Therapeutic Staff Support, commonly known as TSS, provide one-on-one direct care (in home, school, and community settings) to children diagnosed with a severe emotional or behavioral disorder. In this dissertation I explore wraparound agencies practices of monitoring Therapeutic Staff Support treatment integrity. Using a qualitative design, 26 participants from three wraparound agencies were selected for this study. Data collection included interviews and documents (treatment plans, progress notes, and psychologist recommendations). Two primary research questions guided my inquiry into wraparound agencies monitoring practices of TSS: How do wraparound agencies monitor TSS treatment delivery? Does monitoring incorporate strategies for targeting TSS misutilization? Two secondary questions were: What are some potential threats to TSS treatment integrity? How do TSS address threats that directly affect students in schools? Findings suggest wraparound agencies use myriad methods to monitor TSS treatment adherence and accountability mechanisms adequately address TSS job performance. Similarly, I find agencies shape treatment document designs (plans and progress notes) to facilitate their use. Findings also point to five categories of issues which serve as potential threats to effective TSS treatment administration. I also find TSS misutilization was not a factor although there was no method of monitoring it. TSS did, however, find themselves performing multifaceted roles (often in response to threats directly affecting their students) which extended beyond their required roles of treatment agent and data collector; eight roles emerged. Ultimately, findings suggest documentation review and BSC observations are the most common approaches to monitoring TSS treatment integrity. Themes for threats (consistent with those found in other treatment literature) and themes used for TSS typology can be explored in future studies. / Urban Education

The current study examines the relationship between service utilization and child outcomes, and the role fidelity to the principles of the wraparound care coordination process plays in mediating that relationship. One hundred and twenty-one participants at three separate Children’s Mental Health Services (CMHS)-funded Systems of Care national evaluation sites in three states were administered the Wraparound Fidelity Index (WFI), designed to measure adherence to the principles of wraparound; child outcomes measures, including the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) and the Child and Adolescent Functional Assessment Scale (CAFAS); and the Multi-Sector Service Contact Questionnaire (MSSC), designed to assess services received. Data were analyzed using hierarchical multiple regression and linear mixed models in order to examine the mediational role fidelity plays at two levels, children and wraparound facilitators, and at three different time points, baseline, six-month follow-up, and twelve-month follow-up. No statistically significant relationships were found between wraparound fidelity and child outcomes at six-month follow-up. Also, at six-month follow-up, the level of services the child and family received significantly predicted child outcomes related to externalizing symptoms but not to internalizing symptoms or functional impairment; however, this relationship was not mediated by fidelity to the wraparound process. From baseline to six-month follow-up and twelve-month follow-up, no statistically significant relationships were found between wraparound fidelity and child outcomes across wraparound facilitators. Also, no statistically significant relationships were found between the level of services the child and family received and child outcomes. A mediation model from baseline to six-month follow-up and twelve-month follow-up was not viable due to the null findings. Exploratory analyses were conducted. Implications of these findings and directions for future studies are discussed.

Many large urban juvenile probation departments have begun to utilize mental health courts to meet the demands of the increasing number of individuals who have mental health issues that end up in the juvenile justice system. Diversion programs are designed to keep youth in the community and out of the juvenile justice system, but it is not clear whether these programs keep individuals from re-offending. Therefore, this study was conducted to determine whether diversion programs used in the mental health courts are helping to decrease recidivism for juveniles identified with mental illness. This study was also aimed at identifying how mental illnesses affect successful completion of programming. The theory of therapeutic jurisprudence was used as the theoretical foundation to help guide this quantitative, quasi-experimental study and answer the research questions. The data utilized was from a large urban juvenile probation department, which uses the mental health court as a diversion program. Data was collected from 2009 to 2017 on both youth who participated in the program and those who chose not to participate in the program. Chi-square and logistic regression were used to analyze the data. Based on the chi-square, recidivism rates were significantly impacted by participation in the mental health court. The data presented demonstrated mental health court is effective at reducing recidivism. The potential is there for positive social change in the treatment of youth with mental illness both in the community and the juvenile justice system.

