(An item from the ISHN Member information service)  An article in Issue #4, 2015 of Public Administration Review helps us to understand one aspect of the decision-making processes that occur in professional bureaucracies such as health, education or other ministries/systems. The article examines advice networks and the role that structures, internal competition and Individual attributes play in shaping those networks and the advice. The authors summarize their work: "Interpersonal networks are increasingly important for organizational learning and performance. However, little is known about how these networks emerge. In this article, exponential random graph models are employed to explore the underlying processes of advice network formation in 15 organizations. The author examines the influence of (1) structural effects (reciprocity, transitivity, multiplexity), (2) actor attribute effects (job function, tenure, education, self-efficacy), and (3) peer competition. Results suggest that employees rely more on reciprocity, closure, and similarity in job function than on peer expertise or status when seeking advice. In addition, employees who perceive greater levels of competition with peers are significantly less likely to both seek and provide advice. As public organizations look to private sector strategies that promote internal competition to improve efficiency and accountability, public managers need to be aware of the negative implications those strategies can have on interpersonal networks and organizational learning." In school health promotion and social development we have traditionally ignored the systems above schools, even though we know that eventually and inevitably, educators and nurses in schools will need to report back and ask for resources from these agencies, ministries and systems. Read more>>

(An item from the ISHN Member information service)  A special issue (Issue 2-3, 2015) of Journal of Educational and Psychological Consultation examines the use of school psychologists as systems-level consultants as a strategy to deal with the complexities of the multi-level changes required to introduce and sustain comprehensive approaches to school mental health promotion. An interdisciplinary perspective is used to select the articles which cover topics such as Interdisciplinary Collaboration Supporting Social-Emotional Learning, Ecologically Based Organizational Consultations, the Competencies for Systems-Level Consultants, Multi-Tiered Systems of Support, Collaboration Between School Psychologists and Administrators and Critical Features and Lessons Learned for Implementation. Read more>> Readers may also be interested in a similar ISHN description of a systems-based approach to SMH that is based on capacity and capacity-building at this web page.

(An item from the ISHN Member information service)  An article in Volume 36 of the Annual Review of Public Health describes some of the lessons we have collectively learned about complex interventions to improve health, especiually the ways that complex systems thinking is being used in clinical settings. "Complexity—resulting from interactions among many component parts—is a property of both the intervention and the context (or system) into which it is placed. Complexity increases the unpredictability of effects. Complexity invites new approaches to logic modeling, definitions of integrity and means of standardization, and evaluation. New metaphors and terminology are needed to capture the recognition that knowledge generation comes from the hands of practitioners/ implementers as much as it comes from those usually playing the role of intervention researcher. Failure to acknowledge this may blind us to the very mechanisms we seek to understand. Researchers in clinical settings are documenting health improvement gains made as a consequence of complex systems thinking. Improvement science in clinical settings has much to offer researchers in population health." This succinct summary, presented in the abstract, captures many of the lessons that need to be applied. Since ISHN sponsors a Wikipedia style web site that uses the slogan "where (research) evidence meets (professional) experience, and since many of the summaries in that web site attempt to explain these new ideas based on ecological, systems-based thinking, we highly recommend this article. Read more>>

(An item from the ISHN Member information service)  An article in Issue #6, 2015 of American Journal of Public Health contends that the 200+ health awareness days, weeks and months do little to promote health or well-being. Schools are often a big part of these awareness activities, often viewing the participation in these days to be akin to addressing the problem. The authors "contend that health awareness days are not held to appropriate scrutiny given the scale at which they have been embraced and are misaligned with research on the social determinants of health and the tenets of ecological models of health promotion. We examined health awareness days from a critical public health perspective and offer empirically supported recommendations to advance the intervention strategy. If left unchecked, health awareness days may do little more than reinforce ideologies of individual responsibility and the false notion that adverse health outcomes are simply the product of misinformed behaviors. Read more>>

