This Doctorate of Nursing Practice (DNP) Project is a program evaluation of a Motivational Interviewing (MI) Training Program provided by Southeast Arizona Health Education Center (SEAHEC). MI is a counseling style that focuses on exploring and resolving ambivalence to elicit behavior change. The purpose of this DNP Project was to: 1) describe the Motivational Interviewing Training Program provided by SEAHEC for ¡Vivir Mejor! healthcare providers; and 2) evaluate the long-term effectiveness of the MI training program by assessing: a) if program participants have retained the MI skills they learned in the training program, and b) if program participants apply these learned MI skills one-year post intervention in their encounters with patients diagnosed with T2DM. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Framework for Program Evaluation was used to guide this program evaluation. An online survey was administered to the ¡Vivir Mejor! healthcare providers to evaluate the MI program. Overall, based on the survey results, there was a positive response to the SEAHEC MI Training Program. The results of this program evaluation are limited due to a low response rate. However, these results will be shared with key stakeholders to inform the development of future MI training programs for rural healthcare providers.

A critical review of evidence-based literature addressing screening, barriers to treatment, treatment modalities and programs of care for posttraumatic stress disorder and depression in active duty military members was conducted using the Galvan method. The ONS levels of evidence and the ONS weight of evidence scale were used to critique and analyze extant research. Programs of care and their evaluation were reviewed. Gaps in research were identified and suggestions for evidence-based treatment and program evaluation of evidence-based treatment of PTSD and depression in military members are proposed.

Community arts are potentially valuable tools in building community and regenerating distressed neighbourhoods. Community-based art organizations exist in most major cities across North America and abroad. These groups are concerned with social and environmental community issues (e.g., youth poverty, sustainability, racism) and use art as a medium for social change through community empowerment and personal development. Many of these organizations operate on limited funding and are required to complete program evaluations to demonstrate the merit of their programs. While some program evaluation literature touches on the role of arts-based research methods, very little focuses specifically on using these methods with community-based art organizations—particularly organizations with programming intended for children and youth. This Major Degree Project seeks to address this gap and explore the role of creative, arts-based evaluation methods for community-based art organizations’ program evaluation.

This dissertation comprises four chapters. The unifying theme is the evaluation of environmental programs. Specifically, each chapter examines some facet of the impacts of protected areas. The first chapter examines the heterogeneous environmental and economic impacts of protected areas in Costa Rica. Previous studies suggest that Costa Rica's protected area system induced both reduced deforestation and alleviated poverty. We demonstrate that these environmental and social impacts were spatially heterogeneous. Importantly, the characteristics associated with the most avoided deforestation are the characteristics associated with the least poverty alleviation. In other words, the same characteristics that have limited the conservation effectiveness of protected areas may have improved the social welfare impacts of these areas. These results suggest that `win-win' efforts to protect ecosystems and alleviate poverty may be possible when policymakers are satisfied with low levels of each outcome, but tradeoffs exist when more of either outcome is desired. The second chapter explores in more detail the heterogeneous impacts of protected areas in Costa Rica and Thailand. In particular we investigate the potential for protected areas to act as a mechanism for poverty traps and use semiparametric models to identify the spatial congruence of environmental and economic outcomes. We find no evidence that protected areas trap historically poorer areas in poverty. In fact, we find that poorer areas at baseline appear to have the greatest levels of poverty reduction as a result of protection. However, we do find that the spatial characteristics associated with the most poverty alleviation are not necessarily the characteristics associated with the most avoided deforestation. We demonstrate how an understanding of these spatially heterogeneous responses to protection can be used to generate suitability maps that identify locations in which both environmental and poverty alleviation goals are most likely to be achieved. In the third chapter we address the mechanisms through which protected areas affect economic outcomes. Using recently developed quasi-experimental methods and rich biophysical and demographic data, we quantify the causal post-treatment mechanism impacts of tourism, infrastructure development and ecosystem services on poverty, due to the establishment of protected areas in Costa Rica prior to 1980. We find that nearly 50% of the poverty reduction estimated in a previous study can be attributed to tourism. In addition, although the mechanism estimates for the infrastructure and ecosystem services proxies are negligible, we argue that the results provide evidence that enhanced ecosystem services from the establishment of protected areas has likely helped to reduce poverty. The results provide additional information to policy makers that wish to enhance the future establishment of protected areas with complementary policy. The final chapter studies the economic impacts of protected areas in Bolivia. We find that municipalities with at least 10% of their area occupied by a protected area between 1992 and 2000 exhibited differentially greater levels of poverty reduction between 1992 and 2001 compared to similar municipalities unaffected by protected areas. We find that the results are robust to a number of econometric specifications, spillover analyses and a placebo study. Although the overarching results that Bolivia's protected areas were associated with poverty reduction are similar to previous studies , the underlying results are subtly, but significantly, different. In previous studies it was found that controlling for key observable covariates lead to fundamentally antithetical results compared to naive estimates. Conversely, these results indicate that naive estimates lead to an over-estimation of the poverty reducing impacts of protected areas. The results expose the heterogeneity of protected area impacts across countries and, therefore, underscore the importance of country-level impact evaluations in order to build the global knowledge base regarding the socioeconomic impacts of protected areas.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the stress experienced by teenage mothers attending school and the need for multi-faced and strength-based stress management programs. Trends of teenage pregnancy in developing and developed countries are looked at. Causes and consequences of teenage motherhood stress are also explored. One of the consequences of teenage motherhood is stress. There are programs aimed at alleviating stress of teenage motherhood. Some of these programs are evaluated. The findings of this study indicate that there is a need for multi-faced and strength-based interventions for teenage mothers. After the literature study, an empirical research was conducted to explore challenges faced by teenage mothers. Data was collected by means of semi-structured interviews with ten teenage mothers attending school and ten educators teaching teenage mothers. Collected data was analysed using the thematic data analysis approach. The major findings of the study include opinions that teenage mothers do not get assistance from school, home and in the community; teenage mothers are not ready for motherhood; they experience a feeling of vulnerability and poor performance at school. There is a need for educators to be trained in handling teenage mothers, as well as the need for multi-faceted and strength-based interventions. However, it was evident through empirical research that some teenage mothers cope with their lives through talking to caring parents, spending quality time with their children, having a vision, keeping themselves busy and accepting that having a child while attending school is a challenge. Lastly, conclusions from the literature study and empirical research are presented in chapter five. Recommendations for practice, the contribution of the study, limitations of the study and recommendations for further study are also detailed. Motivation for designing and implementing intervention programs is also outlined. / Thesis (MEd (Learner Support))--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2013

