Strengthen programs of family and community engagement to promote equity and increase student success! When schools, families, and communities collaborate and share responsibility for students′ education, more students succeed in school. Based on 30 years of research and fieldwork, the fourth edition of the bestseller School, Family, and Community Partnerships: Your Handbook for Action, presents tools and guidelines to help develop more effective and more equitable programs of family and community engagement. Written by a team of well-known experts, it provides a theory and framework of six types of involvement for action; up-to-date research on school, family, and community collaboration; and new materials for professional development and on-going technical assistance. Readers also will find: Examples of best practices on the six types of involvement from preschools, and elementary, middle, and high schools Checklists, templates, and evaluations to plan goal-linked partnership programs and assess progress CD-ROM with slides and notes for two presentations: A new awareness session to orient colleagues on the major components of a research-based partnership program, and a full One-Day Team Training Workshop to prepare school teams to develop their partnership programs. As a foundational text, this handbook demonstrates a proven approach to implement and sustain inclusive, goal-linked programs of partnership. It shows how a good partnership program is an essential component of good school organization and school improvement for student success. This book will help every district and all schools strengthen and continually improve their programs of family and community engagement.

This collection is focused on the provision of community-based programs and activities in health and related long-term care services that have contributed, or may in the future contribute, to social policy development. Several of the articles in this collection deal with community-based health and long-term care program and policy initiatives that have been facilitated through federal programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and the Older Americans Act. The implementation of some of these community-based programs have significantly influenced social policy thinking regarding the beneficial effects of integrating medical and social aspects of health and long-term care services, as well as the health care team approach to the delivery of health and long-term care services. Another dimension addressed is the impact of interest groups, such as family caregivers, in advancing social policy that supports the efforts of community-based family care givers in providing services to patients in need. The underlying theme is how such local community programs have contributed in a variety of ways to the development of social policies at the community level that in many ways focus on the integration of health and related long-term care services and a health care team approach to the provision of such services. The book will be of interest to community development courses in Schools of Social Work and other health professions such as Nursing and Public Health. It will also be of interest to health policy programs in public administration and other social sciences. This book was published as a special issue of Social Work in Public Health.

How do communities protect and improve the health of their populations? Health care is part of the answer but so are environmental protections, social and educational services, adequate nutrition, and a host of other activities. With concern over funding constraints, making sure such activities are efficient and effective is becoming a high priority. Improving Health in the Community explains how population-based performance monitoring programs can help communities point their efforts in the right direction. Within a broad definition of community health, the committee addresses factors surrounding the implementation of performance monitoring and explores the "why" and "how to" of establishing mechanisms to monitor the performance of those who can influence community health. The book offers a policy framework, applies a multidimensional model of the determinants of health, and provides sets of prototype performance indicators for specific health issues. Improving Health in the Community presents an attainable vision of a process that can achieve community-wide health benefits.

Community visioning and strategic planning programs have become increasingly important in recent years as local governments in rural areas have searched for innovative ways to revitalize their local economies or manage population growth. A panel of experts describes local government programs in ten states. They also evaluate the effectiveness in reaching the vision and objective set forth in these programs. The authors examine the main components of each program and offer insights into factors contributing to its success. Major attention is paid to the need for social capital, benchmarking, and continuing support following the initial efforts. The discussion in the book includes recommendations for starting a community strategic visioning exercise.

An examination of community literacy programs--with an eye toward radical change.