Canadian Social Research Newsletter
July 29, 2007

Welcome to the weekly Canadian Social Research Newsletter,
a listing of the new links added to the Canadian Social Research Links website in the past week.

The e-mail version of this week's issue of the newsletter is going out to 1764 subscribers.

Scroll to the bottom of this newsletter to see some notes and a disclaimer.

IN THIS ISSUE:

Canadian Content

1. What's New from Statistics Canada:
--- Payroll employment, earnings and hours, May 2007 - July 26
--- Study: Real gross domestic product and the purchasing power of provincial output- July 24
--- Employment Insurance, May 2007 - July 24
2. Share provincial surplus with poor kids: Steve Kerstetter (The Tyee) - July 23

International Content

3. Poverty Dispatch: U.S. media coverage of social issues and programs
4. U.S. - 2007 KIDS COUNT Data Book (Annie E. Casey Foundation) - July 25
5. Family homelessness hits 20-year high in NYC (The Wellesley Institute) - July 23
6. Australian Policy Online Weekly Briefing - recent content (various sources)
--- Understanding the drivers of poverty dynamics in Australian households
--- Family carers and mental illness
--- Ten policy principles for a national system of early childhood education and care (Australia)
--- Australia, France and the United Kingdom: helping youth into the labour market: a community responsibility to maintain social cohesion?
7. CRINMAIL #901 (Child Rights Information Network) - July 26
8. Global Knowledge Partnership: Online Interactions

Have a great week!

What's New from The Daily [Statistics Canada]:

July 26, 2007
Payroll employment, earnings and hours, May 2007 (preliminary)
In May, the average weekly earnings of payroll employees (seasonally adjusted) increased $1.47 to $766.32 from April. The year-to-date growth, calculated as the average of the first five months of 2007 compared with the average of the same five months in 2006, was 2.9%.

July 24, 2007
Study: Real gross domestic product and the purchasing power of provincial output
Rising commodity prices and the surging Canadian dollar have led to a divergence between real earnings growth and the increase in the purchasing power of those earnings, according to a new study. From 2002 to 2005, real earnings rose by 8.3%, while the purchasing power of those earnings increased by 13.4%.

July 24, 2007
Employment Insurance, May 2007

- Go to the Federal Government Department Links (Fisheries and Oceans to Veterans Affairs) page: http://www.canadiansocialresearch.net/fedbkmrk2.htm

How Big Is Taylor's Heart?
Share that $4.1 billion surplus with poor kids.
By Steve Kerstetter
July 23, 2007
"(...) Taylor and the rest of the BC Liberals have promised a golden future for B.C., a future that will make the province the best place to live in Canada. But that goal will never be reached as long as a significant portion of the population is cut off from the mainstream of community life by virtue of their very low incomes."
TIP: there are links to three related articles at the bottom of the Taylor article.
Source:
The Tyee

--------------------------
Steve Kerstetter is a member of the co-ordinating committee of First Call, the BC Child and Youth Advocacy Coalition.
He is also former Director of the National Council of Welfare.
--------------------------

Related links:

BC Progress Board Releases Discussion Paper on Social Condition
News Release
December 15, 2006
On December 15, 2006, the BC Progress Board released a discussion paper on social condition in British Columbia. The paper, entitled "The Social Condition in British Columbia", examines the causes and costs of low income in British Columbia and provides eight suggestions for provincial and federal government consideration. The report was prepared for the Progress Board by Dr. Keith Banting, C.M., Queen's Research Chair in Public Policy at Queen's University.
"(...) three policy imperatives that flow from federal and provincial income support programs over the past decade:
* Work should pay.
* Educational equality should be a key priority.
* Those who cannot be expected to work should be well supported."

