The National Committee to Prevent Child Abuse (NCPCA) is a national, not-for-profit organization working to prevent child abuse and neglect in all its forms. NCPCA achieves its mission by increasing public awareness about the issue of child abuse, conducting research in the arena of prevention, advocating for policies that support families and children, and providing training and technical assistance to prevention programs throughout the country. The Chicago office is the national headquarters.
Interns must have excellent written and communication skills. Interest and experience with child and family policy/issues helpful.
Administration - Immediate Opening! The primary responsibility of the Administration Department is office management, account payables and receivables and to keep the office running smoothly. This position calls for a team player with organizational and telephone skills. Duties include but not limited to: accounting, stamping mail and allocating totals to each department/project, light typing, copying, and filing materials. Skills needed: interest in accounting, attention to detail, organized thinking, familiar with Excel, ability to follow directions and to work independently.
Chapter Services - Immediate Opening! The primary responsibility of the Chapter Services Department is to serve as the communication link between the National organization and chartered affiliates and to help organizationally strengthen the state Chapters. This position calls for a team player with strong organizational and telephone skills. Duties include but not limited to: coordinating monthly mailings, typing (WordPerfect), binding and packaging, copying, organizing and filing materials. Skills needed: attention to detail, organized thinking, familiar with WordPerfect, ability to follow directions and to work independently.
Healthy Families America (HFA) - Position available for the months of December, January and February. Healthy Families America (HFA) is an initiative of the NCPCA to establish a universal, voluntary, home visitor system for all new parents to help their children get off to a healthy start. There are over 200 HFA sites in the U.S. and the number is growing daily. HFA is planning for their annual National conference. This position calls for a team player with strong organizational and communication skills. Responsibilities include but not limited to: contact with hotel and speakers, collecting and writing speakers bios, entering registrations into computer, copying and collating. Skills required: attention to detail, highly organized, experience with WordPerfect, and ability to follow directions and to work independently. Meeting planning experience helpful.
Anyone interested in these positions should send a cover letter and resume to:
ANN MCBROOM
As "Captain Kangaroo," the longest running character in television history, Bob Keeshan educated and entertained millions of children. In celebration of the 50th anniversary of the premiere of the program, Bob Keeshan has authored a new book entitled Good Morning, Captain, to be published this month. Good Morning, Captain is a photo history of the memorable career of Bob Keeshan.
Keeshan has a clear understanding of child abuse and the need for prevention education. Bob has been a friend of NCPCA for many years, first serving on the national board of directors, and currently as a member of the honorary board. Recently, Bob was interviewed by a member of the NCPCA staff to discuss his work, his concerns about families, and his philosophy on positive parenting practices.
Question: Few performers last 50 years in your business. How do you explain your remarkable longevity?
"There is no single way to explain it, but I have had good people who worked on the programs, people who were committed to the well-being of children. In over 9,500 broadcasts, we provided a variety in programming and we offered what we believed children needed: good experiences."
Question: Do you think that celebrities should play a role in helping to influence the public on serious social issues?
"Yes. Celebrities can play an important role, depending on their background and experience. Sports figures, especially, have a powerful influence on children."
Question: It is not difficult to picture you as a teacher. Could teaching have been an alternative career choice?
"I was originally headed for a career in law, but I do consider myself more a teacher than an entertainer. There are various and creative ways to teach, even if it means wearing a funny hat. The best educator is an entertainer."
Question: How would you compare current programming for children to earlier days in television?
"There is more variety now. Instead of relying on three or four stations as we used to, now there is a wide choice of programs. Also, technology, such as the VCR, is readily available. However, the VCR is used inappropriately too often. These tools need parental supervision and involvement so that they will be used appropriately."
Question: In your books, your message is clear: have fun with your kids. How can we convey to parents that it is essential for the family to have fun together?
"Parents can be given suggestions for spending time as a family and just enjoying their children. Children grow by spending time with parents and parents build self-esteem in kids by sharing regular experiences, like taking them along to the market. These simple experiences build relationships."
Question: As a parent and grandparent, what is the single, most important bit of advice that you would give parents today?
"It's very simple --- spend time with your kids!" In addition to this latest book, Bob Keeshan has written several books for children and parents including Family Fun Activity Book and Holiday Fun Activity Book.
The Eighth Annual National Conference of Respite and Crisis Programs sponsored by Access to Respite Care and Help, ARCH,
will be held November 13-15 at the Keybridge Marriott in Arlington, Virginia. The conference is expected to attract between 200
and 300 researchers, policy makers, human service providers, and advocates. The Department of Health and Human Services
began sponsoring these national conferences in 1988. The conferences provide professionals in the family support and
preservation field with an opportunity to hear state-of-the art information, increase their knowledge base, strengthen their skills,
and network. In addition, these conferences provide a national forum for policy discussion and formulation.
