The Center for Human Potential and Public Policy (CHPPP) plans to hold a series of three conferences each spring (May) from 2004 through 2006, focusing on child education, health and welfare in the context of economic disadvantage. The primary objective of this conference series is to establish a regular means by which talented scholars in multiple social and behavioral science disciplines may convene to share their expertise on issues related to child development, family processes, poverty and public policy. The CHPPP's multidisciplinary approach is anchored in the social and behavioral sciences, with core representation in economics, developmental psychology, and sociology. Scholars within these disciplines persistently identify co-morbidity of problems associated with poverty as a persistent threat to well-being and to the likelihood of positive outcomes for low-income families and their children. The more specific goals of the conference series are to identify currently existing models, across the social and behavioral sciences, for coherently analyzing these multiply determined processes. To accomplish these goals, the CHPPP conference series will focus on three specific policy topics within the context of poverty and child education, health, and welfare as a means of grounding innovative, emerging theory and research that will be shared at each meeting. Each of these conferences will include high-caliber scholarship within the social and behavioral sciences, focusing specifically on the topics of the Federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2002, the upcoming reauthorization of substance abuse and mental health legislation, and the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) of 1996. The specific agenda for each year of the series is planned as follows: Year 1 (2004) - Poverty and educational equality: Developmental, Economic and Policy Perspectives on the Federal No Child Left Behind Act; Year 2 (2005) - Poverty, cumulative risk, and child well-being: Developmental, Economic and Policy perspectives on meeting the needs of """"""""hard to serve"""""""" families through DHS/SAMHSA programs and initiatives; and Year 3 (2006) - Poverty, parental employment and parenting: Developmental, Economic, and Policy perspectives on TANF reauthorization, 10 years later.
