Healthy Schools Program Evaluation: Year 1 Update

Assesses the early impact of RWJF's program to provide technical assistance, resource brokering, and online tools to help schools promote physical activity and meet healthy foods and beverages standards. Examines improvement levels by school traits

Comprehensive Evaluation of Home Visiting New Hampshire: Final Report.

Home Visiting New Hampshire (HVNH) is a statewide initiative of the Division of Public Health Services (DPHS) Bureau of Maternal and Child Health. The program began in 2001 with awards to support programs in 13 sites and expanded in 2002 for a total of 19 sites across New Hampshire. The grantees provide home-based services to Medicaid-eligible pregnant women and their families, particularly those at-risk for poor pregnancy outcomes, child abuse and neglect, substance abuse, and depression. The goals of Home Visiting New Hampshire are to 1. promote healthy pregnancy and birth outcomes. 2. promote a safe and nurturing environment for children. 3. enhance families’ life course and development. In the HVNH program model, specially trained home visitors and nurses regularly visit pregnant women and their families in their homes to deliver a health and parenting education curriculum, information, referrals, and support to participants. This team coordinates its work within the HVNH grantee agency and with the grantee’s partners, i.e., other organizations in the community that can provide needed staff or services. To determine how well the program has succeeded in achieving its goals, DPHS contracted with RMC Research Corporation in November 2002 to conduct a comprehensive evaluation to assess program implementation and outcomes. Data collection involved collecting a large amount of information from participating mothers over multiple points in time while they were in the program, using HVNH Home Visitors and Nurses as the primary data collectors. The evaluation also included surveys of participants and home visiting staff, and information collected about programs through site visits

Real deal or no deal? A comparative analysis of raw milk cheese regulation in Australia and France

Australia’s regulatory framework has resulted in the standardisation of cheese production based on pasteurisation. Up until early 2015, regulations effectively prohibited raw milk cheese-making in Australia and thus stifled artisanal on-farm production. Although the introduction of Food Standards Australia New Zealand Standard 4.2.4 has allowed the production of certain hard, low-moisture raw milk cheeses, the new standard is rigid and does not encourage new entrants into the emerging raw milk cheese consumer market. This article compares the Australian system with the French raw milk cheese regulation and production system, and argues that its approach in encouraging and supporting small farmhouse artisanal traditional raw milk cheese is beneficial to both producer and consumer, and has not resulted in any significant health risks. The Australian approach amounts to a missed opportunity to encourage the emergence of a value-added industry with local and export potential, and is at odds with important movements in food policy, such as recognition of the value of localism and terroir

Canadian Soldiers in West African Conflicts, 1885–1905

This article examines the role played by Canadians at the turn of the century in West Africa. Though not intended to draw sweeping conclusions about the influence of such operations on the Canadian army as a whole—such analysis must follow at a later time when more contextual evidence is available—it does rediscover a largely forgotten chapter in the origins and evolution of the army, as well as raise a number of questions that obviously deserve greater attention. Most important, perhaps, this article demonstrates that a new approach to the analysis of the pre–1914 Canadian army is required, one that focuses as much on the influence of those who left Canada for military service as those who remained within the ranks of the institution at home. There is little question that the development of a better undersatnding of the pre–Great War Canadian Army is long overdue. Existing literature too often focuses solely on how the British army controlled and influenced a nascent Canadian militia. As this article reveals, not only are such analyses incomplete but they do not reverse the lens and examine how Canada and Canadians influenced the British army and its operations abroad during the same period. A more complete picture of the Canadian army evolution can only exist through such an examination, and this article touches on but one topic that brings new evidence for that reassessment

Outside Evaluation of Conecticut\u27s Family Resource Centers : Final report

In 193, the Connecticut State Department of Education received federal support for the activities of nine existing Family Resource Centers (FRC) and for funding new FRCs. The FRCs were based on the premise that many childhood and adolescent problems can be prevented by strengthening effective family management practices and establishing a continuum of child care and support services linked to public schools or located in public school buildings. This report details the evaluation of the 18 school-based/linked FRCs, describing their structure and contexts, examining evidence of service use, and presenting information on the effects of the FRCs on families and schools. Chapter 1 presents the service delivery model, describes the core services, and describes the evaluation plan. Chapters 2 through 5 summarize findings related to the following areas: (1) structure of core services, service delivery, financial supports, and staffing characteristics; (2) processes used to deliver services in a school-based/linked setting, including collaborative arrangements; (3) use of FRC services; (4) impacts of FRCs on families and children; and (5) impact of FRCs on schools. Chapter 6 discuses the patterns observed that reflect the implementation of the FRC service delivery model and implications for delivering comprehensive integrated services to families. This chapter also presents recommendations for sustaining the school-based/linked delivery model of the FRCs at meaningful levels. Chapter 7 presents profiles of the 18 FRCs, including their setting, service delivery arrangements, primary collaborative arrangements, and the school relationship. Nine appendices include a description of the Evaluation Support System and data collection instruments. (KB

The future of financial market regulation

Last summer, Congress approved the most sweeping reforms to the financial market regulatory system since the Great Depression with the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010. But that was only the beginning. Now come the details—hammering out more than 250 rules among 11 different regulatory agencies (the Federal Reserve itself is responsible for developing more than 50 new rules). Many of the rules are geared toward the same goal—preventing a replay of the financial crisis that crippled the economy from 2007 through 2009.Financial Regulatory Reform (Dodd-Frank Act) ; Bank capital

Globalization And The Emergence Of New Business Models In The Wine Industry

The forces of globalization have dramatically altered the international competitive landscape of the wine industry. This paper identifies and analyzes four new business models that have emerged among major industry competitors as wineries strive to create sustainable sources of competitive advantage

Elusive Empowerment: Emerald Mining in Ndola Rural under Kenneth Kaunda’s One-Party State

One of the hallmarks of Kenneth Kaunda’s tenure in office was the nationalisation of Zambia’s large-scale copper mines. Yet after the Matero Reforms of 1969, which purported to empower Zambians through the public ownership and management of the country’s largest export industry, President Kaunda and his colleagues curiously decided to partner with a foreign investor (Hagura Mining) in the 1980s to develop the emerald mining sector in Ndola Rural (now Lufwanyama), while Zambian artisanal and small-scale miners (ASM) were sidelined. Drawing upon archival documents, newspaper coverage, and a select number of interviews, this paper seeks to examine this apparent shift in mining governance under Kenneth Kaunda. Instead of facilitating financial access or establishing an equipment hire scheme for ASM, the Reserved Minerals Corporation – a subsidiary of Zambia Consolidated Copper Mines (ZCCM) –sought to restrict access to emerald deposits and preferred partnering with a foreign investor. These decisions were largely attributable to the “prevailing wisdom” at the time regarding mineral extraction (i.e. a preference for large-scale mining that can be more easily taxed and regulated) and the foreign exchange crunch of the 1980s. By prioritising large-scale production, Zambian policymakers undermined their own stated developmental goals that aimed at diversification and empowerment - both of which ASM would have facilitated - and entrenched an economic model that was dependent on foreign investment. Unfortunately, this model’s failure continues to have reverberations for emerald mining in Lufwanyama today