Are Cultural Adaptations of ESTs an Appropriate Response to Unfavorable Treatment Outcomes of Ethnic/Cultural minorities? An Appraisal of the Response

The highest standards of care for mental healthcare and psychotherapeutic services in the United States is of seminal focus by the national government, insurance agencies, educational institutions, healthcare systems, and greater communities. Included with the emphasis of the highest standards of care; the incorporation of the best practices labeled is the gold standard. However, in the context of the United States, best practices and their required research, are often exclusive diverse populations. This review of the literature and subsequent discussion delve into specific interventions implemented by the counseling field to address best practice inclusion with ethnic and cultural minorities guided by the question: What measures have been taken to promote inclusion of best practices for an increasingly diverse population

Incorporating Best Practices of Highly Effective Teaching into Common Core-Aligned College Courses

While aligning the Common Core Standards with Eastern Kentucky University’s General Education and Teacher Preparation courses has been the main focus of Curriculum Alignment for Retention and Transition at Eastern (CARTE), another way we responded to Senate Bill 1 was to identify ways in which to teach this new alignment at the college level. Our solution was to partner with Kentucky’s Council on Postsecondary Education to create a website on best teaching practices and to task each of our Professional Learning Communities with adapting the best teaching practices to its specific discipline (e.g., teacher prep). The result was the creation of Best Practices for Highly Effective Teaching Module Resources, a section of the website of the Kentucky Core Academic Standards for Postsecondary Education. By going beyond the Senate Bill 1 mandate, the website for best practices of highly effective teaching and learning is one more way that Kentucky has positioned itself as a leader in the common core alignment process

School Climate: Practices for Implementation and Sustainability

The National School Climate Center (NSCC) School Climate Practice Briefs -- Practices for Implementation and Sustainability -- present the latest in research and best practice for effective school climate reform from leading experts. The 11 issues selected to be included in this set of Practice Briefs are based on NSCC's decade-long work with the entire academic community -- teachers, staff, school-based mental health professionals, students and parents -- to improve a climate for learning.These School Climate Briefs for Implementation and Sustainability focus on both the "what?" - what are the foundational standards, research and measurements of school climate; and the "so what?" - what practices individuals, schools and communities can employ to measure and improve school climate for maximum impacts. We encourage a review of the entire set of Briefs as they demonstrate how school climate aligns with current opportunities and challenges schools face to ensure quality, safe, equitable and engaging environments for students and adults

How Can Art Educators Promote A Choice-Based Program While Supporting And Maintaining Standards-Based Instruction And Assessment?

In order for art educators to uphold best practices, we must recognize the shifting and overlapping philosophies in the art education world. We must reflect and adjust to the needs of our students and communities, as well as embrace the research and practices of previous scholars and art educators to help us grow in our own practice. The guiding question to address this challenge was: “How can art educators promote a choice-based program while supporting and maintaining standards-based instruction and assessment?” The literature review includes an examination of standards based instruction, 21st century learning, Teaching for Artistic Behavior, choice based teaching, Studio Habits of Mind and growth mindset. The intent of this research was to combine the above best practices in order to support the idea of a true choice-based classroom. A Google Site was created, as well as three different types of assessments, to measure learning objectives in a Choice-Based Ceramics classroom

Standards and Best Practices - Two NASA Examples

Formal international standards as well as promotion of community or recommended practices have their place in ensuring "FAIRness" of data. Data management in NASA's Earth Observation System Data and Information System (EOSDIS) has benefited from both of these avenues to a significant extent. The purpose of this paper is to present one example of each of these, which promote (re)usability. The first is an ISO standard for specifying preservation content from Earth observation missions. The work on this started in 2011, informally within the Earth Science Information Partners (ESIP) in the US, while the European Space Agency (ESA) was leading an effort on Long-Term Data Preservation (LTDP). Resulting from the ESIP discussions was NASA's Preservation Content Specification, which was applied in 2012 as a requirement for NASA's new missions. ESA's Preserved Data Set Content (PDSC) document was codified into a document adopted by the Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS). It was recognized that it would be useful to combine PCS and PDSC into an ISO standard to ensure consistency in data preservation on a broader international scale. This standard, numbered ISO 19165-2 has been under development since mid-2017. The second is an example of developing recommendations for "best practices" within more limited (still fairly broad) communities. A Data Product Developers' Guide (DPDG) is currently being developed by one of NASA's Earth Science Data System Working Groups (ESDSWGs). It is for use by developers of products to be derived from Earth observation data to improve product (re)usability. One of the challenges in developing the guide is the fact that there are already many applicable standards and guides. The relevant information needs to be selected and expressed in a succinct manner, with appropriate pointers to references. The DPDG aims to compile the most applicable parts of earlier guides into a single document outlining the typical development process for Earth Science data products. Standards and best practices formally endorsed by the Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS) Standards Office (ESO), outputs from ESDSWGs (e.g., Dataset Interoperability Working Group, and Data Quality Working Group), and recommendations from Distributed Active Archive Centers and data producers are emphasized

Subtitles Translation in the Grey Zone

This paper offers an account of the current state-of-affairs of Audiovideo translation, in particular amateur translations of subtitles of pirated films and TV programmes in four fan translation and subtitling communities in the grey zone, who are threading the thin line of legality - illegality due to loopholes in copyright in different jurisdictions. The author, who explored these communities as a volunteer translator and subtitler, describes and discusses the communities striving for quality in translation, conventionalization of best practices in subtitling by use of European and international standards as well as personal experience and usability. The paper discusses translators’ mistakes, collaboration in these fan subtitling communities and members’ contribution with software development, advice and support. It concludes with the latest developments in audiovisual content delivery in Ultra HD and the Open Translation movement

