A r c h i v e d  I n f o r m a t i o n

The basic human ability to learn from experience is, perhaps, our greatest asset. Our challenges for the 1990s and beyond is to share those experiences with the largest possible audience. In so doing, we must constantly remind ourselves that the ultimate goal of this information gathering and distribution process is to improve the quality of life--the outcomes--for our children and our families.

In addition to what we learn from experience, we also can learn from gathering data and measuring broader trends that go beyond our experience. The role played by researchers in a free society is to provide context and content to what would otherwise be mere anecdotal evidence. An event--or a trend--often has greater significance when it has been examined in an organized fashion.

This report's findings present twin challenges to the research community. The first challenge is to produce final products that encourage each of us to use our collective knowledge in ways that help real people in real-life situations. And the second challenge is to disseminate these findings to the widest possible audience. Good research--like experience--provides a road map between where we are and where we hope to go in the future, by helping us better understand where we have been in the recent past.

The observations gathered in this conference report and presented to the research community for its consideration have been offered in the spirit of honesty, of common sense and of constructive criticism. As with any productive enterprise, the conference--and the conference report--has raised more questions than it has answered.

If there is one universal message from the six Working Groups that contributed to this report, it is that practitioners and researchers alike want access to the knowledge base, they want to learn from each other through networking, and they want to be able to draw from an accessible pool of knowledge that is useful and timely. In order to be truly useful, this pool must be expanded, because it lacks essential ingredients, including outcomes and cost effectiveness, which currently limit its usefulness to the general public, as well as to members of the research community.

But beyond our immediate goal of improving the quality and usefulness of research, we must keep our focus squarely on our primary goal as educators, policymakers, and service providers--to improve the outcomes for children and families who seek our help in the life-long goal of self-improvement through understanding. Our pool of knowledge often goes beyond pure research and into the realm of experience.

This report, and its attached lists of resources, also provides valuable information needed to take the next step beyond self-examination and toward the building of a strong network of resources for future improvement of our life-long search for knowledge through formal--and informal--education.

Our children and our families must be at the heart of our reform efforts, and they must be involved in deciding what services are needed and how they are provided. As educators, we must be committed to flexibility, to teamwork, and to making our families welcome inside our schools. As service providers, we must make the family the center of our efforts, with new hours, new attitudes, and new models that are family-centered and stress the needs of the customer. As policymakers, we must place the family at the center of our efforts and make the programs revolve around that center, rather than following old models that have forced the family into the services available, instead of designing the services around the needs of our families and our children.

The true value of this report is that it gives educators, service providers, policymakers, and researchers alike a great deal to ponder by providing the observations that are the seeds for future research and development. With families and children at the center of our efforts, our challenge is clear--to build a better future for our children by putting to good use what we have learned from our collective experiences.
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[What We Need to Know From Research]

[Commissioned Papers]