Thesis (Ph. D. in Psychology)--Vanderbilt University, Dec. 2006. / Title from title screen. Includes bibliographical references.

Yes / Living in an area with high levels of child poverty predisposes children to poorer mental and physical health. ActEarly is a 5-year research programme that comprises a large number of interventions (>20) with citizen science and co-production embedded. It aims to improve the health and well-being of children and families living in two areas of the UK with high levels of deprivation; Bradford in West Yorkshire, and the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. This protocol outlines the meta-evaluation (an evaluation of evaluations) of the ActEarly programme from a systems perspective, where individual interventions are viewed as events in the wider policy system across the two geographical areas. It includes investigating the programme's impact on early life health and well-being outcomes, interdisciplinary prevention research collaboration and capacity building, and local and national decision making. The ActEarly meta-evaluation will follow and adapt the five iterative stages of the 'Evaluation of Programmes in Complex Adaptive Systems' (ENCOMPASS) framework for evaluation of public health programmes in complex adaptive systems. Theory-based and mixed-methods approaches will be used to investigate the fidelity of the ActEarly research programme, and whether, why and how ActEarly contributes to changes in the policy system, and whether alternative explanations can be ruled out. Ripple effects and systems mapping will be used to explore the relationships between interventions and their outcomes, and the degree to which the ActEarly programme encouraged interdisciplinary and prevention research collaboration as intended. A computer simulation model ("LifeSim") will also be used to evaluate the scale of the potential long-term benefits of cross-sectoral action to tackle the financial, educational and health disadvantages faced by children in Bradford and Tower Hamlets. Together, these approaches will be used to evaluate ActEarly's dynamic programme outputs at different system levels and measure the programme's system changes on early life health and well-being. This meta-evaluation protocol presents our plans for using and adapting the ENCOMPASS framework to evaluate the system-wide impact of the early life health and well-being programme, ActEarly. Due to the collaborative and non-linear nature of the work, we reserve the option to change and query some of our evaluation choices based on the feedback we receive from stakeholders to ensure that our evaluation remains relevant and fit for purpose. / This work was supported by the UK Prevention Research Partnership (MR/S037527/1), which is funded by the British Heart Foundation, Cancer Research UK, Chief Scientist Office of the Scottish Government Health and Social Care Directorates, Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, Economic and Social Research Council, Health and Social Care Research and Development Division (Welsh Government), Medical Research Council, National Institute for Health Research, Natural Environment Research Council, Public Health Agency (Northern Ireland), The Health Foundation and Wellcome.

No description available.

New Zealand has one of the worst rates of child poverty in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Research has shown that modern mass media provide a mediated cultural forum through which policy responses to child poverty are socially negotiated and from which public support for children in need is either cultivated or undermined. This thesis focuses on the role of media advocacy by the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) who attempt to widen public debate and legitimate options for addressing child poverty. I investigate the case of the Government's Working for Families package and the controversy surrounding the media release of CPAG's negative evaluation of the package in the form of a research report Cut Price Kids. Attention is given to competing ideological frames underlying the Government's package, in the form of neo-liberal emphases on distinctions between God's and the Devil's poor. Attention is also given to CPAG's response, in the form of communitarian notions of collective responsibility for all families in need. Specifically, I analyse the role of the mass media in framing child poverty as a social issue across three levels of mass communication - production, representation, and reception. At the production level interviews were held with six journalists involved with reporting on Cut Price Kids and two members of CPAG. Fifteen Government and 5 CPAG press releases were also explored to document media production processes and restraints on public deliberations. In addition, the ideological stances influencing the framing of coverage were investigated. At the media representation level 21 press, seven radio, and five television items were analysed to establish the scope of public debate, whose perspectives were included, and the ways in which differing perspectives are combined. At the reception level four focus group discussions with lower socio-economic status (SES) parent groups, as well as follow-up photo-based interviews with eight participants were explored in order to document the role of media coverage in the lives of families with children living in poverty. Across levels, findings suggest that journalists are restrained by professional practices which maintain the importance of balance and detached objectivity, rather than interpretations of appropriate responses to child poverty. Tensions between the Government's emphasis on restricting support to families with parents in paid employment and CPAG's emphasis on the need to not discriminate against the children of out of work families framed coverage. The lower SES parents participating at the reception level challenged the restrained nature of coverage, which excluded people such as themselves, and openly questioned media characterisations of them as bludgers who are irresponsible parents. Overall, findings support the view that media are a key component of ongoing social dialogues through which public understandings of, and policy responses to, child poverty are constructed. Specifically, psychologists need to engage more with processes of symbolic power which shape the public construction of child poverty in a conservative manner that can lead to victim blaming, and restrains opportunities for addressing this pressing social concern.

