Countless studies demonstrate that students with parents actively involved in their education at home and school are more likely to earn higher grades and test scores, enroll in higher-level programs, graduate from high school, and go on to post-secondary education. Beyond the Bake Sale shows how to form these essential partnerships and how to make them work. Packed with tips from principals and teachers, checklists, and an invaluable resource section, Beyond the Bake Sale reveals how to build strong collaborative relationships and offers practical advice for improving interactions between parents and teachers, from insuring that PTA groups are constructive and inclusive to navigating the complex issues surrounding diversity in the classroom. Written with candor, clarity, and humor, Beyond the Bake Sale is essential reading for teachers, parents on the front lines in public schools, and administrators and policy makers at all levels.

The ABA Checklist for Family Heirs is a wonderful tool for anyone needing assistance in organizing information for heirs. The book, which comes complete with a CD of documents that can be modified according to one's needs, includes the following checklists: personal history; family history; insurance; benefits for survivors; banking and savings; investments; real estate; debts; wills and trusts; and final wishes.

Don’t Leave Your Friends Behind is a collection of concrete tips, suggestions, and narratives on ways that non-parents can support parents, children, and caregivers in their communities, social movements, and collective processes. Don’t Leave Your Friends Behind focuses on issues affecting children and caregivers within the larger framework of social justice, mutual aid, and collective liberation. How do we create new, nonhierarchical structures of support and mutual aid, and include all ages in the struggle for social justice? There are many books on parenting, but few on being a good community member and a good ally to parents, caregivers, and children as we collectively build a strong all-ages culture of resistance. Any group of parents will tell you how hard their struggles are and how they are left out, but no book focuses on how allies can address issues of caretakers’ and children’s oppression. Many well-intentioned childless activists don’t interact with young people on a regular basis and don’t know how. Don’t Leave Your Friends Behind provides them with the resources and support to get started. Contributors include: The Bay Area Childcare Collective, Ramsey Beyer, Rozalinda Borcilă, Mariah Boone, Marianne Bullock, Lindsey Campbell, Briana Cavanaugh, CRAP! Collective, a de la maza pérez tamayo, Ingrid DeLeon, Clayton Dewey, David Gilbert, A.S. Givens, Jason Gonzales, Tiny (aka Lisa Gray-Garcia), Jessica Hoffman, Heather Jackson, Rahula Janowski, Sine Hwang Jensen, Agnes Johnson, Simon Knaphus, Victoria Law, London Pro-Feminist Men’s Group, Amariah Love, Oluko Lumumba, mama raccoon, Mamas of Color Rising/Young Women United, China Martens, Noemi Martinez, Kathleen McIntyre, Stacey Milbern, Jessica Mills, Tomas Moniz, Coleen Murphy, Maegan ‘la Mamita Mala’ Ortiz, Traci Picard, Amanda Rich, Fabiola Sandoval, Cynthia Ann Schemmer, Mikaela Shafer, Mustafa Shakur, Kate Shapiro, Jennifer Silverman, Harriet Moon Smith, Mariahadessa Ekere Tallie, Darran White Tilghman, Jessica Trimbath, Max Ventura, and Mari Villaluna.

Analyzing the critical juncture of family-centered policy and practice, this book places the universal institution of the family in a global context. By including a conceptual framework as well as practice components, the authors offer an original multimodal approach toward understanding family-centered policy practice from an international perspective. It provides grassroots strategies for activists and practical guides for both students and practitioners and includes cutting-edge interpretations of the impact of globalization on families, social workers, and other helping professionals and advocates.

This best-selling text integrates the latest research and cutting-edge practice to make an evidence-based case for family policy. It uses examples from around the globe to explain how families support society and how policies support families. The book also moves beyond analysis to action with pragmatic processes and procedures for improving the effectiveness and efficiency of policies by viewing them through the lens of family impact. Highlights of the new edition include: Extensive revisions with many new references and policies that reflect recent changes in the economy, politics, and family forms and familes. Many new learning tools including guiding questions, more tables and figures, chapter glossaries, discussion questions, and chapter summaries. Enhanced global perspective with a new chapter (5) that features what policies nations have put in place to strengthen and support families. A new chapter (8) that views how family considerations can improve the effectiveness of policy decisions on issues such as early childhood care and education, health care, juvenile crime, long-term care, parent education, and welfare reform. A new chapter (11) on what the policy process and policymakers are really like including how a bill becomes a law. A new chapter (12) that provides a theoretical and empirical rationale for viewing issues through the family impact lens and what innovative tools and procedures exist for analyzing the family impact of organizations, policies, programs, and practices. Several chapters that review what professionals can do in the policy arena and how they can foster compromise and common ground. Updated web-based teaching materials including sample syllabi, classroom activities and assignments, daily lesson plans, test questions, instructor insights, video links, web resources, and more. Part 1 highlights what family policy is and why it’s important and how family life in the U.S. differs from other countries. Part 2 examines the contributions family considerations can bring to issues such as early childhood education, health care, juvenile crime, long-term care, and welfare reform. Part 3 explains why polarization has stymied progress in family policymaking and guidelines for fostering compromise. Insights are drawn from the history of family policy over the last century. Part 4 provides strategies for getting involved in family policymaking. It reviews: the processes policymaking institutions use to enact legislation; new techniques for assessing the family impact of policies and programs; strategies for building better public policies; and various professional roles and careers for building family policy. The book concludes with a summary of how and where we go from here. Intended for advanced undergraduate and/or graduate courses in family or social policy taught in human development and family studies, psychology, counseling, social work, sociology, public policy, home economics, consumer science, and education, researchers and practitioners alike appreciate this book’s integration of theory, research, and practice.

In our fast-changing urban world, the impacts of social and environmental change on children are often overlooked. Children and their Urban Environment examines these impacts in detail, looking at the key activities, spaces and experiences children have and how these can be managed to ensure that children benefit from change. The authors highlight the importance of planners, architects and housing professionals in creating positive environments for children and involving them in the planning process. They argue that children‘s lives are becoming simultaneously both richer and more deprived, and that, despite apparently increasing wealth, disparities between children are increasing further. Each chapter includes international examples of good practice and policy innovations for redressing the balance in favour of child supportive environments. The book seeks to embrace childhood as a time of freedom, social engagement and environmental adventure and to encourage creation of environments that better meet the needs of children. The authors argue that in doing so, we will build more sustainable neighbourhoods, cities and societies for the future.