The Children, Youth and Families concentration prepares students for challenging careers developing research and policy that maximize the potential of children, youth and families.

Changes in the structure and function of households and in the dynamics of neighborhoods, schools and the workforce are just a few of the issues facing families today. In order to influence policies in this area, professionals must understand the fundamentals of human development, the dramatic social, political and economic changes affecting family and community life, and new directions in system and program design. This requires knowledge of relevant theory and practice in the areas of demography, health, education, and social services. The concentration in Children, Youth, and Families addresses the broad spectrum of American policies that affect human development. Graduates of the program assume roles as policy analysts, researchers, educators, program planners, and advocates. The concentration helps students achieve their goals through mentoring and advising, formal courses, colloquia, research responsibilities, and interaction with faculty.

Scope

Heller research on children and child welfare is concerned with issues of adoption and foster care, child abuse, childcare, child support, prenatal care, children's mental health, child poverty, hunger, and homelessness. The impact of welfare reform on poor children in Boston was the subject of a large ethnographic study based at Heller. Using the synthesis of current knowledge on brain development, family context and community influences published in From Neurons to Neighborhoods (edited by the former Heller School Dean, Jack Shonkoff), Heller researchers are facilitating efforts of two Massachusetts agencies to assist children in abusive households through the provision of early intervention services. Teenage pregnancy, while on the decline, remains a major American social dilemma. Research at the Heller School is examining the consequences of early childbearing for teenagers and their children, as well as the policies that attempt to reduce early childbearing.

In the field of youth and community development, Heller researchers have developed and tested the building blocks for development of healthy individuals, families, and communities and have designed systems and programs to provide effective service learning, safe schools, college-access, and transitions from school to work, street to work and welfare to careers.

Changing family structure and the changing roles of women have made gender equity in work and family a recurrent theme in faculty research as well as a frequent topic of student dissertations, including studies in Bangladesh, Korea, Japan, Panama, Taiwan, and Zimbabwe.

Crosscutting every study related to children, youth or women is a direct or implicit concern with family policy and with the way that families interact with public institutions such as schools, the labor market, and the child welfare and health care systems. Examples include research on families receiving welfare, access and equity in education, youth programs in the community, reporting and treatment of domestic violence, parent participation in the schools, family support services in the military, and family and medical leave.

The Institute for Child, Youth, and Family Policy

The Children, Youth, and Families concentration is based in the Institute for Child, Youth, and Family Policy, directed by Professor Lorraine Klerman. This Institute addresses child and family-related issues from both an individual and an institutional perspective. The Institute also houses the Nathan and Toby Starr Center for Mental Retardation, which conducts specialized applied research and social policy analysis in the field of mental retardation and related disabilities, as well as the Center for Youth and Communities (CYC). Directed by Professor Susan P. Curnan, CYC focuses on positive youth development and the creation of safe, just, and prosperous communities where young people are engaged in full.

Program of Study

Like the other concentrations, the concentration in Children, Youth, and Families builds on the theoretical grounding in economics, political science, and sociology, as well as skills in both qualitative and quantitative research, required by the Ph.D. program of study. The goal of the CYF concentration is to prepare students for careers in university teaching and research, government agencies, and other research and service settings where, as graduates, they will frame new questions and bring their knowledge and analytical skills to bear on social programs and policies related to human development and family functioning.

The required introductory CYF course for doctoral students is HS317b, Children, Youth and Families: Problems, Policies, and Programs, taught jointly to Heller MBA students. This course explores the characteristics of America's children, youth, and families, reviews current knowledge about child and adolescent development and describes the policies and programs designed to help children and families overcome their problems. First and second year students are required to attend the CYF Dissertation Seminar.

The final requirement is the successful defense of a dissertation presented to the Heller faculty. Dissertation topics have included: effects of non-standard work arrangements on parenting, factors that promote high school graduation among African-American males, family policy and family building in the gay and lesbian community, college access for poor and minority students, school-based health centers, child welfare referrals, indicators of intimate partner violence, regular and kinship foster care, and ways that single mothers leave welfare.