Effective Services for Young Children: Report of a Workshop (1991)

10:00-10:10

WELCOME-Julius Richmond, Chair National Forum on the Future of Children and Families

10:10-Noon

Session I: Attributes of Effective Services

Chair: Mary Jo Bane, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University

Objective: To examine the level of consensus among researchers, policy analysts, and practitioners regarding the common attributes of successful programs for high-risk children and their families and to achieve some agreement among participants around the most crucial, common attributes.

Paper: Lisbeth B. Schorr, Harvard University

Discussants: Rosalie Street, Friends of the Family, Incorporated; Sister Mary Paul Janchill, Center for Family Life in Sunset Park; Robert Granger, Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation

Noon-1:00

LUNCH

1:00-2:45

Session II: Lessons from Earlier Efforts

Chair: Lisle Carter, United Way of America

Objective: To review and extract lessons from major federal and state efforts of the last 25 years, such as the Model Cities Program, community action programs, block grants, etc., which were designed to improve coordination, reduce fragmentation, and ensure greater accessibility to services.

Paper: Peter Edelman, Georgetown University Law School; Beryl Radin, Washington Public Affairs Center, University of Southern California

Discussants: Douglas Besharov, American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research; Robert Greenstein, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

2:45-3:00

BREAK

3:00-5:15

Session IIIA: Strategies for Implementing Change

Objective: To identify and assess strategies to promote the widespread adoption and implementation of programs incorporating the attributes of successful programs.

All workshop participants will be assigned to participate in one of the following two concurrent sessions:

1. Strategies based on collaboration and coordination (Room 150)

Chair: Janet Levy, Joining Forces

This session will consider collaboration and coordination as strategies to promote the widespread adoption and implementation of effective programs. Topics to be addressed include: the purposes of collaboration, promising processes, major obstacles, strategies for overcoming obstacles, common attributes of successful collaboration, and the extent to which generalizations can be made across communities, states, and systems.

Paper: Olivia Golden, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University

Discussants: Martin Gerry, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; Scott Fosler, Committee on Economic Development; Ralph Smith, Philadelphia Children's Network; Tom Langfitt, Pew Charitable Trusts

2. Financing strategies (Room 250)

Chair: Richard Nathan, Nelson A. Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy

This session will consider financing strategies to remove obstacles to—and provide incentives for—the provision of coherent effective services, including public and private efforts to combine funds from multiple existing sources, and efforts to change the way funds flow to local programs.

Paper: Frank Farrow, Center for the Study of Social Policy

Discussants: Drew Altman, Kaiser Family Foundation (Paper); Annette Abrams, Office of Children and Youth, Michigan

5:30-6:30

RECEPTION (Rotunda)

6:30-7:30

DINNER (Members Room)

7:30-9:00

Session IV: Strategies Based on Building Greater Public Understanding of the Crucial Issues

Chair and Introductory Remarks: James Comer, Yale University

This session will consider strategies to build greater public understanding of the crucial issues including: (a) the nature of the problem, (b) the societal stake in investing in promising solution, and (c) the nature of promising solutions.

Discussants: Kati Haycock, Children's Defense Fund Ann Rosewater, Consultant Robert Wehling, The Proctor & Gamble Company

9:00-11:15

Session IIIB: Strategies for Action (continued)

All workshop participants will be assigned to participate in one of the following two concurrent sessions:

3. Technical assistance and training strategies (Room 150)

Chair: Barbara Blum, Foundation for Child Development

This session will consider technical assistance strategies to (a) assist managers in acquiring the requisite skills and expertise to manage reformed service programs, (b) provide a variety of agencies and institutions with help in training front-line workers to function effectively in reformed service programs, and (c) ensure that states and communities can obtain the training and technical assistance that would enable them to modify their operations, structures, funding patterns, etc., in ways that would encourage the development and survival of effective programs.

Paper: Doug Nelson, Annie E. Casey Foundation

Discussants: Charles Bruner, Child Family Policy Center Peter Forsythe, Edna McConnell Clark Foundation

4. Strategies based on greater use of outcome measures (Room 250)

Chair: Steve Kelman, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University

This session will consider efforts to shift toward an outcome orientation to assure accountability, improve program performance, and provide the basis for investment of increased resources, allocated on more flexible terms.

Paper: David Hornbeck, Education Adviser, Baltimore, Md.

Discussants: Heather Weiss, Harvard Family Research Project; Sid Gardner, Youth at Risk Project

11:15-11:30

BREAK

11:30-4:00

Session V: Making It Happen—Identifying Strategies for Systematic Change and Action-Lunch will be provided (Lecture Room)

Chair: Harold Richman, Chapin Hall Center for Children, IL

Objective: Drawing on previous workshop discussions, to identify themes around which there seem to be some consensus; to integrate shared information and understanding in order to identify strategies that could result in systematic action to significantly improve services for high-risk children and their families, and to propose the agencies, institutions, or other entities that should be involved and responsible for the next steps.

ADJOURN