Research and Coordination of Monterey County Community Action Partnership Strategic Planning Process

The Monterey County Community Action Partnership (MCCAP) is a publicly operated Community Action Agency supported by the Monterey County Department of Social Services (MCDSS). MCCAP primarily serves low and middle-income individuals and families. The macro-level problem is that too many people are living below the poverty level in Monterey County. The micro-level problem that will be addressed by this project is the MCCAP commissioners are lacking in their efforts to carry out their required duties and responsibilities. The purpose of this project is to provide information and assistance for the MCCAP commissioners to develop the agency’s bi-annual strategic plan. The expected, short term outcome for the MCCAP strategic planning process is to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of strategic planning in a public agency. The assessment evaluates and compares the process of strategic planning. MCCAP commissioners should continue to follow the action steps developed in the strategic planning process to reach their agency goals

Boron Isotopes and FTIR Analysis to Determine Past Fire Occurrence in the Upper Nepean Catchment

Bushfires have shaped the Australian landscape for millennia and with increasing concerns surrounding the effects of climate change on national fire regimes, the importance of developing more extensive fire records becomes critical in management and mitigation. Existing methods are historically limited or prevent distinction of severity, hindering a continuous, long-term record of past fire activity. The aim of this study was to calibrate two novel techniques- boron isotopes and Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy- against known fire occurrence in alluvial sediments to determine their suitability as proxies. Alluvial sediments provide an insight into signal transport to reservoirs and lake sediments, which offer an enduring record of past fire activity. This study employed both geochemical and infrared spectroscopy analysis techniques to determine changes in the boron isotope ratio (δ11B) and molecular composition of the sediment profile with depth. A methods comparison was conducted with potassium bromide (KBr) discs and attenuated total reflectance (ATR)-FTIR. Clay samples underwent alkali fusion, cation exchange and boron specific chromatography and analysis by multicollector inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (MC-ICP-MS) for the determination of δ11B values. The results from the FTIR proxy highlight the exposure of charcoal-rich layers to higher temperatures and pyrolysis conditions, largely effecting C-C, C-N and C-O bonds by thermal decomposition. Higher severity is also punctuated by a shift from aliphatic to aromatic compounds- a trait associated with higher temperatures. In association with this, boron isotopes highlighted a significant peak in δ11B value at the surface of the charcoal-rich layer, suggesting enrichment of 11B from ash or the temperature-induced transformations of boric acid, resulting in speciation and fractionation. This speciation is confirmed in the FTIR spectra

Suggestibility in an adolescent and young adult sample: Age and individual differences

The current study was an investigation of age differences in interrogative suggestibility and its components; Yield, Shift, and Total Suggestibility. Adolescents and young adults were compared on these measures and it was found that young adults Yield significantly less than adolescents and that Total Suggestibility was lower for the young adults compared to the adolescents. Young adults were also found to display significantly higher levels of both memory and source monitoring ability. Regressions were conducted with individual difference factors associated with Yield, Shift, and Total Suggestibility. For Yield, memory was found to be a unique contributor. For Shift and Total Suggestibility memory, source monitoring, and social desirability were found to be unique contributors, with social desirability contributing over age, memory, and source monitoring. The findings of the current study are applicable both to research in the area of interrogative suggestibility and within the legal setting

Ecological Factors Promoting Academic Resilience of Latina Students

To enhance the academic success of Latina students, researchers and educators must move away from focusing on deficits and risks and concentrate more on student potential and environmental support, which have been found to successfully open pathways to academic achievement. By shifting the focus, stakeholders can gain an understanding of the educational experiences of Latina students considered on a pathway of educational failure and the processes that can contribute instead to their academic resilience. In this qualitative study, I investigate the ecological factors that influence and impact the academic resiliency of Latina students. Urie Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological System Theory of Human Development serves as the theoretical framework. Focusing on in-depth interviews with six high school seniors and six social support providers, I examine the perceptions and experiences of these seniors, and will reveal how each of the ecological systems helped foster pathways of resiliency. This qualitative study also fills the research gaps in the fields of Latina youth, academic resiliency and educational achievement with the goal to distinguish methods that support resiliency rather than limit the focus to identifying characteristics of resilient children. Implications include how educators can cultivate academic environments that nurture the resiliency of Latina students

Unwed Mothers‘ Private Safety Nets and Children‘s Socioemotional Wellbeing

Using longitudinal data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N = 1,162) and the National Evaluation of Welfare-to-Work Strategies (N = 1,308), we estimate associations between material and instrumental support available to unwed, low-income mothers and young children‘s socioemotional wellbeing. In multivariate OLS models, we find mothers‘ available support is negatively associated with children‘s behavior problems and positively associated with prosocial behavior in both datasets; associations between available support and children‘s internalizing and prosocial behaviors attenuate but remain robust in residualized change models. Overall, results support the hypothesis that the availability of a private safety net is positively associated with children‘s socioemotional adjustment.

