(An item from the ISHN Member information service) An article in Issue #6, 2013 of the American Journal of Public Health reports on the growing use of the RE-AIM Framework, a planning/assessment tool that measures changes in the system implementing innovations.Almost all of the 45 studies reviewed used all five elements of the assessment tool, namely Reach, Effectiveness, Adoption, Implementation, and Maintenance. It is the latter two elements that offer greater insights into capacity and sustainability issues. Read more>>
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Recent Review of SH Approaches Suggest Integration within education, Context, Capacity, Coordination7/8/2013 (An item from the ISHN Member information service) A review of the research on multi-intervention approaches to school health promotion reported in the July 2013 issue of the Journal of School Health suggests that effective approaches included stronger consideration of integration within the school system. the local context, building capacity for sustained implementation and ensuring coordination. The authors report that "Findings indicated that, for adequate implementation, an intervention should be integrated in pre-existent school settings, fine-tuned to its target population or environment, involve family and the community, and be led by the school itself, with there being a “healthy school coordinator” to coordinate the program." Read more>>
(An item from ISHN Member information service) A national survey of school psychologists in the USA reported on their current practices and preferences regarding continuing professional devlopment in an article in Issue #4, 2013 of Psychology in the Schools. The researchers report that: "Respondents expressed opinions about CPD that were positive, optimistic, and consistent with their high levels of engagement and investments of both time and financial resources. Most respondents reported engaging in 25 or more hours of CPD during the previous year. CPD topics in which they engaged most frequently were response to intervention and academic, behavioral, and social–emotional interventions, and academic screening and progress monitoring. Respondents reported a high level of need for more CPD in those same topic areas, but a low level of need for offerings in standardized assessment. Older school psychologists were less likely to have engaged in CPD relating to contemporary assessment practices and interventions and more likely to have engaged in activities related to standardized assessment. Almost half of the respondents had engaged in CPD through an online activity and reported a desire for more online opportunities. No relationship was found between age and usage of, or positive opinions about, online CPD." Read more>>
(An item from ISHN Member information service) An article in the February 2013 issue of the International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition & Physical Activity reported on a correlational assessment of school level capacity and the implementation of school nutrition policies and programs as well as the food offered to students. The authors report that "Our measurement framework integrated constructs from the Theories of Organizational Change and elements from Stillman’s Tobacco Policy Framework adapted for obesity prevention. Our measurement framework included assessment of policy institutionalization of nutritional guidelines at the district and school levels, climate, nutritional capacity and resources (nutritional resources and participation in nutritional programs), nutritional practices, and school community support for enacting stricter nutritional guidelines. We used hierarchical mixed-effects logistic regression analyses to examine associations with the availability of fruit, vegetables, pizza/hamburgers/hot dogs, chocolate candy, sugar-sweetened beverages, and french fried potatoes." They also found that "In elementary schools, fruit and vegetable availability was more likely among schools that have more nutritional resources (OR = 6.74 and 5.23, respectively). In addition, fruit availability in elementary schools was highest in schools that participated in the BC School Fruit and Vegetable Nutritional Program and the BC Milk program (OR = 4.54 and OR = 3.05, respectively). In middle/high schools, having more nutritional resources was associated with vegetable availability only (OR = 5.78). Finally, middle/high schools that have healthier nutritional practices (i.e., which align with upcoming provincial/state guidelines) were less likely to have the following food/beverage items available at school: chocolate candy (OR = .80) and sugar-sweetened beverages (OR = .76).Read More.
(An item from ISHN Member information service) An article in the October 2012 issue of Social Science & Medicine that links specific government capacity at the sub-national level with the prevention and incidence of malaria. The authors report that: "Government capacity is more successful in predicting malaria incidence than potentially more direct indicators such as state public health expenditures and economic development levels. We find that high government capacity can moderate the deleterious health effects of malaria in rice producing regions. Our research also suggests that government capacity may have exacerbated the effectiveness of the World Bank Malaria Control Project in India over the period studied. We conclude by proposing the integration of government capacity measures into existing planning efforts, including vulnerability mapping tools and disease surveillance efforts. Read more.