(From the ISHN Member information service)   An August 19, 2014 posting to the Teachers Blog from Education Week discusses the "the Unwritten Job Descriptions of Teachers in High-Needs Schools" and thereby underlines one of the challenges and dilemmas of their daily work and professional careers. The author, a woman, discusses her "worst class" and how the pre-dominantly male students in a class in a high needs, ubran school in a poor neighbourhood challenged her, her female co-teacher an dmost other authority figures in the school. She adds "  A couple of the guys had terrible tempers, and managing their angry and unpredictable outbursts made me feel like I was walking on eggshells in my own classroom. When the principal and other higher-ups from the Board of Education would come in, instead of feigning interest in the class-work (as most groups of students would have, under those circumstances), they'd ask, "Why are these people here? Tell them to leave," as though we all spoke some other language that our visitors would not understand."  She then describes the dramatic changes to their behaviours when a male teacher replaced her female colleague in the team teaching assignment. " In some way, we had become "mom and dad" (albeit, extremely hetero-normatively) for these guys. It was not only evident in their antics of trying to play one of us off the other; the young men in our class could sometimes be calmed down by "man-to-man" talks in the hallway with my team teacher, after which they'd come to me for hugs, band-aids, snacks, what-have-you."Years later, reflecting on that year, the female teacher realized that the students in that class had needed them as surrogate parents and that the real needs of those students were based on the need for secure social attachments with adults. She then briefly cites some of the recent research on this and criticizes the current efforts in the US to see education as a business, as a competition and as a workplace for students rather than a home away from home. Read the blog article here. 
All this is not very new, any teacher can tell you about the kids in their class with the same needs. What was significant to me in reading the blog commentary was how the writer argues that " For teachers, this represents an added layer of responsibility, one for which we can't expect recognition within our formal evaluations, but which is nonetheless a vital component of doing our jobs well...particularly in high-needs schools in poor areas, where children are often coming from unsteady home lives.'  While respecting and even agreeing that view as a former teacher, I am struck by the constant barrage of attacks on teachers these days. More testing, more accountability for students progress regardless of their effort or their families contribution, introduction of term-limited teacher licenses, unilateral legislative attacks on their bargaining agents, reductions in their pensions and so on. In what other profession, in what other industry, in what other corporation would the authorities really expect their employees to stay faithful to their altruistic, additional, uncompensated roles and additional unrecognized responsibilities, especially when assigned to the worst assignments?. Really. And then we have the well-meant, checklists, teacher-proof instructional programs and the fix-the-teacher "professional" development programs from the health and social program advocates constantly knocking on the school door.... This article and our additional comments here present one of the aspects of our global discussion of why the health and social sectors need to step back from their current appeals to schools and seek a new path that can lead to a systematic and teacher aware approach to the integration of these programs within the constraints, concerns and core mandates of education systems. Join us in our on-going, International Discussion Group and series of global symposiums. 

(From National Collaborating Centre on HP Methods and Tools)  A planning tool developed in Alberta Canada for health care organizations could be adapted for use in school health and development promotion. A 2009 journal article presents the development and initial psychometric validation of the Alberta Context Tool (ACT), an eight dimension measure of organizational context for healthcare settings. Three principles guided the development of the ACT: substantive theory, brevity, and modifiability. The Promoting Action on Research Implementation in Health Services (PARiHS) framework and related literature were used to guide selection of items in the ACT. The ACT was required to be brief enough to be tolerated in busy and resource stretched work settings and to assess concepts of organizational context that were potentially modifiable. The English version of the ACT was completed by 764 nurses (752 valid responses) working in seven Canadian pediatric care hospitals as part of its initial validation. Cronbach's alpha, exploratory factor analysis, analysis of variance, and tests of association were used to assess instrument reliability and validity. The concepts that underlie the tool are very relevant to school health promotion and development. These concepts were converted to several definitions that were generally confirmed in the research study. These definitions were developed into research questions for the study and include: 

