The adoption of "evidence-based" or "evidence-informed" practice has been explored in many sectors and professions. ISHN has suggested often that the process of "mobilizing" (ie. actually using) knowledge is far more complex, chaotic, competitive and challenging than the logical models that are often presented. An article in Issue #4, 2015 of Journal of Evidence-Informed Social Work leads us in a similar direction when it presents a systematic review of social workers' evidence-based practice orientation, attitudes, and implementation. the authors suggest that "the authors aim to synthesise research findings exploring social workers' EBP orientation, attitudes, adoption, knowledge, skills, and perceived EBP barriers and facilitators. Numerous challenges to EBP implementation were identified, including: time management, research accessibility, and misperceptions of the role of evidence in decision making. Colleagues, supervisors, perceived experts, organizational culture, and tailored training were important for social workers' dissemination and utilization of evidence. Social workers may prefer more conversational, face-to-face methods of research dissemination." In other words, social workers, like health professionals and educatotrs like the research knowledge to be filtered through their own professional experiences and those of colleagues. They also prefer to to come in personal bite-sized bits from trusted colleagues and through their own systems, trusted channels. Read more >> (An item from the ISHN Member information service)
The adoption of "evidence-based" or "evidence-informed" practice has been explored in many sectors and professions. ISHN has suggested often that the process of "mobilizing" (ie. actually using) knowledge is far more complex, chaotic, competitive and challenging than the logical models that are often presented. An article in Issue #4, 2015 of Journal of Evidence-Informed Social Work leads us in a similar direction when it presents a systematic review of social workers' evidence-based practice orientation, attitudes, and implementation. the authors suggest that "the authors aim to synthesise research findings exploring social workers' EBP orientation, attitudes, adoption, knowledge, skills, and perceived EBP barriers and facilitators. Numerous challenges to EBP implementation were identified, including: time management, research accessibility, and misperceptions of the role of evidence in decision making. Colleagues, supervisors, perceived experts, organizational culture, and tailored training were important for social workers' dissemination and utilization of evidence. Social workers may prefer more conversational, face-to-face methods of research dissemination." In other words, social workers, like health professionals and educatotrs like the research knowledge to be filtered through their own professional experiences and those of colleagues. They also prefer to to come in personal bite-sized bits from trusted colleagues and through their own systems, trusted channels. Read more >> (An item from the ISHN Member information service)
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An article in Issue #3, 2015 of Population and Development Review describes how the World Health Organization (WHO) has used the issue of Non-Communicable Diseases (NCD's) as a focus and thereby helped to re-establish its credibility. The authors describe how WHO has used NCD's in an opportunistic manner. "Chronic noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) in low- and middle-income countries have recently provoked a surge of public interest. This article examines the policy literature—notably the archives and publications of the World Health Organization (WHO), which has dominated this field—to analyze the emergence and consolidation of this new agenda. Starting with programs to control cardiovascular disease in the 1970s, experts from Eastern and Western Europe had by the late 1980s consolidated a program for the prevention of NCD risk factors at the WHO. NCDs remained a relatively minor concern until the collaboration of World Bank health economists with WHO epidemiologists led to the Global Burden of Disease study that provided an “evidentiary breakthrough” for NCD activism by quantifying the extent of the problem. Soon after, WHO itself, facing severe criticism, underwent major reform. NCD advocacy contributed to revitalizing WHO's normative and coordinative functions. By leading a growing advocacy coalition, within which The Lancet played a key role, WHO established itself as a leading institution in this domain. However, ever-widening concern with NCDs has not yet led to major reallocation of funding in favor of NCD programs in the developing world." This strategy of health organizations jumping onto an emerging issue to secure resources and credibility is not unique to WHO. The question which needs to be answered is what happens when interest/support in that particular issue wanes? Read more >> (An item from the ISHN Member information service)
