This report includes demographic information, the type of services provided to kinship caregivers, and recommendations for program improvement. For generations, extended families have played significant roles in the rearing of children when parents otherwise cannot. Kinship caregivers provide love and nurturance in a familiar setting as children remain connected to their families. These children live with people they know and trust, reinforcing the child’s sense of cultural identity and positive self-esteem. Children living with kinship caregivers make and sustain extended family connections and continue lifelong family traditions and memories. The extended family are provided opportunities to support the child in building healthy relationships within the family, provide for the child’s safety and well-being, and create a sense of stability in the life of a child.

In 1999, the Arizona State Legislature passed a comprehensive school-tobacco law that prohibits tobacco products on school grounds, inside school buildings, in school parking lots or playing fields, in school buses or vehicles and at off-campus school-sponsored events. The law applies to any K-12 public, charter or private school. Violation of the law is a petty offense. To document the extent to which Arizona public schools are in compliance with this legislation, the Arizona Cancer Center conducted the Arizona School Policy Survey as a project of the Tobacco Education and Prevention Program of the Arizona Department of Health Services. This survey was a follow-up to a similar survey completed in 1998.

Grandparents widely consider spending time with their grandchildren one of the greatest benefits of growing older, according to a 2009 survey conducted by Pew Research Center. But, what happens when circumstances necessitate that grandparents become primary caregivers for their grandchildren? At a time when non-traditional families have become ubiquitous, the growing number of custodial grandparents and “skipped-generation families” are quietly impacting family dynamics, necessitating changes to long-standing public policies at both the federal and state level.

With so much new school reform activity within the United States centering on charter schools, a fresh appraisal of the situation is in order. This briefing summarizes the history of charter school laws and updates their current status across the country. Although this is not intended to be a comprehensive review, several charter school research projects are described: some that have revealed lessons learned in the implementation of charter school laws, and others, more national in scope, that were designed to systematically describe existing charter schools and document their impacts.