A Rigorous Evaluation of Family Finding in North Carolina

Child Trends evaluated Family Finding services in nine North Carolina counties through a rigorous impact evaluation and an accompanying process study. The impact evaluation involved random assignment of eligible children to a treatment or control group. The treatment group received Family Finding services in addition to traditional child welfare services, whereas the control group received traditional child welfare services only. Eligible children were in foster care; were 10 or older at the time of referral; did not have a goal of reunification; and lacked an identified permanent placement. The accompanying process study examined program outputs, outcomes, and linkages between the project components and other contextual factors

Child Well-being in the Pacific Rim

This study extends previous efforts to compare the well-being of children using multi-dimensional indicators derived from sample survey and administrative series to thirteen countries in the Pacific Rim. The framework for the analysis of child well-being is to organise 46 indicators into 21 components and organise the components into 6 domains: material situation, health, education, subjective well-being, living environment, as well as risk and safety. Overall, Japan, Singapore and Taiwan have the highest child well-being and Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines the lowest. However, there are substantial variations between the domains. Japan and Korea perform best on the material well-being of children and also do well on health and education but they have the lowest subjective well-being among their children by some margin. There is a relationship between child well-being and GDP per capita but children in China have higher well-being than you would expect given their GDP and children in Australia have lower well-being. The analysis is constrained by missing data particularly that the Health Behaviour of School-Aged Children Survey is not undertaken in any of these countries

Family Finding Evaluations: A Summary of Recent Findings

This brief reviews the results from 13 evaluations of Family Finding that have been released over the past two years. Overall, the evidence available from the recent evaluations is not sufficient to conclude that Family Finding improves youth outcomes above and beyond existing, traditional services. At the same time, the evidence is not sufficient to conclude that Family Finding does not improve outcomes. We identify three hypotheses regarding the lack of consistently positive impacts, which are not mutually exclusive, and explore the implications of each: 1) Family Finding may not have been completely and consistently implemented, 2) study parameters may not have been sufficient to detect impacts, and 3) assumptions regarding how intervention activities and outputs will result in outcomes are flawed

An Investigation of the Nonverbal Communication Behaviors and Role Perceptions of Pre-Service Band Teachers who Participated in Theatre Seminars

This qualitative study used a multiple case study methodology to explore the nonverbal communication behaviors and role perceptions of pre-service band teachers, and the extent to which these individuals found meaning and value in theatre seminars with respect to those factors. The informants participated in three theatre seminars taught by theatre faculty at the researcher's university. The researcher collected data in the form of videotaped theatre seminar observations, videotaped classroom teaching observations, videotaped informant reflections of teaching episodes, online peer discussions and journaling, and informant interviews. Data were analyzed, coded, and summarized to form case summaries. A cross-case analysis was performed to identify emergent themes. The broad themes identified were past experience, adaptation, realization, and being aware. The informants found that the theatre seminars increased their awareness of nonverbal communication behaviors in the classroom, and had the potential to be meaningful and valuable with respect to their perceptions of their roles as teachers

Rembrandt?: Cooperative technical examinations of five tronies by Rembrandt and his circle

Five tronies (character studies) painted by Rembrandt and artists in his circle, which are or have been attributed to Rembrandt, from three collections were examined using complementary technologies. Dendrochronology of the panel of Head of a Bearded Man (c.1630, Oxford, Ashmolean Museum) connects it to paintings by both Rembrandt and Jan Lievens, while infrared reflectography revealed black underdrawn lines beneath the painted surface that suggest a spontaneous creative process at an early stage. Macro-X-ray fluorescence analysis (MA-XRF) of three paintings allowed conservators at the Mauritshuis (The Hague) to identify a copper-containing pigment in the midtones of the flesh (Portrait of Rembrandt with a Gorget, c.1629), differentiate original paint from later additions in the background (Tronie of an Old Man, c.1630– 31), and determine where the ground was left exposed at the surface to act as shadows of the skin (Study of an Old Man, 1650). High-resolution digital microscopy of Head of an Old Man in a Cap (c.1630, Kingston, Canada, Queen’s University) revealed the order in which layers were applied, and visualised Rembrandt’s brushstrokes, paint handling and use of a tool to scratch into the wet paint. These technologies have developed or improved significantly since the Rembrandt Research Project published their research (1982–2015), advancing our technical knowledge about the five tronies