An evaluation of the effectiveness of a course in public health nursing theory

Thesis (M.S.)--Boston Universit

Financing Housing Supports for Youth Transitioning Out of Foster Care

This strategy brief, written by The Finance Project with support from the Foster Care Work Group (FCWG), one of three work groups of the Youth Transition Funders Group (YTFG), explores strategies for financing supports and services that help foster youth make successful transitions to adulthood. Foundation leaders participating in the YTFG are committed to achieving a common visio -- ensuring that vulnerable youth are connected by age 25 to institutions and support systems that will enable them to succeed throughout adulthood. The FCWG brings together foundation leaders with a shared interest in preparing youth in foster care for their transition out of the child welfare system and providing them pathways to lifelong economic well-being

Reorganizing Corrections: Revisiting the Recommendations of the National Advisory Commission

In 1973 the National Advisory Commission on Standards and Goals recommended that correctional services be consolidated under a single state agency, arguing that cost efficiencies, improved communication, and greater employee professionalism would result. The National Advisory Commission advocated state rather than local control of probation, and executive rather than judicial branch control of probation services. It encouraged development of regional rather than local jails and recommended that states assume the operation and control of all local detention and correctional functions. This paper examines some of the arguments for consolidation of correctional services and attempts to determine the kinds of reorganization that have occurred since 1973.BACKGROUND / Reorganizing Institutional Corrections / Reorganizing Probation / Reorganizing Parole / REORGANIZATION OF CORRECTIONAL SERVICES / Institutional Reorganization / Reorganization of Probation / Reorganization of Parole / THE FUTURE OF CORRECTIONAL REORGANIZATION / Juvenile Corrections / Adult Probation / Local Facilities / REFERENCE

Simultaneous slack budgeting and retiming for synchronous circuits optimization

Abstract- With the challenges of growing functionality and scaling chip size, the possible performance improvements should be considered in the earlier IC design stages, which gives more freedom to the later optimization. Potential slack as an effective metric of possible performance improvements is considered in this work which, as far as we known, is the first work that maximizes the potential slack by retiming for synchronous sequential circuit. A simultaneous slack budgeting and incremental retiming algorithm is proposed for maximizing potential slack. The overall slack budget is optimized by relocating the FFs iteratively with the MIS-based slack estimation. Compared with the potential slack of a well-known min-period retiming, our algorithm improves potential slack averagely 19.6 % without degrading the circuit performance in reasonable runtime. Furthermore, at the expense of a small amount of timing performance, 0.52 % and 2.08%, the potential slack is increased averagely by 19.89 % and 28.16 % separately, which give a hint of the tradeoff between the timing performance and the slack budget.

Supportive Housing for Homeless Families: Foster Care Outcomes and Best Practices

Poverty is a well-documented risk factor for family involvement with child protective services and other elements of the child welfare system.Recent studies show that homeless families have higher rates of being involved in the child welfare system than the general population.However, there is little known about how supportive housing programs for homeless families can affect their long-term outcomes.This report describes the outcome evaluation of Cottage Housing Incorporated's Serna Village program in Sacramento, California. Serna Village is a supportive housing program serving homeless families. Outcomes from the program illustrate that it is possible to end recidivism into the child welfare system for homeless families by providing them with permanent housing and comprehensive support services. Although homeless and marginally housed families have high support and case management services can prevent these disenfranchised families from re-entering the foster care system.The intervention of supportive housing -- housing and services focused on the unique needs of adults and their children exiting homelessness -- may break the cycle of abuse and neglect among these families.Conducted in 2011, this study involved a sample of 293 children and youth from approximately 150 families who lived with one or more parents in Cottage Housing Incorporated's Serna Village between 2002 and 2009, thefirst seven years of the program.The findings from this study indicate that comprehensive supportive housing programs following a best-practice model can provide homeless parents and their children with stable living for a significant period of time. Supportive housing programs also may give homeless parents an opportunity to find and maintain employment, work on their education, save a substantial amount of money for move-out costs, learn daily living skills, experience a real-world living situation and prevent re-entry into the child welfare system. The outcomes from this study may help inform policymakers and child welfare administrators with recommendations to better assist marginalized families and save valuable funding dollars

Boosting Home Care Options Under Medicaid: Balancing Incentive Payment Program, Community First Choice Option

