S. households the EcoPhones Recycling Fundraiser is much easier and more profitable than you may think. In addition, EcoPhones provides FREE customizable marketing materials and free shipping from anywhere in the U.S. including Alaska. Join the more than 22,000 schools, clubs, and churches just like yours that have raised much-needed funds for their organizations.
For more information, you may register online at http://www.cell-phone-inkjet-dvd-recycling-fundraiser.org or call (888) Eco-Phones / (888) 326-7466. We'll send you a free Welcome Kit packet with color posters, a guide to running a successful recycling fundraiser, price lists, pre-paid shipping labels, and everything else you'll need to get started.
Link to: http://www.cell-phone-inkjet-dvd-recycling-fundraiser.org
6.) Lowering Drinking Age to 18 Gets Consideration
News Summary
Several states, including Florida, Wisconsin, Vermont and Missouri, have studied the idea of lowering the drinking age from 21 to 18, as some experts are suggesting, MSNBC reported Aug. 14.
The National Youth Rights Association has launched a petition drive to lower the drinking age, and some Missouri advocates are organizing a ballot initiative. John McCardell, former president of Middlebury College in Vermont, has become the most visible advocate for the change.
“The law was changed in 1984, and the law had a very specific purpose, and that was to prohibit drinking among those under the age of 21,” McCardell said. “The only way to measure the success of that law is to ask ourselves whether, 23 years later, those under 21 are not drinking.” “The evidence is very clear,” McCardell said. “It has had no effect.”
Backers believe the rise of binge drinking among adolescents and college students can be directly traced to raising the drinking age to 21. “Just like during national Prohibition, the law has pushed and forced underage drinking and youthful drinking underground, where we have no control over it," said David J. Hanson, an alcohol policy expert at the State University of New York-Potsdam.
Opposition to the proposal remains strong, however. “Why would we repeal or weaken laws that save lives? It doesn’t make sense," said Mark Rosenker, chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board. The age-21 laws adopted by all 50 states -- under threat by Congress of losing their federal highway funds -- have been credited with lowering the rate of drunk-driving fatalities. But critics also question the studies used to link the age-21 law and lower alcohol-related traffic fatalities.
McCardell's group, Choose Responsibility, would like to see the drinking age lowered to 18 but also wants "drinking licenses" issued to those ages 18 to 21. McCardell also wants youths to receive more education on responsible alcohol consumption.
However, 77 percent of Americans recently surveyed by Gallup said they opposed lowering the drinking age.
7.) RGK Foundation
RGK Foundation awards grants in the broad areas of Education, Community, and Medicine/Health. The Foundation's primary interests within Education include programs that focus on formal K-12 education (particularly mathematics, science and reading), teacher development, literacy, and higher education.
Within Community, the Foundation supports a broad range of human services, community improvement, abuse prevention, and youth development programs. Human service programs of particular interest to the Foundation include children and family services, early childhood development, and parenting education. The Foundation supports a variety of Community Improvement programs including those that enhance non-profit management and promote philanthropy and voluntarism. Youth development programs supported by the Foundation typically include after-school educational enrichment programs that supplement and enhance formal education systems to increase the chances for successful outcomes in school and life. The Foundation is also interested in programs that attract female and minority students into the fields of mathematics, science, and technology.
Link to: http://www.rgkfoundation.org/guidelines.php#programs
8.) The Power (and Peril) of Praising Your Kids -- New York Magazine
When parents praise their children’s intelligence, they believe they are providing the solution to this problem. According to a survey conducted by Columbia University, 85 percent of American parents think it’s important to tell their kids that they’re smart. In and around the New York area, according to my own (admittedly nonscientific) poll, the number is more like 100 percent. Everyone does it, habitually. The constant praise is meant to be an angel on the shoulder, ensuring that children do not sell their talents short.
Link to: http://nymag.com/news/features/27840/
9.) Childstats.gov: Forum on Child and Family Statistics
1994, the Office of Management and Budget joined with six other Federal agencies to create the Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics. Formally established in April 1997 through Executive Order No. 13045, the Forum is charged to develop priorities for collecting enhanced data on children and youth, improve the reporting and dissemination of information on the status of children to the policy community and the general public, and produce more complete data on children at the State and local levels.
Link to: http://www.childstats.gov/americaschildren/index.asp
10.) National Institutes of Health
Crystal methamphetamine use among young adults in the United States is considerably higher than previous surveys indicate, according to new research funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The study, published in the July issue of the journal Addiction, found 2.8 percent of young adults (ages 18-26) reported use of crystal methamphetamine in the past year during 2001-2002. This is higher than the annual prevalence of crystal methamphetamine use by young adults (ages 19-28) of 1.4 percent reported by NIDA’s 2002 Monitoring the Future Survey.
Link to: http://www.nih.gov/news/pr/jun2007/nida-15.htm
11.) Tolerance.Org: Teaching Tolerance
For too long, educators' approach to understanding the relationships between poverty, class and education has been framed by studying the behaviors and cultures of poor students and their families. If only we -- in the middle and upper-middle classes -- can understand their culture, why those people don't value education, why those parents don't attend our functions and meetings, why those kids are so unmotivated, perhaps we can "save" some of our economically disadvantaged students from the bleak futures before them. And so we set about studying what Ruby Payne (author of A Framework for Understanding Poverty) and others describe as the "culture of poverty," how poor people see and experience the world, how they relate to food, money, relationships, education and other aspects of life. This, despite that research has shown again and again that no such culture of poverty exists.
Link to: http://www.tolerance.org/teach/printar.jsp?p=0&ar=777&pi=ttm