COMPREHENSIVE COMMUNITY INITIATIVES - PRINCIPLES, PRACTICE, AND LESSONS LEARNED

Comprehensive community initiatives strive to improve the lives of chi ldren and families in neighborhoods characterized by extreme and conce ntrated poverty. The initiatives use multifaceted approaches to streng then communities and improve the provision of social and other service s to children and families. Early examples include the settlement hous es at the beginning of the twentieth century, the neighborhood program s of the 1930s, and the war on poverty efforts of the 1960s. Using spe cific examples, this article describes key features of current compreh ensive community initiatives, the limitations of efforts to evaluate t hem, and factors contributing to their success or failure.