In the current U.S. indicators system, measures of child well-being focus primarily on negative outcomes and problems. We measure and track those behaviors that adults wish to prevent. For the most part, the indicators system does not monitor positive development and outcomes. Such a system of child well-being indicators lacks the breadth and balance required in a science-based measurement system. Moreover, it lacks measures of the kinds of constructs that resonate among adolescents themselves and adults. Measures are needed for multiple domains of development, including educational achievement and cognitive attainment, health and safety, social and emotional development, and self-sufficiency. Positive outcomes are often critiqued as soft, highlighting the importance of rigorous conceptualization and measurement, including conceptual clarity and face validity, age appropriate measures, and psychometric rigor. In addition, constructs and measures need to be presented in ways that are understandable to policy makers and the public and that work across varied subgroups and levels of governance. Ideally, comparable measures will be used for indicators, for program evaluation, and in basic research studies of child and adolescent development.

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The transition to adulthood can be a turbulent time. To succeed in this transition, adolescents and emerging adults must advance in several areas of development, such as education, work, financial autonomy, romantic relationships, peer involvement, citizenship, and avoidance of destructive health behaviors. 18 However, some young people who have difficulty with this transition may disconnect from work or school for a lengthy period of time. The term "disconnected youth" is often used to describe these young people. This Research Brief presents the results of new Child Trends' analyses on factors that have a bearing on whether youth become disconnected, updating previous research on the subject, as well as factors relating to youth reconnecting after a period of disconnection. To conduct these analyses, Child Trends drew on data from a nationally representative survey of youth which followed a sample of young people for four years. Overall, we found that a variety of factors affect the likelihood of an adolescent's disconnection and reconnection, including demographics, family processes, youth characteristics and behaviors, peer characteristics, and community characteristics. Most notably, we found that participation in a job search, job training or school-to-work program is related to a lower risk of becoming disconnected. Our work reinforces the idea that involvement in programs and support from caring adults can lower the risk of disconnection among disadvantaged young people, a finding that should inform the work of policy makers and program providers to address the needs of this vulnerable population.

The changing context of teen-age childbearing and current related controversies are reviewed. Recent research about the consequences of teen-age childbearing for the teen-age mother, the father, and for the children born is examined. The article also summarizes current knowledge about the consequences of teen-age childbearing with regard to the mother's educational attainment, marital experience, subsequent fertility behavior, labor force experience and occupational attainment, and experience with poverty and welfare.

Child protection systems that implement differential response (DR) systems screen to route referrals to an investigation response (IR) or alternative response (AR). AR responses emphasize family engagement, assessment of family needs, and service linkage. Usually, AR state-level policy does not require child welfare staff to make a maltreatment determination. Jurisdictions implement DR systems differently, leading to variations in the proportion of AR cases, risk levels of cases served, and the ways families access and use services. County data from the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System were analyzed for six states from 2004 to 2013 that implemented DR. Variation in county-level AR rates were associated with county-level re-report rates using regression models with risk adjustments for socioeconomic and other county characteristics. Counties had 3% fewer re-reports overall for each percentage increase in AR use; higher levels of AR use are related to lower levels of re-reporting. When county AR and IR cases were analyzed separately, increasing rates of AR were associated with lower re-report rates for IR cases, but higher re-report rates for AR cases. Findings for the AR and IR subgroup must be interpreted with caution as a number of technical factors may be driving these results.