• Leadership: The actions of formal leaders in an organization (unit) to influence change and excellence in practice, items generally reflect emotionally intelligent leadership
• Culture: The way that 'we do things' in our organizations and work units, items generally reflect a supportive work culture
• Evaluation: The process of using data to assess group/team performance and to achieve outcomes in organizations or units
• Social Capital: The stock of active connections among people. These connections are of three types: bonding, bridging, and linking
• Formal Interactions: Formal exchanges that occur between individuals working within an organization (unit) through scheduled activities that can promote the transfer of knowledge
• Informal Interactions: Informal exchanges that occur between individuals working within an organization (unit) that can promote the transfer of knowledge
• Structure/Electronic Resources: The structural and electronic elements of an organization (unit) that facilitate the ability to assess and use knowledge
• Organizational Slack: The cushion of actual or potential resources which allows an organization (unit) to adapt successfully to internal pressures for adjustments or to external pressures for changes         
• Human Resources (staffing): Perceived and actual levels of staffing are sufficient 
• Time: There is sufficient time available for staff to complete knowledge related work
• Space: There is sufficient work space in the organization for staff to complete knowledge related work.  

Read more>>          
 
            

(From the ISHN Member information service) Our pioneering work with simple, cheap and accessible technologies such as multiple Twitter accounts (instead of email), webinars and web meetings complementing expensive face-to-face events, a Wikipedia style web site to accumulate knowledge, Skype calls to eliminate long distance charges, blogs with high quality content and other tools has persuaded us that we are at the cusp of a dramatically different world of knowledge exchange that is no longer controlled and dominated by academic journals or governments/large organizations with the resources to purchase or maintain expensive web-based resources. While front-line workers in all sectors will continue to face the limitations of time/busy schedules and we can expect the 90-9-1 rule (90% following web resources passively, nine per cent occasionally contributing and one per cent actively participating, we also note that huge proportions of the population are now publishing personal content on family/individual Facebook pages, sharing interesting videos and photographs and looking for information on the web every day with tablets now sitting in living rooms and kitchens. We also see books, newspapers, television and radio converging into web-based combinations that are now charging small subscription fees or lower web-based prices. 
It is this environment that we note the start of a new journal, The Canadian Journal for Teacher Research, which is enabling classroom teachers to articulate their views based on their practice-based expertise and professional experience. The inaugural articles in this new journal indicate some of the content and media uses in our immediate future. An April 2014 article in this new journal highlights the fact that most of us have learned that simple, easy to use technologies such as inexpensive tablets rather than expensive computers, or simple presentation and editing tools in the classroom can transform learning and communications. Other articles in this new journal are presented in video format. Rather than asking teachers or other front-line workers to write complex articles with complex academic rules designed to favour those with extensive time in front of computers, the videos can simply record presentations or interviews or even simple class events or discussions. A good example can be found with this video article on the importance of teachers as leaders of innovation, research and collaboration that featured a teacher, principal and academic in a recorded discussion. 
ISHN is going into its first experience with recorded Skype interviews with practitioners in the coming months. We hope that the three minute format, which will seek to present one or two key ideas/insights from the practitioners based on their "practice story' (rather than asking them to prepare a "case study" (often controlled by academic concerns) or be constricted to the positives in a "success story" (often controlled by the interests of the sponsor or government funders). We are also trying to accumulate and "roll-up" several small scale webinars, recorded inerviews, slide presentations, inforgraphucs and accompanying Wikipedia style summaries into lengthier thematic collections and, eventually, into web-based handbooks of better practices. 
Obviously, there will always be an important place for disciplined, research-based discourse in knowledge development and exchange. There is also a need for large organizations and governments to select and present the knowledge that they view as more important in their own reports, guides, policy documents and web sites. But we think the simple, convenient and cheap technologies will add a new set of voices to the mix, one that can come more easily from those in the front-lines of professional work and knowledge based on professional experience.       
       

