How could something so simple as the power of good communication about good works and good results produced by advocacy initiatives in communities across America be so neglected by thought leaders and top executives in the child/youth field?

Why is it that the power centers of philanthropy for children, youth, and families—America's foundations—so seldom seize the opportunity to include obligatory disciplines and funding for effective messaging, as an imperative in accountability measurement for their grantees?

By Hershel Sarbin

My most recent column reviewed “The Cost of Doing Nothing,” a report from the bipartisan advocacy organization First Focus that clearly addressed the lifetime consequences of poverty experienced during childhood with regards to health, crime, employment as well as the economic costs to society. The report notes that if the recession drives an estimated 3 million children into poverty, as economists predict, the country will lose $1.7 trillion (or about $35 billion dollars a year over the lifetime of
these children).

I felt compelled to make the connection, once more, between poverty and the huge cost of systemic failure in child welfare—foster care, aging out, the absence of early childhood education.

Texas graduation rates haven't improved much in over 20 years. In fact, the newest Intercultural Development Research Association (IDRA) study finds that Texas schools lose one high school student every four minutes—that's one-third of the state's students. So what would it take to get to a drop out rate of zero? IDRA's Grad4All looks at what can work, and how adults can get involved to make sure more students in Texas and across the country graduate on time and with the skills they need to succeed.

October 22: Child advocates across the country are quietly cheering some recent successes in Congress—including significant reform to the child welfare system—while raising concerns about a setback that may leave many homeless children without services they need.

Here’s a personal glimpse at the importance of local programs for children and families, as three stressed-out parents share how they found help and education in support groups. The California-based Children’s Advocate reports.

A New York City Department of Probation program, "Project Zero" offers alternatives to locking young offenders in juvenile jails, with an emphasis on rehabilitation and keeping young people connected to families and schooling. The program evaluates its progress regularly and makes adjustments based on the data—and is showing signs of success.

Nov. 12-This month, the New York Times published a three-part series on the struggles of minority-run foster care agencies in New York City. The articles found "a trail of scandals and disappointments, as well as a new commitment to better caring for the city's vulnerable black and Latino children."

Now on the Times site are four sets of Q&A, in which writers Benjamin Weiser and Leslie Kaufman, along with a panel of experts, answered readers' thoughtful questions.

Last month, when we introduced our Searching the Sites Program, I hoped that we would turn up newsworthy community initiatives with a strong flavor of Who's Doing What That Works.

"This past February, nine teenagers in foster care geared up in their warmest winter apparel and snowshoed two and a half miles to a cabin in Jackman, Maine for a three-day retreat and intensive Getting Beyond the System Self-Advocacy Workshop..."

But think of the additional value we can bring to this process and to children when we think in the context of building a community around children; a community that knows them and that has a vested interest in meeting their most critical needs.

"The reality is that adopting a baby is very expensive," says Cathleen Schmidt, president and CEO of Citizens Bank in New Hampshire.

Leading evangelical Christians are preaching a new message to the faithful, asking them to open their hearts, and homes, to the options of adoption and foster care.

Baby Austin was literally thrust upon Frank and Kathleen Chester - by a blindfolded mother who warned: "I'm leaving him with you because, if I take him tonight, he might not be alive tomorrow."

Had it not been for them, I honestly don't know what would have happened, Sandra Elders says about the St. Louis Crisis Nursery.

Johnny Madrid's mother died when he was 11, and he was shuttled between 19 different foster care settings by age 18. When he aged out of the California state system he still had no permanent contact. He says this remains an issue for him to this day.

Many adults think the adoption process is complete once you've signed all the paperwork and returned home with a newly-enlarged family. But this is when the real work of raising a child begins, and it doesn't have to be where parents' connection to the adoption community ends.  The growing ranks of post adoption support groups demonstrate just that.