Corrected: The Institute for Community Development’s COMET/STAR program in the Wyandanch school district is not the first such program in New York as an item in this article implied.
Children’s Studies at Harvard, a two-year project designed to bring together professionals from various disciplines to collaborate on issues affecting children’s well-being, has received a $1 million grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York.
The award is the largest ever to the Harvard Project on Schooling and Children, which through the children’s studies program will bring together students and faculty members from such fields as education, the humanities, medicine, law, business, religion, and government and public policy.
The program will include interdisciplinary research, new courses, and seminars at the undergraduate and graduate levels, as well as long-term partnerships between Harvard University and the local community to help children.
A new undergraduate course, called Children in their Social Worlds, is being offered next spring.
The group’s activities will focus on three research questions:
- What promotes resilience in children who face adverse circumstances?
- How do ethnicity, race, and gender influence children’s behaviors and aspirations?
- How do belief systems and public discourse affect America’s commitment to children?
Martha Minow, a law professor, and Stuart Hauser, a professor of psychiatry at the Harvard Medical School, will co-direct Children’s Studies at Harvard.
The Harvard Project on Schooling and Children began in 1993 as one of five interfaculty initiatives designed by university President Neil Rudenstine. Other activities include a faculty research seminar on the Ecology of Schooling and the Innovative Schools Initiative, which will host a conference on New England charter schools next month.
The Institute for Community Development has launched its first combined COMET/STAR program. Sixty middle and high school students in the Wyandanch school district in New York City are taking part.
COMET, or Children of Many Education Talents, is a middle school program, and STAR, or Success Through Academic Readiness, focuses on high school students. Both emphasize intense academic work, individual and group counseling, and personal-development support.
About 1,300 students in New York state school districts take part in programs sponsored by the Manhasset, N.Y.-based institute, according to the fall issue of the group’s newsletter, Yes, We Can.
For information, write the Institute for Community Development, 600 Community Drive, Manhasset, N.Y. 11030.
The autumn issue of the Johnson Foundation’s Wingspread Journal focuses on community issues. Among the topics the journal covers are young people and public work, community-university partnerships and how they can strengthen and revitalize urban centers, and national-service organizations.
The Racine, Wis.-based foundation publishes the journal quarterly, and each issue focuses on one of the foundation’s four priorities: enhancing learning productivity, encouraging the involvement of adults in children’s lives, fostering sustainable community development, and civil and civic community.
Single copies of the journal are free from the Johnson Foundation, P.O. Box 547, Racine, Wis. 53401-0547; fax: (414) 681-3327.
The Center for Applied Linguistics, based in Washington, is looking for partnerships between community-based groups and schools that promote the academic achievement of language-minority and at-risk students.
The center, along with the Center for Research on Education, Diversity, and Excellence at the University of California, Santa Cruz, wants to get in touch with such partnerships to identify potential challenges and successful characteristics.
For information, call Jennifer Locke at (202) 429-9292 or send electronic mail to jennifer@cal.org.
The Family Resource Coalition of Chicago has published Guidelines for Family Support Practice. The coalition spent three years identifying and defining high-quality practice in family-support services to produce the book.
The guide lists what the coalition considers to be the key practices that programs should enlist to promote family support. More than 2,000 parents and support workers in about 350 community-based programs provided input. To request a copy, call Shelley Peck at (312) 341-0900.
The National Health & Education Consortium has released a planning guide for community health fairs. The Big Red How-To Guide: Planning a Health Fair for Children & Families is set up as a workbook and includes checkoff lists, worksheets, and tips from successful fairs.
The guide is available for $15 from the National Health & Education Consortium, c/o The Institute for Educational Leadership, 1001 Connecticut Ave. N.W., Suite 310, Washington, D.C. 20036; (202) 822-8405; fax: (202) 872-4050.
The Finance Project has published a study that examines what conditions are likely to interfere with the development of comprehensive community-based services for children and families.
The study is part of the group’s Working Papers Series, which includes papers on topics relating to financing for education and other children’s services. The papers are intended for policymakers, among others. Working papers are available for $5 each, prepaid, from the Finance Project, 1341 G St. N.W., Suite 820, Washington, D.C. 20005.
The National Community Education Association will have its annual conference next month in Milwaukee. For information about the Dec. 4-7 event, call or write the NCEA, 3929 Old Lee Highway, Suite 91-A, Fairfax, Va. 22030-2401; (703) 359-8973; fax: (703) 359-0972.
