Little Big Planning: A Millennial Planner\u27s Take on Small Town & Rural America

When you work as a city or regional planner for a local community, the challenge is to find solutions to small town and rural problems without utilizing almost any of the high-density, mixed use principles you learned in university. However, what I have come to find is that what I thought was the most challenging aspects of my career is often the most rewarding

Prospectus, February 5, 2014

UIUC SMOKING BAN TAKES EFFECT, Number of Students Applying to More Colleges Declines, Study Abroad Program a Good Opportunity, The Human Brain: What We Do and Do Not Know, So Social: Messy Facebook? Clean It Up, Obama and the State of the Union, Making College Safe for Women, Obama Makes the Case for a Higher Minimum Wage, Seattle Seahawks win Super Bowl XLVIII 43-8, Featured Athletes of the Month, Meet the New Director of WPCDhttps://spark.parkland.edu/prospectus_2014/1002/thumbnail.jp

Prospectus, January 22, 2014

NEW LAWS TO KEEP IN MIND IN 2014, Yale Study Identifies Gene Mutation as a Cause of Tourette\u27s, College Recruiters Give Low-Income Public Campuses Fewer Visits, Tomb of Preveiously Unknown Pharaoh Found, As Economy Heals, Thriftness Thrives, Public Safety Gives Students Advice on New Laws, Back to the Drawing Board on \u27Net Neutrality\u27 Rules, Does a College Degree Lead to Good Jobs and Happiness? Or to Debt and Regret?, Shaking the Sands of Time, Men\u27s Basketball Remain Undefeated, How Do You Feel About Colorado Legalizing Recreational Marijuana?https://spark.parkland.edu/prospectus_2014/1000/thumbnail.jp

Prospectus, April 16, 2014

PARKLAND STUDENTS ATTEND PLANET INTERNATIONAL LANDSCAPE COMPETITION; Parkland College and Urbana High School perform together; Craft a Greener Home; Take study breaks with fun Parkland activities; In college, choose to thrive; Whether it\u27s bikes or bytes, teens are teens; Women s Basketball bring home gold; Oder generation loses nostalgic feelings for new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtleshttps://spark.parkland.edu/prospectus_2014/1036/thumbnail.jp

Prospectus, April 9, 2014

ON TIME REGISTRATION PROGRAM URGES STUDENTS TO PLAN EARLY, New Student Services Center Building Nearing Completion, Tips for Preparing for Parkland\u27s Job Fair, Sleep Deprevation\u27s Effect on Students, Supreme Court was Wrong to Lift Limits on Campaign Contributions, How the Fast-Food Corportations Pickpocket Their Workers, Here\u27s the Scoop, Parkland Softball Heats up the Spring, Sony Introduces Virtual Reality Headset for PS4https://spark.parkland.edu/prospectus_2014/1009/thumbnail.jp

Crafting communities: promoting inclusion, empowerment, and learning between older women

While social policy and planning documents are replete with ominous warnings about the cost of an ageing population, this article tells a different story about the productive and self-sustaining networks that exist among older women in the community who do craftwork. From our research conducted in Victoria, Australia during 2007&ndash;2008 we discovered a resilient and committed group of older women quietly and steadily contributing to community fundraising, building social networks, and providing learning opportunities to each other in diverse ways. Through our conversations with nine craftswomen we have been able to articulate clear links between the theory and models commonly espoused in the community development literature and the life-enriching practices used in organising informal community craft group activities. From our interviews with the older women we provide evidence of sustained participation, the generation of social capital, and the fostering of life-long learning. While none of the women we spoke to were trained in community development and did not use language commonly associated with feminist ideology, the relationship between the informal group work with principles of empowerment and self-efficacy were unmistakeable. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of our findings for critical social work practice.<br /

A population study comparing screening performance of prototypes for depression and anxiety with standard scales

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Screening instruments for mental disorders need to be short, engaging, and valid. Current screening instruments are usually questionnaire-based and may be opaque to the user. A prototype approach where individuals identify with a description of an individual with typical symptoms of depression, anxiety, social phobia or panic may be a shorter, faster and more acceptable method for screening. The aim of the study was to evaluate the accuracy of four new prototype screeners for predicting depression and anxiety disorders and to compare their performance with existing scales.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Short and ultra-short prototypes were developed for Major Depressive Disorder (MDD), Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD), Panic Disorder (PD) and Social Phobia (SP). Prototypes were compared to typical short and ultra-short self-report screening scales, such as the Centre for Epidemiology Scale, CES-D and the GAD-7, and their short forms. The Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview (MINI) version 6 <abbrgrp><abbr bid="B1">1</abbr></abbrgrp> was used as the gold standard for obtaining clinical criteria through a telephone interview. From a population sample, 225 individuals who endorsed a prototype and 101 who did not were administered the MINI. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were plotted for the short and ultra short prototypes and for the short and ultra short screening scales.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The study found that the rates of endorsement of the prototypes were commensurate with prevalence estimates. The short-form and ultra short scales outperformed the short and ultra short prototypes for every disorder except GAD, where the GAD prototype outperformed the GAD 7.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The findings suggest that people may be able to self-identify generalised anxiety more accurately than depression based on a description of a prototypical case. However, levels of identification were lower than expected. Considerable benefits from this method of screening may ensue if our prototypes can be improved for Major Depressive Disorder, Social Phobia and Panic Disorder.</p