A systems analysis of youth in acute and subacute therapeutic residential care

The Arkansas Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) has reduced the use of therapeutic residential care (e.g., group homes, residential treatment centers) for youth placed in child welfare. Youth in acute or subacute congregate care for 30 or more days without Medicaid now are of particular interest. This is a longer-term psychiatric program, typically 3 to 6 months. The project team conducted a systems analysis to determine the specific characteristics and levels of need for 42 youth so that DCFS can more effectively serve these youth in the least restrictive form of treatment possible.     

England's New Scheme for Funding Higher Education through Student Fees: ‘Fair and Progressive’?

From September 2012 most home undergraduates at English universities are being charged fees of £9,000 per annum. These are funded by a government loan, which attracts interest from the moment they start their course; after three years their accumulated debt exceeds £30,000. They can also borrow to cover their living costs, on the same terms, so that those studying in London can graduate with a debt of more than £50,000—although those from low‐income families can obtain grants and universities are encouraged to provide bursaries and other support to students from underrepresented groups. Graduates start repaying their debts once their annual income exceeds £21,000—at a rate of 9% of the difference between their income and that figure: until the debt is fully repaid it continues to attract interest, by as much as three percentage points above the current inflation rate. Using data from a calculator on a government website, this paper shows that the highest‐paid graduates pay back less than those on middle incomes: the ‘squeezed middle’ pays back more not only than those on low incomes but also the better‐paid and those whose incomes increase more rapidly. This has differential effects according to occupation—and sex; and middle‐income groups also contribute more to the costs of widening participation programmes, which all universities charging more than £6,000 per annum are required to fund.     

Public policy,perverse incentives,and the homeless problem

Is homelessness a housing problem per se? In this paper we employ a HUD study from 1984 and Census data from 1990 within the context of simultaneous empirical models to examine this and other issues relating to homelessness in the United States. Our central conclusion is that homelessness does not appear to be a national housing problem as such and that, given untoward incentives among actual and potential homeless populations, policies addressing homelessness should be directed at other instruments of change (such as mental health funding and expenditures to treat substance abuse).