Best Practices for Creating and Sustaining Engagement with Urban Communities: Recommendations for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service launched its Urban Wildlife Conservation Program in 2012 in order to increase the relevancy of the service to urban communities, as well as to connect urban communities with nature and environmental conservation. As part of this initiative, the USFWS has designated certain urban centers as Urban Wildlife Refuge Partnership Areas. The main goal of the Urban Wildlife Refuges is to engage urban communities in wildlife conservation, often with the help of community partners. These are eight Standards of Excellence that serve as a framework to support this goal. While these Standards of Excellence are in place, there is still work to be done in taking these rather broad standards and operationalizing them, so there is guidance and an understanding of best practices related to the standards at the individual refuge level. For our project, we were tasked by our client at the USFWS with operationalizing the standards related to the broad goal of creating community connection and engagement. In order to assess these best practices, USFWS asked us to examine the practices of other federal land-management agencies and conservation-oriented non-profits that have urban programs, in addition to well-established and effective Urban Refuge Partnerships within the agency. We conducted a literature review of research on urban and minority population views of nature and wildlife, as well as their use of natural areas, and barriers to this use. We also interviewed staff from land-management agencies and conservation organizations about their urban programs. From our research we found that there are socio-economic and socio-demographic factors that influence urban and minority participation in conservation activities, and there are also consistent barriers that have prevented them from participating in conservation activities. From our interviews we found that it is essential for refuges to build strong relationships with urban community members in order to gain their trust and to solicit their participation in programs and activities. In doing so, refuge staff must initiate contact by coming off the refuge and into the community, and reach out to community organizations and leaders as potential partners and allies. Refuges must also address and work to overcome barriers urban and minority communities have historically encountered in participating in conservation activities, and pursue activities that increase their relevancy in the urban environment. Soliciting community input in designing refuge programs and activities, and then acting on this input, is also critical to increasing relevancy. Doing these things may require a paradigm shift for refuge staff who traditionally have focused on conservation activities only on the refuges, and waited for the public to come to them, rather than reaching out to communities. However, this shift is necessary in order for the USFWS to create a broader conservation constituency and to truly engage the 80% of the U.S. population that lives in urban areas

Learning Center Consortium 2003 Report

Learning Centers are central facilities, frequently located with an apartment community, where programs are available that support residents in attaining their American dreams - children succeeding in school, adults increasing their earning power, families holding savings accounts and moving into homeownership.This report presents the results of the first two years of the Multifamily Initiative's effort to study the question, "What impact do housing-based learning centers have on property operations, low-income households and their communities?" The long-term goals of this initiative effort are to set benchmarks for outcomes, standardize effective programs, document and optimize the impact of learning centers on property performance, and to build collaborative funding sources.Thanks to the participation of the nine founding housing organizations who have made learning centers part of their operations, and to consultants Fred Alsup and Janet Maccubbin, this report presents a detailed picture of the initial work to define and improve the impact of learning centers, share best practices and build efficient, replicable standards. It also provides information on the characteristics of learning centers, such as types of programs, capacity, areas of success and challenges

Narrowing the Accountability Gap: Toward a New Foreign Investor Accountability Mechanism

An ever-increasing number of standards, guidelines, principles, norms, and best practices have been adopted to address the environmental and social impacts of multinational enterprises (MNEs). This increase in standards and norms corresponds to a rise in MNE sensitivity to the environmental and social impacts that their activities have on local communities in developing countries. These standards and norms are considered voluntary by definition because they are typically not state-sponsored or the product of public regulation. They fill a normative gap located between the state-centered focus of international law and the often inadequate or unenforced standards of the developing country hosts for MNE activities, but relatively little attention has been paid to mechanisms for ensuring compliance with them. This article proposes a new Foreign Investor Accountability Mechanism (“the Mechanism”). The Mechanism will narrow the accountability gap by providing communities affected by foreign investment projects with an avenue for voicing their concerns and for holding MNEs accountable both to local and national laws that may apply. The Mechanism will also allow affected communities to enforce the various promises that MNEs make during project design, approval, and preconstruction phases, or to gain financing or the ‘social license to operate.’ These promises may include: commitments to follow international, industry-wide, or sectoral standards and norms; commitments made as part of corporate-wide social and environmental policies; and project-specific commitments made to secure host government approval or financing from financial institutions, such as the International Finance Corporation, export credit agencies, or private commercial banks

Narrowing the Accountability Gap: Toward a New Foreign Investor Accountability Mechanism

An ever-increasing number of standards, guidelines, principles, norms, and best practices have been adopted to address the environmental and social impacts of multinational enterprises (MNEs). This increase in standards and norms corresponds to a rise in MNE sensitivity to the environmental and social impacts that their activities have on local communities in developing countries. These standards and norms are considered voluntary by definition because they are typically not state-sponsored or the product of public regulation. They fill a normative gap located between the state-centered focus of international law and the often inadequate or unenforced standards of the developing country hosts for MNE activities, but relatively little attention has been paid to mechanisms for ensuring compliance with them. This article proposes a new Foreign Investor Accountability Mechanism (“the Mechanism”). The Mechanism will narrow the accountability gap by providing communities affected by foreign investment projects with an avenue for voicing their concerns and for holding MNEs accountable both to local and national laws that may apply. The Mechanism will also allow affected communities to enforce the various promises that MNEs make during project design, approval, and preconstruction phases, or to gain financing or the ‘social license to operate.’ These promises may include: commitments to follow international, industry-wide, or sectoral standards and norms; commitments made as part of corporate-wide social and environmental policies; and project-specific commitments made to secure host government approval or financing from financial institutions, such as the International Finance Corporation, export credit agencies, or private commercial banks