The relationship between selected housing and demographic charateristics and employment status among rural, low-income families

This study was a secondary analysis of wave one data of the Rural Families Speak project, a multi-state longitudinal Agricultural Experiment Station project that focused on assessing changes in the well-being and functioning of rural low-income families in the context of welfare reform. Quantitative analysis was conducted to determine the housing situations of the families and the relationships of these factors with the family economic and cognitive well-being and employment circumstances of study participants. Discriminant analysis was used to develop a model to predict the employment circumstances (employed, not employed) of the participants. Housing costs usually take the first and largest portion of a family\u27s budget, leaving the rest of the income to purchase food, clothing, health care needs, school fees, etc. Without supplemental assistance from family, friends, and government agencies, the housing costs for many of the families would be a burden to the family budget, limiting the funds available for human capital needs. Most participants in this wave of the study did not have housing costs greater than the government standard of 30% of monthly income. However, the majority of the families could not have afforded to pay fair market rents for housing in their geographic areas with their current monthly incomes. Variables included in the final model to predict the participant\u27s employment status were the housing income adequacy of the family (fair market rent divided by monthly income), transportation assistance, child care assistance, Medicaid, TANF, and marital status. The model correctly classified over 70% of the cases. Family economic and cognitive well-being for rural low-income families was studied with housing tenure as the independent variable. Homeownership was found to increase the participant\u27s level of family economic well-being, as measured by the perception of income adequacy and the family\u27s total monthly income. Housing tenure was found to be independent of participant\u27s health, community awareness, and life satisfaction. By tracking these families over time, the changes in their family economic well-being and their employment circumstances can be examined. Housing costs and circumstances can be monitored and analyzed for relationships to employment and family economic situations

Sharing Isn’t Easy: Food Waste and Food Redistribution in Maine K–12 Schools

Approximately 30 percent of food in the United States is wasted. When food is landfilled instead of eaten, the economic and natural resources used to produce and transport that food are also wasted. At the same time, however, food insecurity remains a pressing issue both in the United States and within the state of Maine. This paper explores efforts to reduce food waste and address food insecurity in Maine’s K–12 school system, with an emphasis on food redistribution. Research indicates that schools produce substantial amounts of food waste, but little is known about strategies that schools employ to address food waste, either through formal policy or grassroots efforts. Based on an analysis of school board waste policies and interviews with school officials in Maine, this study suggests that the adoption of specific types of practices to reduce food waste is influenced by multiple factors

Exploring the experience of body self-compassion for young adult women who exercise

Self-compassion has recently been introduced to Western psychology literature and is defined as a kind, understanding, and nonjudgmental toward oneself (Neff, 2003a). While self-compassion has been conceptualized as a construct that is important to one’s overall sense of self, it might also be relevant to more specific self-attitudes, including one’s attitude toward the body. Body-related attitudes have received much attention from sport and exercise psychology researchers in kinesiology and it was anticipated that body self-compassion would be relevant to women who exercise, as women often exercise for body-related reasons. The purpose of this study was to explore the meaning of body self-compassion for young adult women who exercise and have experienced a change in their attitude toward their body over time; and to discover the essential structure of the women’s experiences. Five women between the ages of 23 and 28 years participated in this study. The women identified themselves as Caucasian and middle-class, were university students, and indicated that they exercised at least four times a week. Each woman participated in an individual interview in which she was asked to describe two instances where she experienced body self-compassion. The women’s interviews were analyzed using an empirical phenomenology method (Giorgi, 1985; Giorgi & Giorgi, 2003) to identify the components of the women’s stories that were essential to their experience of body self-compassion. A follow-up focus group discussion provided the women with the opportunity to offer feedback on the essential structures. Four essential structures emerged from these interviews: appreciating one’s unique body, taking ownership of one’s body, engaging in less social comparison, and body self-compassion as a dynamic process. A facilitating structure, the importance of others, also emerged. The findings of this study are generally consistent with Neff’s (2003a) conceptualization of self-compassion as they reflect Neff’s overall description of self-compassion without merely replicating the three components of self-compassion: self-kindness, common humanity, and mindfulness. The findings of this study provide support for the exploration of more specific domains of self-compassion, such as the body. This study also makes a significant contribution to the body image literature, which has been criticized for being pathology-oriented and for focusing mainly on appearance-related attitudes (Blood, 2005; Grogan, 2006). This study explored a positive body attitude and highlighted the women’s attitudes toward their physical capabilities in addition to their appearance. Further research is needed to develop the body self-compassion construct by exploring the generalizability of the essential structures that emerged in this study to broader populations

SP697-A Track Your Spending Worksheet: Instructions

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SP697-B Track Your Spending Worksheet

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The Benefits and Challenges of Special Education Positions in Rural Settings: Listening to the Teachers

Special education teachers, through a national survey conducted in 55 rural districts, provided information on the positive and negative aspects of teaching in rural schools. The 203 special educators were asked what they liked best about their position and what they found challenging. Some of the themes identified in the analysis centered on positive features of working in rural areas. Characteristics of the rural community fostered family-like relationships with others in their school and in-depth relationships with parents and students. Half of the teachers also reported they shared the responsibility or took a team approach to delivering special education services, a factor related to teacher satisfaction. The majority of teachers were satisfied with the instructional aspects of their position but dissatisfied with non-instructional role responsibilities. Challenges of the position also included role confusion and a lack of resources. Related implications for rural administrators interested in the satisfaction of special education teachers are provided

Early Enteral Feeding in Preterm Infants: A Narrative Review of the Nutritional, Metabolic, and Developmental Benefits

Enteral feeding is the preferred method of nutrient provision for preterm infants. Though parenteral nutrition remains an alternative to provide critical nutrition after preterm delivery, the literature suggests that enteral feeding still confers significant nutritional and non-nutritional benefits. Therefore, the purpose of this narrative review is to summarize health and clinical benefits of early enteral feeding within the first month of life in preterm infants. Likewise, this review also proposes methods to improve enteral delivery in clinical care, including a proposal for decision-making of initiation and advancement of enteral feeding. An extensive literature review assessed enteral studies in preterm infants with subsequent outcomes. The findings support the early initiation and advancement of enteral feeding impact preterm infant health by enhancing micronutrient delivery, promoting intestinal development and maturation, stimulating microbiome development, reducing inflammation, and enhancing brain growth and neurodevelopment. Clinicians must consider these short- and long-term implications when caring for preterm infants