Whatever It Takes: How Twelve Communities Are Reconnecting Out-Of-School Youth documents what committed educators, policymakers, and community leaders across the country are doing to reconnect out-of-school youth to the social and economic mainstream. It provides background on the serious high school dropout problem and describes in-depth what twelve communities are doing to reconnect dropouts to education and employment training. It also includes descriptions of major national program models serving out-of-school youth. Click here to download the report. Making Good on a Promise: What Policymakers Can Do to Support the Educational Persistence of Dropouts addresses a critical question: Are pathways available to help dropouts pursue an education and move toward an economically productive adulthood? This report assesses how far our society is from “making good” on the promise of a second chance for dropouts and offers a starting point for improving the record. It challenges several misconceptions based on a detailed look at who dropped out and how much education they completed by their early adulthood. Visit Jobs For the Future at www.jff.org to download this and other reports on developing pathways to success for high school dropouts. An American Youth Policy Forum brief looks at the issue of drop-out prevention, as well as important and often less-publicized state efforts to re-engage young people who have already dropped out of school, and risk falling between the cracks. For more information, visit http://www.aypf.org/projects/briefs/DropoutPreventionRecovery.htm Children benefit when their parents or caregivers are actively involved in their out-of-school learning. Yet a new report by the Harvard Family Research Project and United Way of Massachusetts Bay finds that only a quarter of programs surveyed had effectively incorporated families. This guide, funded by Wallace under its Parents and Communities for Kids initiative, offers after-school providers practical guidance on giving parents, guardians and other caregivers a more significant role in children’s out-of-school learning, through specific strategies and three case studies. The Wallace Foundation's report entitled Focus on Families! How to Build and Support Family Centered Practices in After School by Zenub Kakli, Holly Kreider and Priscilla Little of the Harvard Family Research Project, and Tania Buck and Maryellen Coffey of Build the Out-of-School Time Network (BOSTnet) is now available as a PDF to download. Click here to download. For more information about the Wallace Foundation, go to www.wallacefoundation.org Child Welfare Information Gateway The Children's Bureau has revamped its National Clearinghouse on Child Abuse and Neglect Information and the National Adoption Information Clearinghouse. The Gateway is a one-stop source for data on programs, research, laws and policies, and training resources. For more information, visit http://www.childwelfare.gov/ Youth Activist Web Boards Advocates for Youth launched its Youth Activist Network web boards. With these web boards young people will now be able to post information about their advocacy involvement, look at what others have done, ask questions of their peers, and learn from each other. Click here for more information.