According to research children in families that obtain social welfare are exposed to problems with their health and development. The aim of this study is to explore social workers way of working with child perspective in their everyday work with families and social welfare. It also aims to explore the social workers discretion and if it affects their work on child perspective. This study used a qualitative methodology and used semi-structured interviews to collect data. The data was later analysed through content analysis. Four themes emerged from the data analysis; definition of the child perspective, lack of time, financial framework, unclear frameworks and laws. The social workers experienced that lack of time has a negative effect on their possibility to document the child perspective in their work. The social workers expressed that they have possibilities through their discretion to influence the work situation, which has a positive effect on the work.  The study concludes that social workers want to work with child perspective but need more resources and time to do so. / Enligt forskning utsätts barn i familjer som uppbär långvarigt försörjningsstöd för mer problem med sin hälsa och utveckling i jämförelse med barn som lever i självförsörjande familjer. Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka hur socialsekreterare arbetar med barnperspektivet i det dagliga arbetet med barnfamiljer inom ekonomiskt bistånd och hur socialsekreterarna förhåller sig till handlingsutrymmet som förekommer på deras arbetsplats. I denna studie använde jag mig av en kvalitativ forskningsmetod med semistrukturerade intervjuer där jag intervjuade fyra socialsekreterare för att samla in data. För att göra min analys har jag använt mig av Michael Lipskys gräsrotsbyråkrati teori. Resultatet har senare analyserats med en innehållsanalys. I innehållsanalysen framkom fyra teman; Definition av barnperspektivet, tidsbrist, budgetramar och oklarheter i lagar och riktlinjer. Resultatet av studien visade att socialsekreterarna har olika definitioner av vad ett barnperspektiv är och att de upplever tidsbrist. Tidsbristen resulterar i att tiden för dokumentation av barnperspektivet minskar. Det framkom även att socialsekreterarna anser att de delvis har ett stort handlingsutrymme när det gäller att fatta beslut gällande specifika ärenden. Studien drar slutsatsen att socialarbetarna anser att barnperspektivet är viktigt samt att de vill arbeta med det. Dock behöver socialarbetarna mer resurser och tid.

Thesis advisor: M. Brinton Lykes / Most recent figures indicate that approximately one in five children in the United States is poor (Children’s Defense Fund, 2010; Moore et al., 2009). Thus, the United States ranks considerably below other Northern Hemisphere nations in indices of both child poverty and child well-being (Rainwater & Smeeding, 2003; UNICEF, 2007). Moreover, while the United States has not ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), this treaty has been central in reframing policy and practices towards reducing child poverty in some other Northern Hemisphere nations. Many authors and activists have suggested that US nonratification of this Convention is based on “American exceptionalism.” This paper examines these claims – and counterclaims – and explores, through comparisons with several other Northern Hemisphere nations, how the Convention on the Rights of the Child, if ratified and implemented through US policy and practice, could play a significant part in tackling child poverty in this nation. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2011. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: International Studies Honors Program. / Discipline: International Studies.

Economists generally consider intergenerational economic mobility to be an important feature of market economies, as it allows people born into poverty to achieve a measure of prosperity in the presence of minimal government intervention or redistribution. The empirical literature on mobility in the U.S. has, however, found evidence that mobility is lower than previously thought, and scholars have responded by developing expansive literatures on many aspects of intergenerational mobility, including studies of its origins. In this dissertation, I contribute to this strand of the literature by reviewing recent trends in the literature, with a particular emphasis on studies aimed at explaining the sources of mobility, and then discussing three empirical studies into specific sources of mobility, using data organized at different geographic and temporal scales. These empirical chapters focus on the role of different aspects of childhood poverty in determining income rank in adulthood, modeling variation in racial mobility gaps across different kinds of communities and local economies, and measuring the relationship between trends in intergenerational mobility and the structural transformation of agriculture in the 20th century U.S..

Book Summary: While much needs to be done in order to minimize the suicide attempts and suicides of adolescents, the work of Stop Youth Suicide (SYS) campaign and the comprehensive grassroots' approach is showing signs of success in the state of Kentucky. The 2013 national Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) showed that for the first time, indicators of youth suicide in the state are at or below the national average, where they were previously always above. In the three rural counties where the school systems have partnered with SYS and the Division of Adolescent Medicine in Lexington, there is an actual absence of completed suicides compared to the average of three per year prior to this partnership. In order to maintain and improve that statistic, we must ensure that students do not have easy access to weapons, guns and drugs by ensuring that these items are properly stored in homes where children are present. Kentucky's educators must continue to develop ways to provide safe and supportive school environments. In this book, the authors have gathered presentations from the 2017 Annual Stop Youth Suicide Campaign Conference, which we hope will be of interest and help to the readers.

