Trenton

Background: Obesity rates among school-age children remain high. Access to energy-dense foods at home, in schools, in stores, and restaurants around homes and schools is of concern. Research on the relationship between food environment around schools and students' weight status is inconclusive. This study examines the association between weight status of middle and high school students and proximity to a comprehensive set of food outlets around schools.

The Fatherhood Reentry projects provided activities to fathers (and their families) in institutional settings as they were nearing release (“prerelease”) and in their offices located in the community (“postrelease”). All six projects provided services in multiple institutional settings: federal prisons (KISRA), state prisons (KISRA, LSS, NJDOC, PB&J, RIDGE, and Rubicon), county/regional jails (KISRA, PB&J, RIDGE, and Rubicon), and residential substance abuse treatment facilities (Rubicon).

The Fatherhood Reentry projects provided activities to fathers (and their families) in institutional settings as they were nearing release (“prerelease”) and in their offices located in the community (“postrelease”). All six projects provided services in multiple institutional settings: federal prisons (KISRA), state prisons (KISRA, LSS, NJDOC, PB&J, RIDGE, and Rubicon), county/regional jails (KISRA, PBandJ, RIDGE, and Rubicon), and residential substance abuse treatment facilities (Rubicon).

With funding from the Office of Family Assistance (OFA), the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation contracted with the Urban Institute to conduct an implementation evaluation of OFA’s Community-Centered Responsible Fatherhood Ex-Prisoner Reentry Pilot Projects (“Fatherhood Reentry”). Six organizations were funded to implement a range of activities intended to help stabilize fathers and their families, help move fathers toward economic self sufficiency, and reduce recidivism.

The evaluation of the Community-Centered Responsible Fatherhood Ex-Prisoner Reentry Pilot Projects (“Fatherhood Reentry”) documented the implementation of six programs designed to help stabilize fathers and their families, help move fathers toward economic self-sufficiency, and reduce recidivism. This report presents the findings from the evaluation and provides an overview of the activities implemented by the programs, describes their various approaches to implementation, and identifies the implementation challenges they faced and the solutions they used to overcome those challenges.

A high-quality paid family leave policy is a vital investment in the future of young children and their families. Paid family leave allows workers to take time off from their jobs to bond with new children or care for seriously ill family members with some financial security. Still, despite strong evidence that paid family leave is beneficial for families and has a positive or neutral impact on most businesses, the United States is the only industrialized country that does not guarantee it to workers to care for a new child or attend to other important family needs.

In three parts, I explore factors contributing to the behavior of low-income individuals. Specifically, I have identified issues relating to trust, mental accounting and self-affirmation. First, in Studies 1-3, I explore the extent to which concerns of trust drive preferences for financial contracts of low-income individuals versus the wealthy.

The Evaluation of the Marriage and Family Strengthening Grants for Incarcerated and Reentering Fathers and their Partners (MFS-IP) is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) activities to support healthy marriage, responsible fatherhood, and successful re-entry from incarceration. Twelve grantees received funding for five years (2006-2011) from the Office of Family Assistance within the Administration for Children and Families to implement multiple activities to support and sustain marriages and families of fathers during and after incarceration.

This report from the Urban Institute provides early implementation findings from a study of six grantees that provide soon-to-be and recently-released fathers and their families with an array of activities and services in responsible fatherhood/parenting, healthy marriage/relationships, and economic stability. The goals of the programs are to help stabilize the fathers and their families, move the fathers toward self-sufficiency, and reduce recidivism. These OFA grantees began program operations in October 2011; this report covers program activity through May 2013. (author abstract)

Parents’ Fair Share (PFS) research on child support enforcement has several goals. First, it seeks to provide insights into the interaction between local child support enforcement systems and noncustodial parents whose children are on welfare. The approach taken in this report is to analyze what happened when the seven sites in the PFS Demonstration sought to identify low-income, unemployed noncustodial parents appropriate for PFS and refer them to the program. The report carries this story up to the point of referral of appropriate noncustodial parents to the program.