Executive Summary (PDF file - 292K, 3 pages)
Complete report (PDF file - 2.3MB, 54 pages)
December 2006

Source:
BC Progress Board
"In July 2001, the Premier formed the BC Progress Board, an independent Panel of eighteen eminent British Columbians from a variety of backgrounds from around the province. The Board is tasked with benchmarking BC over time and relative to other jurisdictions, and with providing strategic advice to the Premier on measures to improve provincial economic performance and the well-being of British Columbians."
[ More about the BC Progress Board ]

- Go to the Non-Governmental Sites in British Columbia (C-W) page: http://www.canadiansocialresearch.net/bcbkmrk3.htm

Poverty Dispatch (U.S). ===> the content of this link changes each week
- links to news items from the American press about poverty, welfare reform, child welfare, education, health, hunger, Medicare and Medicaid, etc.

Source:
Institute for Research on Poverty (IRP)
[ University of Wisconsin-Madison ]

This week's issues of Poverty Dispatch:

July 26, 2007
* 2007 Kids Count Report and States' Child Poverty Rates
* Federal Minimum Wage Increase
* Opinions: Minimum Wage
* Medicaid ID Requirement and Effects
* Opinions: State Children's Health Insurance Program
* Homelessness - New York City
* Column: Racial Disparities in Prisons
* College Financial Aid for Low-income Students
* Editorial: Income Inequality

July 23, 2007
* State Children's Health Insurance Program
* Privatization of Social Services - Indiana
* Welfare-to-Work Program - Washington
* Medicaid Coverage and Access to Care
* Nonprofit Hospitals and Free Medical Care
* Medicaid Computer System - Wisconsin
* Child Care Assistance - Rhode Island, Kentucky, Texas
* Homeless Families
* Federal Minimum Wage Increase
* Grandparents Raising Grandchildren
* Payday Lending Regulation - Ohio
* High School Dropouts and Loss of Driving Privileges - Illinois
* Column: State Budget and Spending on Social Services - California
* Poverty as a Political Campaign Issue

IRP compiles and distributes Poverty Dispatches, links to Web-based news items dealing with poverty, welfare reform, and related topics twice a week. Each Dispatch lists links to current news in popular print media. Persons wishing to receive Poverty Dispatches by e-mail should send a request to rsnell@ssc.wisc.edu.

Past Poverty Dispatches
- links to two dispatches a week back to June 2006

Poverty Dispatch Digest Archive - weekly digest of dispatches from August 2005 to May 2006
For a few years prior to the creation of this new web page for the Dispatch, I was compiling a weekly digest of the e-mails and redistributing the digest to my mailing list with IRP's permission.
This is my own archive of weekly issues of the digest back to August 2005, and most of them have 50+ links per issue. I'll be deleting this archive from my site gradually, as the links to older articles expire.

- Go to the Links to American Government Social Research page: http://www.canadiansocialresearch.net/us.htm
- Go to the Links to American Non-Governmental Social Research (A-J) page: http://www.canadiansocialresearch.net/us2.htm
- Go to the Links to American Non-Governmental Social Research (M-Z) page: http://www.canadiansocialresearch.net/us3.htm

2007 KIDS COUNT Data Book Shows Slipping Economic Conditions for Children,
Focuses on the Critical Importance of Lifelong Family Connections for Youth in Foster Care
News Release
July 25, 2007
BALTIMORE – National trends in child well-being taken together have improved slightly since 2000, according to a report released today by the Annie E. Casey Foundation.
The 18th annual KIDS COUNT Data Book indicators show:
* Four areas of improvement: child death rate, teen birth rate, high school dropout rate, teens not in school and not working;
* Two areas of slight improvement: infant mortality rate, teen death rate; and
* Four areas have worsened: low-birthweight babies, children living in families where no parent has fulltime year-round employment, children in poverty, and children in single-parent families.

2007 KIDS COUNT main page - includes links to all related reports

Complete report (PDF file - 3.4MB, 196 pages)
Summary and Findings (PDF file - 505K, 28 pages)

State-Level Data Online
This system contains state-level data for over 100 measures of child well-being, including all the measures regularly used in our popular KIDS COUNT Data Book and The Right Start for America's Newborns. This easy-to-use, powerful online database allows you to generate custom reports for a geographic area (Profiles) or to compare geographic areas on a topic (Ranking, Maps, and Line Graphs).