Poverty persists as one of the critical challenges in South Africa, predominantly because it is inbred. Currently, the majority of South Africa’s children live in households that are incapable of providing basic needs. Children born from deprived households have a high chance of being trapped into the cycle of poverty. Thus, household poverty affects child differently from adults; children tend to be more vulnerable to deprivation and poverty. The purpose of this study was to analyse the relationship between household poverty and child deprivation in Jabulani, a South African township. The study used an asset index and a child deprivation index to measure the scope of household poverty and child deprivation in Jabulani Township. The main focus of the study was to determine if household poverty has an impact on the deprivation status of a child living in a particular household. Therefore, analysing demographics of the household and its poverty status was also important. The empirical analysis of the study was centred on data collected from Jabulani Township in May 2015 by means of a survey questionnaire with a sample of 178 randomly selected households. Several statistical methods were used such as descriptive statistics, correlations and regression analysis to identify the overlaps between household poverty and child deprivation. The asset index was used to determine the poverty status of the household by measuring its wealth, thus identifying if a child from a poor household will be deprived of certain items by comparing it to the child deprivation index. The child deprivation index was constructed based on specific items a child may lack. The relationship between household poverty and child deprivation was determined and it was found that most of the children from poor households are not severely deprived; they are either less deprived or moderately deprived at most. Similarly, there are children from the well-off households who are deprived moderately and severely. However, the majority of the children living in less poor households are also less deprived. Thus, it was concluded that household needs are different from child needs, hence we find children who are not deprived in poor households and vice versa. The Relationship between Household Poverty and Child Deprivation in Jabulani Township Page vii The extent of household poverty was determined and as defined by the asset index the study found that 59 percent of the households in Jabulani Township are not poor, 31.5 percent have poverty levels just below average (based on the asset index measuring long-term wealth) and 9.6 percent are poor. Furthermore, it was found that the majority of the sampled population of Jabulani Township has low income levels, most of the asset poor households were also found to be income poor and vice versa. The study revealed that females head most households in Jabulani Township; female heads of household were found to have lower poverty levels compared to male heads of household. It was found that the majority of the heads of household have no schooling and quite a few of them have tertiary level education. The largest source of income in Jabulani Township is child support grant (87.1 percent) and wages or salaries contribute 77 percent to household income. The prevalence of child deprivation was determined based on the child deprivation index. It was found that 62.9 percent of the children in Jabulani Township are less deprived, 29.2 percent are moderately deprived and only 9.9 percent of the children are severely deprived. Therefore, the majority of the children in Jabulani Township are not severely deprived. The regression analysis results revealed that the total income of the household is a significant determinant of the asset index and the child deprivation index. Based on these findings it is recommended that more investments should be made towards education in Jabulani Township, as this could be a great move towards the alleviation of household poverty and, in turn, child deprivation. There is a need for skills empowerment especially in baking and sewing as most of the unemployed heads of households are skilled in those areas, this will curb dependence on the government and create more job opportunities so that the parents can provide for the needs of their children.

Poverty persists as one of the critical challenges in South Africa, predominantly because it is inbred. Currently, the majority of South Africa’s children live in households that are incapable of providing basic needs. Children born from deprived households have a high chance of being trapped into the cycle of poverty. Thus, household poverty affects child differently from adults; children tend to be more vulnerable to deprivation and poverty. The purpose of this study was to analyse the relationship between household poverty and child deprivation in Jabulani, a South African township. The study used an asset index and a child deprivation index to measure the scope of household poverty and child deprivation in Jabulani Township. The main focus of the study was to determine if household poverty has an impact on the deprivation status of a child living in a particular household. Therefore, analysing demographics of the household and its poverty status was also important. The empirical analysis of the study was centred on data collected from Jabulani Township in May 2015 by means of a survey questionnaire with a sample of 178 randomly selected households. Several statistical methods were used such as descriptive statistics, correlations and regression analysis to identify the overlaps between household poverty and child deprivation. The asset index was used to determine the poverty status of the household by measuring its wealth, thus identifying if a child from a poor household will be deprived of certain items by comparing it to the child deprivation index. The child deprivation index was constructed based on specific items a child may lack. The relationship between household poverty and child deprivation was determined and it was found that most of the children from poor households are not severely deprived; they are either less deprived or moderately deprived at most. Similarly, there are children from the well-off households who are deprived moderately and severely. However, the majority of the children living in less poor households are also less deprived. Thus, it was concluded that household needs are different from child needs, hence we find children who are not deprived in poor households and vice versa. The Relationship between Household Poverty and Child Deprivation in Jabulani Township Page vii The extent of household poverty was determined and as defined by the asset index the study found that 59 percent of the households in Jabulani Township are not poor, 31.5 percent have poverty levels just below average (based on the asset index measuring long-term wealth) and 9.6 percent are poor. Furthermore, it was found that the majority of the sampled population of Jabulani Township has low income levels, most of the asset poor households were also found to be income poor and vice versa. The study revealed that females head most households in Jabulani Township; female heads of household were found to have lower poverty levels compared to male heads of household. It was found that the majority of the heads of household have no schooling and quite a few of them have tertiary level education. The largest source of income in Jabulani Township is child support grant (87.1 percent) and wages or salaries contribute 77 percent to household income. The prevalence of child deprivation was determined based on the child deprivation index. It was found that 62.9 percent of the children in Jabulani Township are less deprived, 29.2 percent are moderately deprived and only 9.9 percent of the children are severely deprived. Therefore, the majority of the children in Jabulani Township are not severely deprived. The regression analysis results revealed that the total income of the household is a significant determinant of the asset index and the child deprivation index. Based on these findings it is recommended that more investments should be made towards education in Jabulani Township, as this could be a great move towards the alleviation of household poverty and, in turn, child deprivation. There is a need for skills empowerment especially in baking and sewing as most of the unemployed heads of households are skilled in those areas, this will curb dependence on the government and create more job opportunities so that the parents can provide for the needs of their children.