This study evaluated a residential treatment center for youth with addictions that used processes of adventure therapy, family involvement, community, and relationships. The evaluation contributed to filling gaps in the literature by linking processes to proximate outcomes. A mixed methods design used quantitative data from 2005-2013 program statistics and 93 Resiliency Canada Questionnaires, as well as qualitative data from 17 formal interviews, 12 informal interviews, and observation of 12 participants. A program description was provided for context and transferability. Results indicated that (a) the program demonstrated fidelity with the logic model, (b) clients’ had raised awareness of strengths, (c) youth shared experiences of the impact of addiction, (d) youth lived healthy, substance-free lives, (e) positive family relationships were promoted, (f) youth increased resiliency, and (g) youth in the program for longer than a month maintained sobriety immediately afterwards and the majority (n=2) had long-term reduction in substance misuse.

Community arts are potentially valuable tools in building community and regenerating distressed neighbourhoods. Community-based art organizations exist in most major cities across North America and abroad. These groups are concerned with social and environmental community issues (e.g., youth poverty, sustainability, racism) and use art as a medium for social change through community empowerment and personal development. Many of these organizations operate on limited funding and are required to complete program evaluations to demonstrate the merit of their programs. While some program evaluation literature touches on the role of arts-based research methods, very little focuses specifically on using these methods with community-based art organizations—particularly organizations with programming intended for children and youth. This Major Degree Project seeks to address this gap and explore the role of creative, arts-based evaluation methods for community-based art organizations’ program evaluation.

This mixed methods study is a program evaluation of Newfoundland and Labrador’s Excellence in Mathematics Strategy commencing in 2007 with a curriculum review leading to the implementation of the Western and Northern Canadian Protocol Common Curriculum Framework in K-12 mathematics along with the implementation of numeracy support teachers in classrooms across the province. The goals of the Strategy were to improve student achievement with the curriculum change; to support teachers, students, and parents; and to encourage an increased interest and enthusiasm for mathematics. This study included a quantitative analysis of the provincial mathematics assessment results in Grades 3, 6, and 9 from 2007 to 2012 by comparing assessment items that were common to both the old and new curricula, and comparing results of items anchored in 2011 and 2012. Assessment results demonstrated inconsistent results on common curriculum items. Results of items anchored decreased in all grades in 2011 but items anchored in 2012 increased in all grades. Another quantitative analysis was conducted on the effect of numeracy support teachers (known elsewhere as mathematics specialists, coaches, or mentors) on students’ mathematics achievement in schools having Grade 3 and 6 classrooms receiving numeracy support from 2007 to 2011. Schools with numeracy support in Grades 3 and 6 for four years were mostly lower-achieving schools and had achievement results move closer over time to schools receiving one or no years of support which were mostly higher achieving schools. Schools receiving support in both Grades 3 and 6 had the highest proportion of students moving from below standard to at/above standard on rubric-scored open-constructed response questions. A qualitative analysis was conducted of focus groups with numeracy support teachers and supported the quantitative analysis of the provincial assessment results. Numeracy support teachers shared their observations of teachers’ unconventional assessment methods and students’ increase in communicating, reasoning, problem solving, and strategizing about mathematics. Lower-achievers were more engaged in these classrooms and manipulative use in problem solving improved. Numeracy support teachers witnessed physical and attitudinal changes through planning, modelling, co-teaching, and reflecting with teachers thereby helping change the culture of students’ classrooms. The goal of numeracy support teachers to build capacity in their teachers through collaboration was evident in some classrooms as beliefs and habits were changing, but some were resistant. / Graduate / 0280 / 0727 / karen.m.moore@gmail.com

The after-school period of older primary school-aged children was used to examine how the social construct of childhood is being shaped and how it changes over time. With studies on childhood still relatively new academic terrain, this research makes a contribution by identifying some key structural and social forces impacting upon childhood. This research investigated firstly how children spend their time in the after-school period, secondly the reasons why they do so, and thirdly parental and child understandings and opinions on this subject. Childhood was found to be differentially constructed by socioeconomic backgrounds, and mediated by employment status. Results suggest that increasing parental employment accompanied concerns over safety for children and the need to protect them. This meant that there was a tendency for families to mediate between the child and wider society through increased surveillance of children. For one-parent families this took the form of supervision of children through after-school programmes. Two-parent families, who were more able to organise their work arrangements so that one parent was home after-school, monitored their children's activities within localised areas based around the home. Parental 'risk anxiety' was seen to be shaping the lives of children in terms of defining safe places and spaces for them. Children themselves tended to prefer informal, unstructured activities within these contexts, and did not seem too concerned about safety issues.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Alabama at Birmingham, 2006. / Title from first page of PDF file (viewed Feb. 14, 2008). Includes bibliographical references (p. 97-100).