Faith and Action: Implementation of the National Faith-Based Initiative for High-Risk Youth

摘要

Public/Private Ventures' National Faith-Based Initiative for High-Risk Youth is coming of age at a time when great interest has been generated in the role that faith-based organizations can play in addressing the nation's social problems. In recent years, both the federal government and the foundation community have been interested in the possibility of collaborating with faith-based institutions for the benefit of the low-income communities in which they reside. In fact, the federal government, through the Charitable Choice provision of the 1996 welfare reform law, extended to all faith-based organizations the right to compete for government funding of their service programs without requiring that their operations be entirely secularized. The foundation community has also become active in this area, launching a number of initiatives that explore the role that faith-based institutions can play in the provision of social services. In spite of this interest and activity, not much is known about what happens when faith-based organizations move into the realm of social programming. The National Faith-Based Initiative for High-Risk Youth-which is national in scope and combines program operations, technical assistance and evaluation-is structured to examine this issue.