Compare states by topic
- topics include : KIDS COUNT Data Book Indicators - RIGHT START Indicators - Children in Immigrant Families - Education - Employment and Income - Health - Health Insurance - Population and Family Characteristics - Poverty - Youth Risk Factors

Source:
Kids Count
KIDS COUNT is a national and state-by-state effort to track the status of children in the U.S. By providing policymakers and citizens with benchmarks of child well-being, KIDS COUNT seeks to enrich local, state, and national discussions concerning ways to secure better futures for all children.
[ Annie E. Casey Foundation
Founded in 1948, the primary mission of the Annie E. Casey Foundation is to foster public policies, human-service reforms, and community supports that more effectively meet the needs of today’s vulnerable children and families. ]

Also from the Annie E. Casey Foundation:

The Working Poor Families Project: Promoting Economic Self-Sufficiency as a State TANF Outcome (PDF file - 285K, 6 pages)
By Crosley, Adair; Povich, Deborah; Roberts, Brandon
2007
As states reexamine their TANF programs under the new law, they have the opportunity to redirect program activities and outcomes toward economic self-sufficiency. This brief reviews how states can establish economic self-sufficiency as a goal for TANF leavers and measures success and related outcomes on a routine basis.

- Go to the International Children, Families and Youth Links page: http://www.canadiansocialresearch.net/chn2.htm

Family homelessness hits 20-year high in NYC
July 23, 2007
By Michael Shapcott
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's 2004 plan to cut homelessness in the Big Apple by two-thirds produced an almost immediate decline in the number of people in homeless shelters. But the latest numbers show a sharp upward spike to the highest number of homeless families in two decades. All the details are available from the NYC Department of Homeless Services and you can read more details from the New York City Coalition for the Homeless.
Source:
The Wellesley Institute Blog
[ The Wellesley Institute ]

- Go to the Homelessness and Housing Links page: http://www.canadiansocialresearch.net/homeless.htm
- Go to the Links to American Non-Governmental Social Research (M-Z) Links page: http://www.canadiansocialresearch.net/us3.htm

APO Weekly Briefing
The content of this page changes each week, and it includes links to a few book/report reviews, about two dozen new reports, a few job ads and 60+ events (mostly conferences) of interest to social researchers...
Source:
Australian Policy Online (APO)
With nearly 120 member centres and institutes, Australian Policy Online offers easy access to much of the best Australian social, economic, cultural and political research available online.
NOTE: the APO home page includes links to the five most popular reports on the APO website, and this list is updated each week.

Selected recent content from the APO Weekly Briefing:

Understanding the drivers of poverty dynamics in Australian households
Hielke Buddelmeyer and Sher Verick / Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research
Posted 25-07-2007
A range of household head, partner and demographic characteristics in addition to life-changing events have an impact on both the likelihood of remaining poor and slipping into poverty according to this analysis of the HILDA survey.

Family carers and mental illness
SANE Australia
Posted 25-07-2007
Research by SANE Australia shows 56% of people caring for someone with mental illness find their physical and mental health suffer as a result of their caring role. Alarmingly, 70% of carers report having received no relevant training or education, and due to lack of availability more than half have not accessed support services of any kind. One in four carers experience mental illness themselves.

Ten policy principles for a national system of early childhood education and care
Work + Family Policy Roundtable
Posted 09-07-2007
Australia needs a new nationally coordinated, planned approach to an integrated system of early childhood education and care is the concensus of a national workshop on childcare held in 2006.

Australia, France and the United Kingdom: helping youth into the labour market: a community responsibility to maintain social cohesion?
Sophie Koppe / University of Bordeaux
Posted 24-07-2007
This paper from the 2007 Australian Social Policy Conference looks at how these three countries view the obligations young people have to fulfil to be considered as good citizens and the suggestion that they are a potential threat to community building.