A special issue (#3, 2015) of the Journal of Children's Services examines how families and schools can work together to enhance educational and other outcomes. Two of the articles report on the effect of two major parent education/training programs; The Incredible Years and Families and Schools Together. Both of these programs are multi-intervention in nature, seeking to influence parent and child behaviours as well as conditions in the school and home. This comprehensive approach is compatible with larger school health promotion programs. The special issue also contains three research reviews. The first is an assessment of systematic reviews on parent-school bullying prevention programs. The second is an extended review of the impact of parent-school programs on educational achievement. The third is similar but uses a meta-analysis methodology. Read more >> (An item from the ISHN Member information service)
This blog continues to suggest a new approach to school health promotion and social development that does not dump the responsibilities of other professionals on teachers because of scarce resources in those other sectors. An editorial in Issue #3, 2015 of Social Work Research is an example of this trend to always view the teacher as a resource for a function that should be carried out by others. In this case, it is the function of securing mental health services for students, a task that should be assigned to school social workers, school psychologists or school nurses. "...it would be appropriate to discuss another challenge for urban schools, to better serve the unmet behavioral health needs of African American students. Teachers are an untapped resource in addressing the unmet mental health services needs of inner-city African American children. They often have the primary responsibility for identifying mental disorders in children and bridging students with problems to needed services. What are the factors associated with teachers' decisions to refer or not refer African American children for mental health services? What are the relationships between organizational factors, community factors, teachers' knowledge, and teachers' decisions for services referral? And what are the pathways to services for African American children? Increased scholarship investigating these relationships as another variable for interventions to effectively affect services for African American students is very important." There is no debate about the unmet need and even about the teachers role in identifying and refering students. The debate is about asking teachers to walk down the complicated and poorly funded "pathways" to securing the service. Ironically, an article in the same issue explored the use of social workers as such navigators and concluded that they were being under-used. Read more >> (An item from the ISHN Member information service)
The UN General Assembly adopted the 2030 global development goals that will replace the previous Millennium Development Goals that concluded in 2015 at its meeting in New York. The news clippings this week capture some of that activity. The items we identified this week include the summit web site, several different access points, and more. Education is one of the 17 goals and was highlighted as being central to the success of all of the goals by the UN Secretary General in one news release. Another important news release came from several UN agencies, with a call for better integration between health and education. ISHN and its partners in our global dialogue, ASCD and Education International are very pleased to see this call. There are several other news release, statements and world leaders available from the items we identified this week. Read more >> (An item from the ISHN Member information service)
Commission on Ferguson USA Racism/Unrest Calls for Whole Child, Safe, Healthy, Community Schools9/30/2015 This week saw several news stories on the report of the Commission investigating the shooting of black teenager Michael Brown. The report of the commission, which includes the word "unflinching", recommends that a whole child approach and a revamped school system be included in a focus on youth at the center of the reforms. The school-related actions include; reforming school discipline, providing support services to disadvantaged youth, ending childhood hunger, and several other measures to promote wellness and personal development. Note: In 2010 ISHN worked with the Community Schools movement to develop a consensus statement/adapted approach to schools in disadvantaged communities in high resource countries. Racism and other forms of discrimination were included as one of the many challenges but we also worked from a strength-based viewpoint and identified over 20 programs that can be part of these efforts. We released it at the 2010 School Health Symposium in Geneva. Read more >> (An item from the ISHN Member information service)
A research review identified in this week's news/reports describes how cooperation between governments, municipalities and school boards is required if schools are going to be able to get beyond projects and "passive" responses to this intervention that has the most impact on daily physical actiivity among students. Without this type of cooperation, it is unlikely that exhortations to parents to forget about those challenges (and sometimes legal charges) and let their children freely walk to school. This evidence review was done for the education ministry of Ontario, Canada. It assessed the impact of adopting active school transportation policies within governments, municipalities and school boards. "The searches of health, education and sports databases identified 608 abstracts. Governments have increased their focus on increasing both active travel to school and physical activity. Many US states have policies. that