(From the ISHN Member information service) An article in the June 21, 2014 issue of The Lancet calls for systems thinking from governments and Un agencies when they decide on the set of goals to replace the existing MDG goals. The authors assert that "Global priorities have progressed from the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) that will expire in 2015 to global sustainable development. Although there is not yet a consensus on the specific goals for the post-MDG era, the post-2015 investment agenda for health will probably emphasise social determinants of health, sustainable development, non-communicable diseases, health systems strengthening, universal health coverage, the health of women and children, and ageing."  They then go on to make the case for "systems thinking". " The MDGs were undoubtedly successful in focusing international donor financing and domestic investments to achieve the targets set in these goals. Yet, undue emphasis on financing narrow disease programmes used to achieve disease-specific targets in the MDGs often missed opportunities to effectively strengthen health systems.1 Consequently, several low-income countries with weak health systems have struggled to reach the targets set in health-related MDGs and will not achieve them by 2015.2 An important lesson from the MDGs is that current and emerging global health challenges require action that embraces interdisciplinary and intersectoral approaches to development,3 which acknowledge the path-dependence and context-dependence of implementation." 
A table in the article underlines the differences between "selective approaches" (linear thinking) focused on preventing specific problems and "systems thinking" In linear thinking, the program is developed from a blueprint, developed by trials in controlled circumstances, that are top-down in nature, often without considering local contexts or potential unintended consequences. In systems-based approaches, learning and context drive the action and selection of issues to be addressed as well as the programs. In linear thinking, the programs target disease-specific, quick-wins. Planners develop a specific program for a specific population and assess its ability to produce specific short-term outcomes. In systems-based approaches, the action is across various sectors, with key stakeholders involved from the beginning to develop and implement approaches across the relevant sectors. In selective thinking, there is a reliance on isolated, quantitative measures. Single snap shot data points are used by specialized experts to assess if the programs are meeting their objectives. In systems thinking, multiple interative measurements and synthesis as well as relationships are used to assess progress. Longitudinal, real-world data from multiple qualitative and quantitative sources are used to monitor relevant effects.  Read more>>      

(From the ISHN Member information service) The news release describing the new Ontario Government vision for education, Achieving Excellence includes well-being as one of the three sub-headings for the release. The release itself includes these two points among the four used to provide examples of how the new educational policy will be implemented:

• Working with education and health partners to improve and expand health services for students and families
  
• Working with partners inside and outside of school to encourage students to be physically active and practise healthy lifestyles
  

The web page introducing the Ontario policy document states that Ontario's renewed and inter-connected goals for education are:

• Achieving Excellence: Children and students of all ages will achieve high levels of academic performance, acquire valuable skills and demonstrate good citizenship. Educators will be supported in learning continuously and will be recognized as among the best in the world.
  
• Ensuring Equity: All children and students will be inspired to reach their full potential, with access to rich learning experiences that begin at birth and continue into adulthood.
  
• Promoting Well-Being: All children and students will develop enhanced mental and physical health, a positive sense of self and belonging, and the skills to make positive choices.
  
• Enhancing Public Confidence: Ontarians will continue to have confidence in a publicly funded education system that helps develop new generations of confident, capable and caring citizens.
  

The political party that governed Ontario at the time this policy paper was published (April 2014) has recently been elected, so this emphasis on equity and wellness as part of the planned education goals would appear to have a good chance at implementation. the education ministry also released documents linking this policy paper Achieving Excellence to various health issues and directions being taken in the Ontario Healthy Schools Program. Read more from the news release

(From the ISHN Member information service)     An article in Issue #3, 2014 of Health Promotion Practice illustrates the challenges of working in loosely-coupled education and health systems. This Canadian study examined policy documents on school nutrition and education in Canada at the federal, provincial and regional or local authority levels. The researchers note that "Results reveal distinct differences across federal, provincial, and regional levels. The availability of nutritious food in schools and having nutrition education as part of the curriculum were key components of the physical environment across federal and provincial levels. Federal and provincial priorities are guided by a health promotion framework and adopting a partnership approach to policy implementation. Gaps in regional-level policy include incorporating nutrition education in the curriculum and making the link between nutrition and obesity."  Read more>>

(From the ISHN Member information service) ISHN and ASCD have been sponsoring an international dialogue on how health 7 social programs can be integrated within education systems. One aspect of that suggests that H&S advocates should support a broad, liberal and student-centered approach to learning as outlined in the ASCD Whole Child approach. However, should we also be asking H&S advocates if they are actually doing that in their various instructional programs that seek to teach specific knowledge and skills about particular health or social topics? A recent blog underlines this question when it describes the difference between education and training (or education based on outdated factory models).  