The 25th Annual Child Abuse and Neglect Symposium will be held May 13-16, 1997 at the Keystone Resort Conference Center in
Keystone, CO. The conference is sponsored by the C. Henry Kempe National Center for the Prevention and Treatment of Child
Abuse and Neglect. This multidisciplinary conference draws together professionals and advocates serving abused and neglected
children and their families. For registration information, call (303) 321-3963.
This article is the third in a series reporting the findings from a comprehensive evaluation of Hawaii's Healthy Start program. This article assesses the long-term impacts of home visitation services.
Information about the longer-term impacts of home visitor services such as the utilization and retention of service gains achieved by families who have been away from the program for a while is scarce. Available home visitation studies tend to document the immediate impacts of services on a myriad of outcomes such as child health indicators, child developmental progress, parent-child interactions, and child abuse reports. Further, the majority of studies focus on programs limited to two years or less in length, providing observation and knowledge about program impacts during the first two years of the child's life. Unfortunately, these preclude understanding program impacts during the later stages of the child's development. Studies that follow participants after termination of services are generally not home visitor programs aimed specifically at child abuse prevention; rather their aim is to improve children's intellectual and cognitive capacities. To address the need for longitudinal evaluation on the effects of home visitation, NCPCA incorporated a long-term follow-up study of former Healthy Start clients into the overall examination of Healthy Start services.
The sample for this component consisted of 34 families who participated in Healthy Start services for at least one year, and terminated services an average of 20 months prior to the follow-up assessment or advanced to a level of minimum contact with the program. A smaller than anticipated pool of former clients and tracking difficulties contributed to the small sample size for this study, which greatly restricts the generalizability of findings and constitutes a major limitation of the current study. A second limitation of the current study is that comparison of the study sample to later Healthy Start clients on initial demographic and psychosocial risk factors suggested that the follow-up study participants, on average, entered Healthy Start services at a lower level of risk than later clients, corroborating anecdotal reports by Healthy Start staff that the typical client profile has changed since the implementation of the program, and now reflects more overburdened families. Despite these limitations, the current study provides an opportunity for generating hypotheses regarding the long-term impact of intensive home visitation on parenting skills.
Results indicated that in most respects, this sample of families demonstrated average to above average scores at follow-up on multiple measures of parental functioning and parent-child interaction. Approximately two-thirds of the sample scored in the "low-risk" range on the measure of physical child abuse potential, and three-quarters of participants reported average or higher levels of social support. The only negative finding in terms of follow-up functioning was the cognitive development of the target children; 57% of the children performed at or below the 25th percentile on a test of hearing vocabulary. Language bias of the test may have contributed to the low scores on this measure.
An indicator of participants' income, receipt of public assistance, was the sole demographic risk factor found to relate to program impacts at one year after intake. Participants who were receiving public assistance at intake made less substantial gains on the HOME Inventory during the first year of involvement in the program. This finding suggests that lower income status may inhibit gains during the first year of home visiting services, but that other demographic risk factors such as single parent status, number of children, and lower educational level do not impede parents' progress in the program during the first year.
After termination of intensive program involvement, however, initial demographic risk factors demonstrated greater predictive power. The mother's educational level and household composition at intake were significant predictors of functioning at follow-up. Consistent with the literature on children's achievement, the mother's educational attainment was positively related to her child's score on the PPVT-R, as well as the quality of the home environment. The presence of other adults in the household at intake predicted more problematic parenting at follow-up, contrary to the expectation that living with other adults would be of benefit for new mothers.
Similar to demographic variables, initial psychosocial risk level as measured by the Family Stress Checklist (FSC) did not relate to parents' functioning after the first year of program involvement, but higher initial risk did relate to more problematic parenting after program involvement terminated. Overall, the quantitative findings suggest that participants at greatest risk may exhibit improvements in parenting skills during program involvement, but have difficulty maintaining these gains once they are no longer actively engaged in the program.
Qualitative results indicated that parents perceived substantial benefits from their participation, which mapped closely onto the goals specified by the program model. Three major themes were found in participants' responses: emotional and social support from the home visitor; facilitation of access to additional services, such as medical or child care; and information about child development and parenting skills.
Another important qualitative finding was that the majority of parents possessed a good working knowledge of positive, non-physical methods of child discipline, and a full 50% of the parents reported no use of physical punishment whatsoever. Most parents who had used physical punishment during the past week restricted this to mild levels, such as slapping a child's hand, or moderate physical punishment, such as spanking with their hand. Many of the parents commented that they were criticized by their own parents or friends for not using physical punishment to control their children's behavior, suggesting the importance of assessing peer and family support of positive, non-physical discipline to ensure long-term retention of positive disciplinary practices.
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