2007 Youth Health Survey
Pathways Mapping Initiative
Georgia SIDS Project
Make Community Planning Easier-Use Georgia's PPN KIDS COUNT Page

2007 Youth Health Survey
Here is a report on 32,273 teens conducted in Gwinnett County to supplement the Youth Risk Behavior Survey.

Download a pdf file of the report.

Pathways Mapping Initiative
The Pathways Mapping Initiative Web site holds a wealth of findings about what it takes to improve the lives of children and families living in America's tough neighborhoods. Community coalitions, providers of services and supports, funders, and policymakers will find a broad collection of information about what works in social programs and policies to achieve desired results, including increased rates of children ready for school and higher numbers of economically successful families.

The Pathways Mapping Initiative (PMI) was established in January 2000 as part of the Project on Effective Interventions at Harvard University and developed in partnership with the Technical Assistance Resource Center of The Annie E. Casey Foundation. Its objective is to build on the wealth of findings about what works by going beyond both anecdotes and traditional evaluation literature. PMI's work is based on the conviction that communities, funders, and policy-makers should not have to start with a blank slate or scrounge, unaided, to uncover the rich lessons learned by others. We believe that communities will be able to act most effectively when they can combine local wisdom and their understanding of local circumstances with "actionable intelligence" - the accumulated knowledge about what has worked elsewhere, what is working now, and what appears promising. The Pathways on this website are designed to: * Give community collaboratives, service providers, and local officials reliable Web-based guidance about what has worked elsewhere-information these users can combine with their understanding of local conditions and opportunities to improve outcomes for children and families, especially those living in tough neighborhoods. * Give state and federal policymakers and philanthropic funders new ways of understanding what works so they can think and act more broadly and deeply to improve outcomes for children and families. * Create a forum through which community experience can continuously inform and modify the knowledge base. * Make it easier for an array of stakeholders to agree on plausible strategies, across disciplines and jurisdictions, for achieving the child and family outcomes that the majority of citizens consider important.

Visit the Pathways Mapping Initiative Web site.

Georgia SIDS Project
Thie Georgia SIDS Project is a partnership between the Division of Public Health and the Georgia SIDS Information, Support and Referral Program. Their purpose is to educate families and communities on the risk of SIDS and other infant death. This is done through early prenatal care, prenatal smoking cessation, breast-feeding, reducing heat exhaustion, using firm bedding materials, and assuring a safe sleep environment for babies.

This program also provides bereavement support services for Georgia families that have experienced an infant death, as well as training for professionals to support these bereaved families.

For professionals the program offers DHR-approved training classes related to SIDS and OID. These classes include specific presentations geared toward:

• child care professionals,
• nurses,
• mental health professionals,
• health education specialists,
• child birth educators,
• social service staff, and
• others.

For more information, including brochures, fact sheets, and other sources available for free to the public, visit the Georgia SIDS Project Web site.

Make Community Planning Easier-Use Georgia's PPN KIDS COUNT Page

It's time for many Family Connection counties to begin work on developing three-year community strategic plans. Part of the planning process involves providing a brief summary of research-based information to explain why your collaborative believes its strategy will contribute to improving conditions for a specific target group.

Use research to improve your work. One of the best resources for finding evidenced-based research on a topic or evaluated program is the Promising Practices Network (PPN). PPN has created special KIDS COUNT pages for three states—Georgia, Iowa, and Kansas—as part of a demonstration project. The purpose of these special pages is to match service providers, policymakers, and interested citizens with information that can help them improve outcomes seen in KIDS COUNT data in various states. The PPN content is organized into topic areas related to KIDS COUNT priorities for each state.

You'll find PPN program summaries and selected research related to topics in the five results areas Georgia KIDS COUNT tracks. If your community plans to address issues of child abuse and neglect, teen pregnancy, school achievement, juvenile justice, and strong families, among others, information on these topics is just a mouse click away. Please let PPN know how helpful the Web page is in helping you with the planning process.

If you want to keep up with the latest research findings, the most effective programs, online links to data sources, policy analysis, and more, click on the Georgia PPN KIDS COUNT page.

Back to Index

235 PEACHTREE ST., SUITE 1600 • ATLANTA, GA 30303-1422 • 404-527-7394 • FAX 404-527-7443