Evaluation of Right Here: A Young People's Mental Health Initiative of the Paul Hamlyn and Mental Health Foundations

Right Here was a five-year initiative of the Paul Hamlyn Foundation and the Mental Health Foundation that aimed to improve preventative and early intervention approaches to supporting the mental health and wellbeing of young people in the UK.The initiative ran from 2009 - 2014 and was delivered across four local sites: Brighton and Hove, the London Borough of Newham, Sheffield and Fermanagh, Northern Ireland. Itoffered a blend of activities to raise awareness of mental health and wellbeing; build confidence and resilience through physical, creative and therapeutic activities; influence policy and practice locally; and deliver products and services that had been developed by young people.A central Right Here team with responsibility for coordinating the initiative also convened a National Youth Panel to contribute to the initiative's governance and influencing agenda; arranged showcasing and dissemination opportunities for the projects' work; and provided consultancy support to the grantholders.Youth participation was critically important to the initiative; both local projects and the central team had a variety of ways of involving young people in the planning of activities, projects and the initiative as a whole. Partnership was also an informing principle at local and national level. The initiative sought to develop new insights around these areas

Culturally Sensitive IS Teaching: Lessons Learned to Manage Motivation Issues

This paper seeks to raise awareness of culturally sensitive teaching that is largely overlooked in the IS teaching community. In a global, networked environment commonly faced by the contemporary business or academic world, it is imperative to prepare future IT professionals with adequate cultural understanding of such a multicultural environment in which their future work practice will engage. Derived from a teaching case situated in the context of HBCU (Historically Black Colleges and Universities) in the US, this paper narrates and reflects cultural issues and challenges that are increasingly prevalent in today‟s education systems. More specifically, the study analyzes motivational issues that are commonly observed in a homogeneous student group and provides practice lessons to help educators who might face similar issues in their teaching context to manage those issues. Insights gained from the study help reflect the significance of developing culturally sensitive pedagogy that might require future IS educators‟ and researchers‟ attention

Synthesis of FMSP Experience and Lessons Learned for Fisheries Co-Management, Final Technical Report

In November 2012, the UK Department for International Development (DFID) set the terms of reference for a commissioned assessment of fisheries and aquaculture science. The task was to complete a "scoping review", consisting of an in-depth assessment of the existing evidence related to fisheries and aquaculture activities in developing countries and their contribution to economic growth, food security and nutrition. For this the assessment was expected to identify the existing evidence and 'evidence in the pipeline' (i.e. to be published imminently) from the existing literature, compile it, and provide an assessment of the strength (in the sense, scientific rigor) of that evidence, and identify knowledge or evidence gaps. In addition the assessment was to be complemented by a mapping of existing relevant interventions in fisheries and aquaculture. In order to conduct this assessment, the team of consultants adopted a six step methodological protocol that allowed them to assess in a consistent manner the scientific quality of the documents included in the assessment, based on quality, size and consistency of the evidence. After scanning, 202 documents were retained. The main evidences from these 202 documents were organised under two main threads: (i) Developmental outcomes, including food security; nutrition; health; economic growth and (ii) Mediating factors focusing on governance; and gender

Gathering evidence of benefits: a structured approach from the JISC Managing Research Data Programme

The work of the Jisc Managing Research Data programme is – along with the rest of the UK higher education sector – taking place in an environment of increasing pressure on research funding. In order to justify the investment made by Jisc in this activity – and to help make the case more widely for the value of investing time and money in research data management – projects and the programme as a whole must be able to clearly express the resultant benefits to the host institutions and to the broader sector. This paper describes a structured approach to the measurement and description of benefits provided by the work of these projects for the benefit of funders, institutions and researchers. We outline the context of the programme and its work; discuss the drivers and challenges of gathering evidence of benefits; specify benefits as distinct from aims and outputs; present emerging findings and the types of metrics and other evidence which projects have provided; explain the value of gathering evidence in a structured way to demonstrate benefits generated by work in this field; and share lessons learned from progress to date

Strengthening Organizations to Mobilize Californians: Lessons Learned from a Major Initiative to Build the Capacity of Civic Engagement Nonprofits

From 2008 to 2010, twenty-seven community organizing nonprofits in California took part in an unusual and ambitious statewide initiative, Strengthening Organizations to Mobilize Californians (the "Initiative"). Funded by three leading foundations -- The James Irvine Foundation, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and David and Lucile Packard Foundation -- the Initiative sought to help nonprofits strengthen their organizations by focusing on such key areas as leadership, decision-making, communication and fundraising.The premise was that stronger organizations could better meet the needs of communities and give their residents more of a voice in civic life. Thus, through the Initiative each foundation sought to support its broader purpose, from improving educational opportunities and access to health care to increasing civic engagement and reforming California's governance system to better reflect the state's diversity.The Initiative specifically explored how different approaches to working with organizations supported change. How did peer exchanges compare with trainings that relied more on expert input? Would convenings enable the kind of networking that organizations need to develop and build momentum for their ideas? How much additional benefit would nonprofits derive from additional coaching time? Findings from the Initiative hold implications for other philanthropic staff members who seek to design, implement and improve capacity building.The insights and lessons presented in this report were distilled through an assessment process that included:A review of data gathered through Event Feedback Forms completed by participants at each activity and event over the course of the InitiativeA post-Initiative survey administered online to all participating organizations, with a response rate of 39 individuals representing 24 out of 27 organizations (89%)Two focus groups attended by 10 executive directors and senior staff from participating organizationsReflective conversations with the foundation partner

Teacher cognition in language teaching: A review of research on what language teachers think, know, believe, and do

This paper reviews a selection of research from the field of foreign and second language teaching into what is referred to here as teacher cognition – what teachers think, know, and believe and the relationships of these mental constructs to what teachers do in the language teaching classroom. Within a framework suggested by more general mainstream educational research on teacher cognition, language teacher cognition is here discussed with reference to three main themes: (1) cognition and prior language learning experience, (2) cognition and teacher education, and (3) cognition and classroom practice. In addition, the findings of studies into two specific curricular areas in language teaching which have been examined by teacher cognition – grammar teaching and literacy – are discussed. This review indicates that, while the study of teacher cognition has established itself on the research agenda in the field of language teaching and provided valuable insight into the mental lives of language teachers, a clear sense of unity is lacking in the work and there are several major issues in language teaching which have yet to be explored from the perspective of teacher cognition