may impact active travel in school in addition to the Safe Routes to School SRTS program. Six categories of state statutory (legislative) and administrative (regulatory) laws were examined (minimum busing distance, hazardous route exemptions to the distance requirement (hazards, traffic or unsafe crossing), sidewalk requirements near schools, crossing guards, traffic control measures (e.g., speed bumps) and speed zones around schools." All of these measures had some effect. "The odds of having walking school bus (WSB) program is significantly associated with district policies and a state law requiring crossing guards. However, none of the other state law variables were strongly associated with a WSB program. There is limited literature that assesses the impact of municipalities adopting active transportation policies, which is often associated with millions of funding invested. Further research is needed." Read more >> (An item from the ISHN Member information service)
Two articles in Volume 82, 2015 of Accident Analysis & Prevention examine the impact of signs and other traffic control measures to improve driving behaviour in school zones. One article suggests that "Based on the models of human information processing, if a driver observes too many of the same signs, he or she may no longer pay attention to those signs. In the case of school zones, this expected effect may lead to non-compliance to posted speeds, negatively impacting safety around nearby schools. Results found a significant effect of sign saturation on vehicle speed, compliance, and accident frequency." The second article suggests that "The effectiveness and performance of traffic control devices in school zones have been impacted significantly by many factors, such as driver behavioral attributes, roadway geometric features, environmental characteristics, weather and visibility conditions, region-wide traffic regulations and policies, control modes, etc. When deploying traffic control devices in school zones, efforts are needed to clarify: (1) whether traffic control device installation is warranted; and (2) whether other device effectively complements this traffic control device and strengthens its effectiveness.The experimental tests and analysis results reveal that the appropriateness of the installation of certain traffic control devices can be statistically verified by using a model described in the article. Read more >> (An item from the ISHN Member information service)
A special section on the student effects on teacher behaviors and attitudes appears in in Issue #5, 2015 of International Journal of Behavioral Development. One of the articles explains the idea. "Classroom research has typically focused on the role of teaching practices and the quality of instruction in children’s academic performance, motivation and adjustment—in other words, classroom interactions initiated by the teacher. The present article presents a model of classroom interactions initiated by the child, that is, the notion that a child’s characteristics and active efforts may evoke different instructional patterns and responses among teachers." Other articles report that; (1) Elementary school teachers adapt their instructional support according to students’ academic skills, (2) children’s reading skills and interests affect teacher perceptions of children’s skills and individualized support, (3) there are reciprocal relations between student–teacher conflict, children’s social skills and externalizing behavior, (4) focusing on teacher–student interactions in a coaching program can eliminate the negative impact of students’ disruptive behavior on teacher perceptions and (5) children evoke similar affective and instructional responses from their teachers and mothers. Read more >> (An item from the ISHN Member information service)
Much attention on actual activity levels in PE classes and other parts of the school day has been generated by concerns about childhood obesity/overweight. Ironically, this focus on quantity (which is being proved over-reaching in terms of weight loss). Further, it may detract from the more important function of teaching movement skills in PE classes. An article in Issue #2, 2015 of Asia-Pacific Journal of Health, Sport and Physical Education suggests "moving back to movement" as a core purpose of PE. "This paper provides a greater insight into why human motion has high value and should be utilised more in advocacy and implementation in health and education, particularly school health and physical education. It will illuminate where the impact of human motion is taken for granted and undervalued. It will also reveal compelling research findings from a range of disciplines not traditionally included in the field that support motion's value to human existence across the lifespan. An article in September 2015 Issue of Sports Medicine calls for further investigation. "Evidence indicates that motor competence is positively associated with perceived competence and multiple aspects of health (i.e., physical activity, cardiorespiratory fitness, muscular strength, muscular endurance, and a healthy weight status. Thus, it is an appropriate time to examine published data that directly or indirectly relate to specific pathways noted in the conceptual model linking movement skills with these fitness factors." (An item from the ISHN Member information service)
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