The International Right to Health: What Does It Mean in Legal Practice and How Can It Affect Priority Setting for Universal Health Coverage?

The international right to health is enshrined in national and international law. In a growing number of cases, individuals denied access to high-cost medicines and technologies under universal coverage systems have turned to the courts to challenge the denial of access as against their right to health. In some instances, patients seek access to medicines, services, or technologies that they would have access to under universal coverage if not for government, health system, or service delivery shortfalls. In others, patients seek access to medicines, services, or technologies that have not been included or that have been explicitly denied for coverage due to prioritization. In the former, judicialization of the right to health is critical to ensure patients access to the technologies or services to which they are entitled. In the latter, courts may grant patients access to medicines not covered as a result of explicit priority setting to allocate finite resources. By doing so, courts may give priority to those with the means and incentive to turn to the courts, at the expense of the maximization of equity- and population-based health. Evidence- based, informed decision-making processes could ensure that the most clinically and cost-effective products aligning with social value judgments are prioritized. Governments should be equipped to engage in and defend rational priority setting as a means to promote fair allocation of resources to maximize population health. Rational priority setting is an evidence-based form of explicit priority setting, where the priority setting process is deliberate and transparent, the decision makers are specified, relevant stakeholders are involved, and the best available evidence about clinical and cost-effectiveness and social values is considered. The most rational priority setting processes will also account for the benefit to patients, the cost, the ethicality and the fairness. The priority setting process and institutions involved should then be held accountable through an appeals process, allowing independent review by health systems, health care, and other relevant experts, and an opportunity for judicial review. While the implementation of a three-step (1) rational priority setting, (2) appeals, and (3) judicial review process will differ depending on a country’s resource constraints, political systems, and social values, the authors argue that the three stages together will promote the greatest accountability and fairness. As a result, the courts could place greater reliance on the government’s coverage choices, and the population’s health could be most equitably distributed

Disasters, continuity, and the pathological normal

In this introductory essay to our symposium we argue that “Sociology After COVID-19” needs to center “disaster” itself as an object of study and theory, and that doing so can productively reframe sociology's fundamental concerns. Building off nascent interdisciplinary work in critical disaster studies, as well as on the insights of our own contributors, we advance and elaborate two theses. First, while disasters are disruptive, they are not purely so; as they unfold, they enfold continuities such that they are best understood as a part of social reality rather than apart from it. Second, disasters are not pathological deviations from “normal” so much as they are the most salient manifestations of the ways that the normal is in fact pathological. A more critical approach to disaster can lead sociologists to examine more closely the interrelationship between the production of continuities and ruptures in social and economic life, enriching our understanding of core disciplinary concerns about social change, stratification, and inequality

Reading aloud in the writing center : a comparative analysis of three tutoring methods.

Reading aloud in writing center sessions is a common practice, one that is both under-studied and under-theorized. In an attempt to begin to address this gap, this dissertation conducts an empirical analysis of three different methods of reading aloud in the writing center: client-read, tutor-read, and point-predict. Client-read and tutor-read are traditional approaches to reading in writing centers; point-predict was adapted into a tutoring method from a peer-review method by Barbara Sitko. In order to examine these methods, a study of 24 writing center sessions—eight of each method—was conducted. Sessions were recorded, transcribed, and coded for initiator and writing issues discussed. Clients and tutors were given post-session surveys that asked for their assessment of the session and what they believed it focused upon. The four tutor participants were also interviewed about their thoughts on the study after they had the chance to work as Composition instructors. This dissertation is divided into four chapters. Chapter One provides a literature review, Chapter Two addresses the transcript and survey analysis , Chapter Three uses tutors interviews to question common assumptions within writing center lore, and Chapter Four offers ideas for future research and implications for practice. The most striking finding of this study is the strong suggestion that reading methods have a significant impact on the outcome of tutoring sessions—especially on the amount of attention given to global and local issues—and that current beliefs that having clients read aloud is the best way to ensure a global focus, client control, and client engagement may be incorrect. Specifically, this study found that traditional tutor-read sessions focused three-fourths of their conversation on local issues, whereas point-predict sessions focused only a fourth of their discussion on these issues and gave far more attention to organization, signposting, and content. Clients were also about twice as likely to initiate globally-focused discussions in point-predict sessions as in other session types. Consequently, this dissertation concludes that writing center practitioners need to more closely analyze the current reading methods they employ and seek out new reading methods that might be better suited at catalyzing global, engaged, client-focused sessions