(An item from ISHN Member information service) Several years ago, the process of inter-group collaboration was described in depth and the slogan "Forming, Storming, Norming and Performing" was used to capture the various stages of cooperation. However, as with many other health and social issues, this accumulated wisdom is not real until someone in that particular discipline or network reinvents the idea. Such may be the case of an article in Issue #5, 2012 of Administration & Policy on Mental Health Services/Mental Health Services Research, where the authors explored the process involved in inter-agency collaboration when providing Integrative Family and Systems Treatment (I-FAST) for families with severely emotionally or behaviorally disturbed children. Data were collected through a series of eight focus groups with 26 agency collaborators across 11 counties in Ohio. Data analysis revealed two emergent phenomena: the process of developing collaboration, consisting of making initial contact, a trial period and developing trust. As well, the authors suggest that the key ingredients of collaboration are focused on interpersonal and professional qualities. Hopefully, the full text of the article or the details of the study reveal an evolution in our knowledge that is not apparent in the abstract. Read more..
(An item from ISHN Member information service) An article in the September 2012 Issue of the Journal of School Health analyzes the submissions made to a 2009 Parliamentary Inquiry into "the opportunities for schools to become a focus for promoting healthy community living. Submissions to the Inquiry varied widely in their positions about school health promotion. The aim of this review is to analyze the submissions to identify core themes in the debates about school health promotion and how stakeholders saw schools becoming a focus for promoting healthy communities. The submissions (N = 159) were downloaded from the Inquiry website. Open coding was used to code the data. The codes were then refined into conceptual categories to create themes. The Inquiry's terms of reference were used as an organizing framework. RESULTS: Emergent themes included barriers and enablers to school health promotion including the need for stronger leadership from the Departments of Health (DoH) and Education and Early Childhood Development (DEECD). CONCLUSION: Rather than supporting the idea that schools could have a wider role in communities, submissions pointed to the acute need for increased resource allocation to support health promotion in schools, and for coordinated approaches with stronger leadership from the health and education sectors. Without these structures, schools can only address health in an ad hoc manner with limited resources, capacity, and outcomes" Read more..
(An item taken from the daily/weekly/monthly ISHN Member information service) Most of the discussion in school-based and school-linked human development is focused on the implementation of specific programs. When researchers, officials and policy-makers eventually realize that system capacity building is required, they too often focus solely on the school system and usually on teacher knowledge. So it is refreshing to read several articles in Issue 1-2, 2012 of Journal of Evidence-based Social Work which form part of a special Issue: Building Knowledge-Sharing Systems to Support Evidence-Informed Practice: Case Studies of “Works-in-Progress” in Public Sector Human Service Organizations. Several case studies of capacity-building in local social services agencies are presented. the topics examined include data-based decision-making, assigning senior staff to knowledge management, the development of key system performance indicators, and building organizational support for research-minded practitioners. Read more..
(An item taken from the daily/weekly/monthly ISHN Member information service) Farm to school nutrition programs are emerging in many countries as the next innovative approach to healthy eating. Three articles in Issue #4, 2012 of Childhood Obesity provide excellent analyses, along with others on school salad bars, school gardens and the elimination of processed foods by cooking from scratch in schools. All of these are good but in this commentary, we want to illustrate how narrow our focus can become, even when we use evidence-based logic models and behaviour theory. One article in this journal issue presents an excellent linear logic model that correctly depicts the multiple inputs, processes, outputs and outcomes associated with FtoS programs. As well, the model correctly seeks to take local context and feedback loops within the social system of the school and community into account. In summary, the paper presents one of the better linear logic models that we have seen. But here is the rub: what about the complexity of the school-neighbourhood-family setting and the competition from the many, many other school programs also entering that same context? If we do consider these things, then program innovations like this can become pretty academic pretty quickly. Read more
(An item taken from the daily/weekly/monthly ISHN Member information service) An article in Issue #5, 2012 of the Journal of Community Psychology reports on a framework to guide and monitor the development of sustainable school-based prevention programs and approaches. School-based prevention and promotion interventions (SBPPI) improve desirable outcomes (e.g., commitment to school and attendance) and reduce undesirable outcomes (e.g., suspensions and violence). Unfortunately, our understanding of how to effectively implement and sustain SBPPI outside of well-controlled conditions is lacking. To bridge this science/“real world” practice gap, a system of sustainable implementation, which merges implementation strategies and sustainability strategies, is proposed in this article. Ecological levels and phases are part of this new concept. This conceptualization is supported by analyses from a diverse sample of 157 schools implementing Social-Emotional Character Development. The authors used the system of sustainable implementation that was measured using the Schools Implementing Towards Sustainability (SITS) scale, which was designed to be “user-friendly” in field settings by being viable and scalable. The SITS demonstrated strong reliability as well as promising concurrent and construct validity. Read more..
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