In Ohio and nationally, a significant share of Medicaid is dedicated to patients who are elderly or have disabilities. Too often, this is in a high-cost nursing home setting. The ACA offers incentives to encourage more cost-effective home care services for people who need help with dressing, bathing, chores, preparing meals, or other activities of daily living. A study of state expenditures on long-term care and services between 1995 and 2005 found that states with broad access to home and community-based services realized cost savings in the long term as they shifted from institutionalized settings (nursing homes) to home care services, although there was a short-term increase in costs during the shift.The ACA offers new opportunities to help states provide long-term services and supports to people in their homes. This brief examines two of the programs: The Balancing Incentives Payment Program, which increases federal matching funds for states like Ohio by two percentage points through 2015 for increased home and community-based services, helping with any up-front costs, and the permanent Community First Choice Option (CFCO) which provides a boost of six percentagepoints, from 63.58 to 69.58 percent, in federal funding for personal attendant services in the home or community

German banks and the modernization of the small firm sector: long-term finance in comparative perspective

This paper analyzes the contribution of the German banking system to the modernization of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in industry. The simultaneous greater relative importance of and relatively high wages in German SMEs appear to be paradoxical in terms of dual labor market theory, which claims that lower wages and greater flexibility in the use of labor are important for helping small firms compensate for their constrained access to capital, R&Dk and skills resources relative to large firms. This paper suggests that the successful modernization of the German small firm sector despite pressure from below from industry-level wage bargaining and strong job protection can be attributed to support from above in terms of an institutional infrastructure helping small firms overcome the organizational deficiencies they face relative to large firm. The decentralized provision of long-term finance and sophisticated financial services for the modernization of SMEs is enabled by a three-tiered federalist form of corporatist organization in the cooperative and savings banks sectors, in which smaller banks at the bottom tier of the organization receive access to refinancing on capital markets and specialized services -- normally only available to large banks -- through the upper tiers of the banking organization. -- Gegenstand dieses Papiers ist der Beitrag der deutschen Kreditinstitute zur Modernisierung des Mittelstands im Verarbeitenden Gewerbe. Die im internationalen Vergleich große relative Bedeutung der mittelständischen Unternehmen und ihr gleichzeitig niedriges Lohngefälle gegenüber Großunternehmen erscheint im Leichte der dualen Arbeitsmarkttheorie als paradox. Danach müßten im Mittelpunkt der Personalpolitik der mittelständischen Unternehmen ein niedrigeres Lohnniveau und eine größere Flexibilität stehen als Ausgleich für den gegenüber Großunternehmen begrenzteren Zugang zu Kapital, FuE und Weiterbildung. In diesem Papier wird die Meinung vertreten, daß die durch hohe Löhne und starken Arbeitsschutz erzwungene Modernisierung des deutschen Mittelstandes durch eine institutionelle Infrastruktur unterstützt worden ist. Der Zugang des Mittelstandes zu dem für die Modernisierung wichtigen langfristigen Kapital und zuz speziellen Finanzierungsmöglichkeiten wird durch eine dreistufige forderalistische Form der korporatistischen Organisierung in dem Sparkassen- wie in dem Kreditgenossenschaftssektor ermöglicht. Keinere Kreditinstitute auf lokaler Ebene erhalten eine langristige Refinanzierung am Kaptialmarkt, Qualifizierungsmaßnahmen und besondere Finanzdienstleistung -- die normaerweise nur großen Banken zugänglich sind -- durch die regionalen und nationalen Ebenen ihrer jeweiligen Verbundorganisationen.

A developing dialogue – children’s rights, children’s law and economics: surveying experiences from Southern and Eastern African law reform processes

Law reform in southern and eastern African countries to domesticate the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACRWC), to synthesize common, civil and customary laws, and to modernise and codify a myriad of outdated statutes affecting children that were inherited from the colonial era has been an ongoing project in numerous states in the region since the first comprehensive Children’s Act, that of Uganda, in 1996. These law reform processes are, in many instances, still ongoing

National health policy in Greece : regulations or reforms? The Sisyphus myth

This paper attempts an evaluation of health care reforms and regulations in Greece. The main findings indicate that the existing Conservative Government has kept but not developed some previous Social-democrats’ major reforms concerning decentralisation and hospital management arrangements. The government also announced new regulations concerning the pharmaceutical sector and the procurement procedures of the national health units. On the other hand, precedent regulations for primary health care were to be postponed and the fundamental financing issue of the system has been neglected. In addition, this paper intends to take parallel account that terms such as globalisation and enlargement are still within the European perspective of the country. Overall, the Greek NHS seems to be developed and enlarged, besides the lack of strong political will to consider reforms and even regulations, into a continuous managerial process, assessment and public dialogue. In this sense, there is a continuing gap between - on the one hand - principles and goals and - on the other hand - rational planning, political issues and implementation process, all resulting in a never-ending reform scenario.peer-reviewe