No description available.

No description available.

Children and youth with emotional and behavioural disorders [EBD] have complex needs that span an array of service providers (Stroul & Friedman, 1994; VanDenBerg, 2008) and given the paucity of supports for this population they may not receive the support that they require (Burns et al., 1995; Farmer et al., 2003). There is a considerable amount of research that supports the integration of services for children and youth with EBD through the wraparound approach (VanDenBerg, Osher, & Lourie, 2009). There also is research that supports the notion that community schools may provide the most effective host environment for the integration and provision of support for this population (Dryfoos & Maguire, 2002; Grossman & Vang, 2009). However, there is limited Canadian research about the efficacy of the wraparound approach in the context of a community school. In order to explore this issue a qualitative, multi-case study was conducted of three community schools in the province of Manitoba to determine the extent to which community schools foster interdisciplinary collaboration and may support the implementation of the wraparound approach (Bruns, Suter, Force, & Burchard, 2005; Bruns, Walker, & The National Wraparound Initiative Advisory Group, 2008; Goldman, 1999). The findings from this study suggest that at the practice level, the community schools that were studied fostered collaboration and the integration of support. In addition, the community schools that were studied possessed many of the requisite conditions that support the implementation of the wraparound approach as a process to guide individualized planning for children and youth with complex needs. Barriers to the full-scale implementation of the wraparound approach in the context of the community schools were identified and primarily included system level constraints on collaborative practices. Future research may involve piloting the implementation of the wraparound approach as outlined in the “Wraparound Protocol for Children and Youth with Severe to Profound Emotional and Behavioural Disorders,” (Healthy Child Manitoba, 2013) in designated community schools within the province of Manitoba in order to build upon the strengths of community schools as effective host environments for the implementation of the wraparound approach and also to identify the means by which the system level constraints to collaborative practices might be overcome. / February 2016

In September 2016, work was initiated on the subprojects which comprise the Conformal C-Band/Multiband Antenna project: SARD #1: Broadband Conformal C-Band Missile Wraparound Antennas; SARD #2: Beam Switching Array Antennas; SARD #3: Multiband Conformal Antennas for Aircraft Applications; SARD #4: High Altitude Coronal Efforts on Antenna Performance; and SARD #5: Small, Medium Gain Multiband Receive Antennas. A brief status of each of them will be discussed and detail the technology areas being developed by each.

The Conformal C-Band/Multi-band Antenna project will support the AWS-3 auction by providing the technology to integrate C-Band or multi-band telemetry(TM) antennas on test articles such as missiles, weapons, or aircraft. These test articles would then provide C-Band or multi-band TM data to ground station receivers that are relocated to the C-Band frequency range through the AWS-3 Spectrum Relocation Fund program. This project would advance the technology of antennas in the C-Band region for test article TM integration. Successful use of C-Band and Multi-Band antennas for aeronautical mobile telemetry (AMT) on test and training ranges is dependent on the advancement of key technologies. This paper will detail the technology areas being matured by this project as well as the capabilities to be demonstrated.

No description available.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 17-20, 1994 / Town & Country Hotel and Conference Center, San Diego, California / Planar microstrip antennas are desirable in many telemetry applications because they are small in size, light in weight, and conformal to most surfaces. The design and optimization of circularly-polarized omnidirectional microstrip arrays using a new software simulation tool are discussed in this paper. Critical design issues such as the optimization of each array element for circular polarization and the minimization of mutual couplings as well as feed network mismatch are examined. The software tool, which consists of a novel graphical user interface and a full-wave numerical simulator for a flat mounting surface, provides a testbed environment for the user to explore new designs as well as optimizing existing designs. Using this tool, the design of several wraparound arrays with different mounting cylinder radii are presented. Comparisons between measured and simulated data for two S-band 8-element wraparound arrays are also presented.