Mobilizing Communities to Support the Literacy Development of Urban Youth: A Conceptual Framework and Strategic Planning Model

Offers a strategic planning model for community mobilization around adolescent literacy development. Explores spheres of influence; strategies for schools, community groups, and families; outcomes; and lessons learned from other community change efforts

Pinpointing key mechanisms in Alzheimer's disease development

van Exel and colleagues present an elegant study testing relationships between vascular and inflammatory traits and the risk of Alzheimer's disease (AD) development. They compared middle-aged offspring of AD cases with similar offspring of nondemented parents and observed greater inflammatory response to challenge and increased hypertension in those at high genetic risk. These observations join a growing body of evidence implicating inflammation/innate immunity as a crucial component in disease development. Recent discoveries of new risk genes for Alzheimer's disease also implicate innate immunity and to some extent vascular health as potentially important in pathogenesis. Further identification and refinement of putative disease mechanisms is likely as the genetic architecture of AD is uncovered through current large-scale association and sequencing studies

Teacher Recruitment and Retainment Challenges Post-COVID-19: A Case Study of K-12 School Districts

The purpose of this study was to understand recruitment and retainment challenges districts faced pre-COVID-19 and changes or additional challenges faced post-COVID-19. Through this study, human resources administrators and teaching and learning administrators were interviewed in pairs and discussed challenges their district has faced related to recruitment and retainment of teachers pre-COVID-19 and post-COVID-19. Further, the participant pairs described strategies their districts are using to recruit and retain teachers. A qualitative case study approach was used to identify themes and sub-themes discussing recruitment and retention strategies and challenges pre-COVID-19 and post-COVID-19. The consistent themes which emerged from the analysis included: teacher candidate characteristics, recruitment strategies, factors for mobility, and factors and strategies for retention. Within these areas, additional subthemes emerged. Using qualitative methodology and analytical theory, I found alignment between participant responses and theory. By using the theoretical framework provided by Bolman and Deal (2017), I further analyzed reasons teachers are leaving the profession, impacts their departure has and strategies for retainment of teachers. The four frames outlined by Bolman and Deal (2017) are depicted in quadrants: the structural frame, the human resources frame, the political frame and the symbolic frame. In addition to the framework provided by Bolman and Deal, Bandura offers a theory on self-efficacy that complements and adds additional insight to the themes and subthemes. The impact of recruitment and retainment challenges school districts face has an impact on the workforce and will impact student learning if not addressed. This study gives school districts specific strategies to intentionally recruit and retain teachers in impactful ways

Pathways to Offending: Domestic Sex Trafficking

Multidisciplinary professionals across criminal justice, public policy, education, and health and human services have all attempted to understand the complex phenomenon of sex trafficking to assist victims, correct offenders, and prevent future abuse. However, current research has struggled to agree on terms, definitions of terms, best measures of prevalence, and recommendations to address sex trafficking in the United States. This review of current literature aims to offer a synthesized framework to conceptualize domestic sex trafficking perpetrator behaviors (what they do), their uses of force, fraud, and coercion (how they do it), and their motivations and justifications/rationalizations for those behaviors (why they do it). The resulting conceptual framework can serve as a roadmap to guide the development of tailored assessment instruments and evidence-based treatments as well as improve community prevention and education efforts

Moving Home to College: Socio-Physical Factorsin Creating 'Home' in Temporary Environments

Intentionally temporary housing environments, like student housing, where residents know they will settle for a short period may lack the social and physical factors that inspire a sense of home and community. Yet, these environments compete with traditional housing options to retain residents and therefore, universities want to create housing that makes students feel at home and bond with their fellow students and their eventual alma maters. This research asks how do the social, psychological, and physical structures of a temporary living environment create a sense of `home?' This study analyzes these connections in residence halls on the campus of the University of Kansas, as a way to develop principles that will result in high-quality design for temporary living environments. Methods used in this study adapt a series of five focus-group activities combined with interviews and observations to investigate the social and physical factors that inspire students to create `home' in the halls. Four major themes developed through this study address the social-physical connection in the environment: choice and control; flexibility and adaptability; comfort and well-being; and community. These themes suggest a set of design principles that respond to the social development of residents and the physical requirements for successful student spaces. The principles encourage the incorporation of smaller, clustered residential communities to improve identity and community, the use of adaptable furnishings, and the incorporation of `third places' for socialization. This study proves that scale matters; it sets forth design principles for temporary environments that emphasize the importance of social and physical scale in the living environment, and it highlights the viability of a design process to develop ongoing practice in the field of student housing. Student housing officials may use the results of this study to evaluate housing policies and set agendas for future construction projects

