Safe Passage: Making It Through Adolescence in a Risky Society - What Parents, Schools, and Communities Can Do » (1st Edition)

Joy G. Dryfoos is an independent researcher and writer whose work is supported by the Carnegie Corporation. She lives in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York.

Children today face daunting obstacles on the path to adulthood—failing schools, dangerous streets, drug abuse, teen pregnancy. But the good news, according to child advocate Joy Dryfoos, is that there are many programs out there that work—models that we can apply to our own communities and our own children. In Safe Passage, Dryfoos helps us find them.
Indeed, this book examines hundreds of successful programs, ideas that have worked in the real world—in a very tough real world at that—such as the Turner Middle School in Philadelphia, a model of a "university assisted" community school. Dryfoos examines the new trend toward full-service schools, programs that make the school the hub of the community, serving as enrichment centers and neighborhood safe havens. She evaluates programs that try to cope with sex, drugs, and violence—revealing which ones work and what aspects of these programs are most effective—and she also dissects programs that have failed, such as the highly touted drug program, DARE. Dryfoos concludes with a passionate call for action, outlining what must be done if our young people are to be assured safe passage to the future.
Whether they live in a room down the hall, a house across town, or a tenement a thousand miles away, these are our children. This book shows us what we can do to give them a better chance to succeed in life, to grow up to be healthy and productive adults.

Foreword, David Hamburg
Preface
Part I: Youth Today
1. Safe Passage: What Does It Mean?
2. Youth in Families, Schools, and Communities
3. Vulnerable Youth: Sex, Drugs, and Violence
Part II: Programs Today: The Contemporary Scene
4. Visits to Five Outstanding Safe Passage Programs
5. Full-Service Community Schools
6. School Reform
7. Coping with Sex, Drugs, and Violence
Part III: Elements of Success
8. What Works, and Why?
9. What Doesn't Work, and Why?
Part IV: Visions and Strategies
10. Safe Passage Parents
11. Safe Passage Schools
12. Safe Passage Communities
13. Tracking Resources Throught the State and Federal Maze
14. Ensuring Safe Passage Notes Index