Building Quality Improvement Systems: Lessons from Three Emerging Efforts in the Youth-Serving Sector

Quality is fast becoming a policy priority in states and localities around the country. As a result, formal and informal networks of youth organizations are seeking and developing strategies to help them assess and improve performance. This report takes a close look at efforts underway in three networks and provides a preliminary framework for thinking about key questions when planning any kind of program quality improvement work in the youth-serving sector

Building Citywide Systems for Quality: A Guide and Case Studies for Afterschool Leaders

This guide is intended to help cities strengthen and sustain quality afterschool programs by using an emerging practice known as a quality improvement system (QIS). The guide explains how to start building a QIS or how to further develop existing efforts and features case studies of six communities' QIS

Measuring Youth Program Quality: A Guide to Assessment Tools

Thanks to growing interest in the subject of youth program quality, many tools are now available to help organizations and systems assess and improve quality. Given the size and diversity of the youth-serving sector, it is unrealistic to expect that any one tool or process will fit all programs or circumstances. This report compares the purpose, history, structure, methodology, content and technical properties of nine different program observation tools

Pay It Forward: Guidance for Mentoring Junior Scholars

Based on interviews with William T. Grant Scholars Program mentors and mentees in the social, behavioral, and health sciences, explores building mentoring relationships, mentoring across differences, supporting career development, and managing conflict

Improving After-School Program Quality

Summarizes the findings from two recent reports on afterschool programs and their implications for policy and practice. Supports the case that afterschool programs are capable of improving important youth outcomes

Randomized Controlled Trials of Acupuncture (1997–2007): An Assessment of Reporting Quality with a CONSORT- and STRICTA-Based Instrument

The present study describes the development of a comprehensive quality of reporting assessment tool and its application to acupuncture RCTs from 1997–2007. This Oregon CONSORT STRICTA Instrument (OCSI) is based on the revised CONSORT guidelines as modified by the STRICTA recommendations for acupuncture trials. Each of the resulting 27 OCSI items were applied to English language prospective RCTs that compared acupuncture, using manual and/or electro-stimulation, to no treatment, a sham procedure, or usual biomedical care. The 333 RCTs that met inclusion criteria were dispersed among 27 countries and 141 journals. Mean quality of reporting score for all articles was 63.0% (SD 16.5). Mean OCSI scores revealed a 30.9% improvement over the ten-year period (P < .001). Our findings suggest that to enhance quality of reporting, authors should better attend to seven specific OCSI items in three categories: practitioner training, adverse events, and aspects of randomization and blinding (n = 5). The broad diversity in geographical origin, publication site and quality of reporting, viewed in light of the considerable room for improvement in mean OCSI scores, emphasizes the importance of making STRICTA as well as CONSORT more widely known to journals and to the acupuncture research community

A Comparative Analysis of Competency Frameworks for Youth Workers in the Out-of-School Time Field

Research suggests that the quality of out-of-school time (OST) programs is related to positive youth outcomes and skilled staff are a critical component of high quality programming. This descriptive case study of competency frameworks for youth workers in the OST field demonstrates how experts and practitioners characterize a skilled youth worker. A comparative analysis of 11 competency frameworks is conducted to identify a set of common core competencies. A set of 12 competency areas that are shared by existing frameworks used in the OST field are identified. The age of youth being served, descriptions of mastery for each competency area, an emphasis on developing mid-level managers, and incorporating research emerge as factors that should be addressed in future competency frameworks

Life Styles of Educated Adult Women, 1961-1974

The major purpose of this longitudinal study was to examine factors that influenced the life patterns of a group of highly educated women. The study focused primarily on the role of work in the women's lives. Data were collected in two waves: from 1961 to 1963, and in 1974. The first wave of data collection consisted of a mailed questionnaire sent to all women who received graduate fellowships or scholarships in the arts and sciences, as well as some other graduate professional schools at Columbia, between 1945 and 1951. Usable questionaires were received from 311 women in the first wave (73 in 1961, 238 in 1963). The questionnaire focused on the role of work in the lives of the respondents, educational and employment histories, problems combining career and family, present and past activities, satisfactions derived from present life situations, family background, and present home life. In the second wave, questionnaires were sent to all of the original respondents who could be reached. A total of 226 usable questionnaires were returned. This self-administered questionnaire emphasized work-related experiences and the extent to which the women were able to realize their goals. There were both precoded and open-ended items concerning employment history, current work schedule, sex discrimination in employment, achievements, educational history, marital status, and children's employment. The Murray Research Archive holds all original record paper data, and numeric data files from both waves of the study