The blog article, appearing in the Smart Blog on Education (Jun 9, 2014) suggests that " Our traditional approach to schools was based on a factory model where workers had to be “trained” to perform actions and repeat them in the same way and at the same time. Anything that distracted them from performing the way the factory prescribed was just a distraction to be extinguished as quickly as possible. A person’s natural interests, including the desire to socially connect to others, needed to be put aside in favor of the required work. Workers needed to be “trained” in a way of acting that was foreign to how they were naturally wired to learn. Since the work they did was arbitrary, relatively meaningless and tedious, they needed to be rewarded for performing in a certain way and penalized for performing in a different way." "In this factory model of schools, character and social/emotional skills are not integrated into the interactions between teachers and students. There is one main social skill: Do what you are told. Policymakers recognizing that schools are missing this social/character element decided to have character education and social emotional skill training inserted into the traditional structure of schools." "The environment and structure of a school sends a message to students that very often contradicts the content of many social emotional and character education programs. In addition, when the basic structure of schools does not change, neither do the attitudes of many teachers. It’s not surprising that many of them view these programs just as add-ons or distractions from teaching academic content. ".Instead of training students, schools should be educating them. Education comes from the Latin words e and ducere–meaning to lead out of. Education therefore is not about creating skills and abilities in people who are blank slates waiting to be shaped and molded. Education assumes that people come ready to learn with special abilities, capacities, interests and affinities, and need guidance and support from human relationships for their unique human qualities to come out." 

Based on this analysis, can we truly say that we are guiding students to learn about their health and social development based on their interests, needs and abilities, OR, are we designing instructional programs to teach specific, predetermined content to all students based on a factory style approach?  

(An item from the ISHN Member information service) The research supporting multi-intervention approaches and programs in school health promotion is abundant and long standing. Recent research is underlining the need for long-term, systemic planning and investments in capacity-building in areas such as coordination, work force development, inter-agency agreements, coordinated policy development and joint issue management. However, experience in the real world suggests that local health authorities (LHA) do not follow that research and instead, constantly try to implement short-term, project-style interventions based on a "training, then hoping" strategy. Four articles in Issue #6, 2013 of American Journal of Preventive Medicine examine evidence-based decision-making in LHA's and provide clues for this cognitive dissonance.  One article examines the factors that affect evidence-based decision-making (EBDM) and found that "Although most people understood the concept, a relatively small number had substantial expertise and experience with its practice. Many indicated that they applied EBDM unevenly. Factors associated with use of EBDM included strong leadership; workforce capacity (number and skills); resources; funding and program mandates; political support; and access to data and program models suitable to community conditions." A second article found that "Local decision-making authority was perceived as greatly restricted by what public health activities were legally mandated and the categoric nature of funding sources, even as some leaders exercised deliberate strategic approaches. One’s workforce and board of health were also influential in making decisions regarding resource allocations. Programmatic mandates, funding restrictions, local stakeholders, and workforce capacity appear to trump factors such as research evidence and perceived community need in public health resource allocation." A third article suggested that LHA participation in a "Practice-based Research Network" will help in the implementation of research. A fourth article introduced the idea that LHA's could make use of local taxation revenue.  Read More>> 

(An item from the ISHN Member information service) "Going beyond training and hoping" is a colourful way to describe the paradigm shift now underway in research, practice and policy-making in school health promotion and social development. The words in the titles of the articles the October 2013 Issue of implementation Science are indicative of the new concepts that must be among the new, fundamentally different way that we approach our work and careers in the future. Although these concepts are applied to non-school settings and practices, their resonance should be self-evident. They include: transfer and implementation, scale-up, spread, and sustainability, making change last, leadership in complex networks, multifaceted, multilevel continuous quality improvement programs, dynamic sustainability frameworks and Social network diagnostics. Read more>>