Investigating the coping process in children aged 7-14 with Type I diabetes using the self-regulation model: a comparative study of alternative methods of management at diagnosis

Childhood onset diabetes (Type I diabetes) is a chronic condition whose symptoms may be controlled using a careful regimen of diet and insulin therapy, which must be tailored to suit the sufferer's lifestyle. The ability of a child to cope with these aspects of diabetes management has a wide range of short-term and longterm implications. In the short-term, diabetes may disrupt everyday functioning, family relationships, social roles and psychological adjustment. Deficits in cognitive functioning, psychological adjustment and physical health may occur in the longterm if coping has been suboptimal over an ongoing period. Medical treatment must clearly aim to maximise diabetic control and to minimise such negative outcomes. In order to do this, factors involved in optimising the coping process in children must be understood.While research has shown that managing children at home on diagnosis rather than routinely admitting them to hospital has no effect on diabetic control, little research has been carried out into the possible psychological benefits of these two approaches (Howie, 1998). This study therefore investigates the coping process and compares aspects of this process between children who were routinely admitted to hospital at diagnosis (in an Aberdeen clinic) and those who were managed at home (in a Dundee clinic).The Self-Regulation Model (Leventhal, Nerenz & Steele, 1984) was used to guide the study. This model highlights the role of patients' illness representations, coping, appraisal of coping and emotional reactions - each of which may be viewed within a developmental framework - in the progression of chronic disease. 72 children aged 7-14 attending diabetes outpatient clinics in the Dundee and Aberdeen clinics were assessed using standardised questionnaires of illness representations, coping, state anxiety and behaviour problems. The relationship between these variables and diabetic control and the effects of age, time since diagnosis and management at diagnosis on the process and outcome of coping were also assessed. The results are discussed in terms of their implications for management at diagnosis and for cognitive and behavioural methods of enhancing coping in children of different ages

Educating Staff Nurses for Successful Patient Discharge

The definition of a successful discharge is a discharge that results in patients successfully managing a chronic disease for at least 30 days without requiring an acute inpatient hospitalization. Many chronic disease readmissions are preventable. Successful discharge planning takes a multidisciplinary team that includes nurses who assess the discharge plan and provide additional education where needed. The purpose of this project was to determine staff nurses\u27 understanding of their role in discharge education. Dorothea Orem\u27s self-care deficit theory guided the project and root cause analysis was used in the development of the problem statements. Staff nurses (n=12) from evening and day shift of a rural hospital were interviewed using questions developed from the content from the literature review. Individual interviews were conducted with the volunteer participants and data from the interviews were examined using content analysis. Results included barriers to discharge education were related to inadequate nursing education, poor patient compliance, and inadequate discharge planning. Recommendations from the nurses\u27 interviewed included the need for staff nurse education regarding their role in the educational needs of the patient and their family prior to discharge. The findings from this project may benefit nurses\u27 practice by providing them with an understanding of the need for effective discharge education for patients. When patients are appropriately educated prior to discharge, their ability to self-manage their disease may improve, which can result in a decrease in health care costs and preventable readmissions. Educating nurses about their role in discharge planning promotes positive social change by improving the quality of the discharge education and patient outcomes

Traces of the invisible: how an alternative reading of The Sleeping Beauty fashioned a bookwork heightening awareness of the role of the anesthetist

This article discusses a Leverhulme residency undertaken by the author Julie Brixey-Williams in 2003-4 at the Association of Anaesthetists of Great Britain and Ireland. Notions of medical visibility were explored through practice-led investigations under the umbrella title Traces of the Invisible, that concentrated on making concrete, visible responses to the hidden or intangible elements of the anesthetist’s working life, in areas such as sleep, breath, pain and genetic markers. Rosebud is a unique nine-foot concertina bookwork created after reading the entire story of The Sleeping Beauty into an anesthetic machine. This essay expands upon the concepts and material responses that led to the making of the book, with particular reference to how the book’s structure forms a relationship to language and the body-as-site, whilst operating as a sculptural object that raises the visibility of the anesthetic profession. Fairy tales and their telling, including stories of enchanted sleep, transformational qualities, magical languages and shaman healers, will be examined alongside