Related link:

Building Community Capacity and Social Resilience
11-13 July 2007
University of New South Wales
Sydney, Australia
The 2007 conference has now taken place.
Full Program - includes the program and links to paper abstracts and many complete papers that are available for download
The theme for the 2007 conference was 'Social Policy through the Life Course: Building Community Capacity and Social Resilience'. This theme encapsulates two interrelated issues in social policy. The first concerns life-course transitions, including the diverse challenges and opportunities which people experience within their age, gender, social, economic and cultural contexts. The second focuses on identifying the interconnections between social investment policies, services and programs which build both community capacity and social resilience for individuals situated within their social networks.
Source:
Social Policy Research Centre
(University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia)

APO Archive
The APO archive is grouped into 23 subject areas, with entries appearing in reverse chronological order.
* Ageing *Asia and the pacific * Citizenship and the law * Disability * Economics and trade * Education * Employment and workplace relations * The environment * Foreign policy and defence * Gender and sexuality * Health * Housing * Families and households * Immigration and refugees * Income, poverty and wealth * Indigenous * Media, communications and cultural policy * Politics and government * Population, multiculturalism and ethnicity * Religion and faith * Rural and regional * Science and technology * Social policy * Urban and regional planning * Youth

- Go to the Social Research Links in Other Countries (Non-Government) page: http://www.canadiansocialresearch.net/internatngo.htm

From the Child Rights Information Network (CRIN):

26 July 2007 - CRINMAIL 901
- SPAIN: Unwelcome Responsibilities - Spain’s Failure to Protect the Rights of Unaccompanied Migrant Children in the Canary Islands [publication]
- CHILD CARE: Early Childhood in Focus - Attachment Relationships: quality of care for young children [publication]
- MALAYSIA: Calls to allow death penalty for juveniles [news]
- PHILIPPINES: Court battle over advertising for breast milk substitutes [news]
- UNITED STATES: Kids Count 2007 [publication]
- BRAZIL: VII International Human Rights Colloquium [event]
- EMPLOYMENT - ISPCAN [job postings]
**QUIZ**

Earlier issues of CRINMAIL
- links to over 200 issues, many of which are special editions focusing on a particular theme, such as the 45th Session of the Committee on the Rights of the Child, the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the launch of the EURONET (European Children's Network) Website.

Source:
CRINMAIL(incl. subscription info)
[ Child Rights Information Network (CRIN) ]

- Go to the Children's Rights Links page: http://www.canadiansocialresearch.net/chnrights.htm

Global Knowledge Partnership: Online Interactions
Formed through a worldwide partnership that includes the United Nations and a host of other international organizations, the Global Knowledge Partnership was created to apply knowledge and technology to address development issues in areas like poverty reduction and access to knowledge. To facilitate the exchange of ideas in these areas, the Partnership has created this Online Interactions site. Here, visitors can look over various blogs, podcasts, and video forums that focus in on these themes. Visitors can start by looking through the “Latest videos” area, which features everything from “What is Web 2.0 Explained in under 5 minutes” to a video on robotics programs in Costa Rica. Visitors can also search the site’s contents and sign up to receive RSS feeds of material as it is posted to the site.
Reviewed by:
The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2007

- Go to the Social Research Links in Other Countries (Non-Government) page: http://www.canadiansocialresearch.net/internatngo.htm

Disclaimer/Privacy Statement

Both Canadian Social Research Links (the site) and this Canadian Social Research Newsletter belong solely to me, Gilles Séguin.

I am solely accountable for the choice of links presented therein and for the occasional editorial comment - it's my time, my home computer, my experience, my biases, my Rogers Internet account and my web hosting service.

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Thanks, CUPE!

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------------------------

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Links presented in the Canadian Social Research Newsletter point to different views about social policy and social programs.
There are some that I don't agree with, so don't get on my case, eh...

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Cheers!
Gilles

E-MAIL:
gilseg@rogers.com