(An item from the ISHN Member information service) The school health movement has focused on transforming schools through "whole school" strategies. As proponents, we would learn much from reading Issue #2, 2013 of Improving Schools, where the concept of "schoolwide pedagogies" is discussed in a special issue. There are several articles but this quote from the concluding article is quite revealing. "The term schoolwide pedagogy was once rarely heard and yet has now become a part of most discussions around school improvement. But what does it really mean and why is the presence of a schoolwide pedagogical framework important? Some would say that in their school the adoption of an authoritative approach such as Habits of Mind, Bloom’s Taxonomies or the Productive Pedagogies is a schoolwide pedagogical framework. To some extent they are, but what is often lacking is the intellectual and social capacity that is built through collective professional sharing and articulation of strongly held beliefs about contextually relevant teaching and learning practices. Without this sense of ownership, teacher adoption ends up being sporadic at best with some teachers paying only lip service to imposed quality frameworks". If this is the case for matters at the heart of the school (ie how to teach), then what can we expect for matters such as health, which are often seen as secondary? (unless we truly understand and commit to working within schools in a sustained manner) Read more>>

(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>>

(An item from ISHN Member information service) In this web site, we often refer to "non-rational decision-making" as a concept that helps to explain decision-making in large systems such as schools or health systems. The concepts helps to broaden our understanding of the processes that influence systems, organizations and individuals in maintaining or modifying theior practices. This week, we came across a similar concept being developed by the National collaborating Centre on Public Policy in health promotion in Canada. Their video presentation on "deliberative processes" is an excellent overview of this deeper understanding that goes beyond simplistic expectations that research evidence alone can persuade us to make changes. Read more. 

(An item from ISHN Member information service)   Action learning is an educational process whereby people work and learn together by tackling real issues and reflecting on their actions. Learners acquire knowledge through actual actions and practice rather than through traditional instruction. Action learning is done in conjunction with others, in small groups called action learning sets. It is proposed as particularly suitable for adults, as it enables each person to reflect on and review the action they have taken and the learning points arising. This should then guide future action and improve performance (Wikipedia). This AL concept is discussed in several ways a special issue #3, 2012 of Action Learning, Research & Practice. Concepts discussed in the issue include the connection between AL and critical thinking, systems and organizational change, power, the development of personal insights and more.  Read more 

(An item from ISHN Member information service)   Regular readers of this information service will know that we have been tracking articles that discuss "school connectedness" and made the argument that it is different from generalized efforts to improve "school climate" and is more about the relationships (social attachments) that are formed at school, which can be negative, positive or non-existent. An article in the October 2012 issue of Advances in Mental Health adds to this discussion while suggesting that connectedness can be a mediating factor with children who are involved with child protective services. Using an eight year old definition, the authors argue "School connectedness is the belief among students that teachers and other adults within the school care about them as individuals and about their learning (Wingspread Declaration on School Connections, 2004).  Despite the use of a variety of different terms within the research literature, including school connectedness, school attachment, school climate, school environment, or school bonding, the underlying concern is with perceptions of the social and learning environment". Later in the article they note "As experiences of adversity accumulate and the range of problem areas expands, the negative effects on future outcomes climb. Within such circumstances, small encouragements and attachments at school may play a large protective role, providing supportive social networks, routines, structured environments, and positive role models.   Schools are a practical alternative for youth seeking connections and a sense of belonging". Even with these few sentences, the need to clarify the concept and describe the actual interventions more specifically about connectedness becomes clear. In our view, it is not about exhorting teachers to care more, or general efforts to make the school climate happier. It is about carefully structuring activities, attachments, routines, series, opportunities, recognitions around students in school who are already on a negative trajectory. There are multi-intervention programs such as Positive Behaviour Support, that do this.  It is also recognizing that the accreditation/student evaluation function of schools will mean that some students will inevitably not experience success at school. This means that, despite the pressure on schools to raise "standards, they must also offer meaningful pathways to other forms of employment and vocation as well as recognize alternative forms of social achievement thatn only athletics and academics.  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) As we deepen our understanding of complex, ecological systems in order to better design well-embedded, sustainable multi-intervention approaches and programs in the school setting, we will need to develop new methods to understand some of the aspects of these systems. Informal and formal networks, including those related to policy, workforce development, knowledge exchange, inter-organizational cooperation and other functions, are among these aspects. Several articles in Issue #3, 2012 of Policy Studies Journal provide an explanation of statistical modelling that could be used to understand network composition, behaviour and results. Most RCT studies do not consider such diverse, constantly evolving networks because of their complexity, elusive control mechanisms and other features, so we need to consider these statistical methods for analyzing networks as one the new research methods of the future.  Read more..