The Shifting Gears Approach to Systems Change

Evaluates the Shifting Gears initiative to strengthen state postsecondary, adult basic education, and skills development systems through data, policy change, engagement, and communications. Focuses on the logic model and the policy agenda and action plan

Strengthening State Financial Aid Policies for Low-Income Working Adults

Explains the need to expand state financial aid programs to help the working poor enroll in college. Recommends funding new aid for working adults as well as strengthening existing aid to meet their needs, and describes recent state initiatives

Improving Student Success by Strengthening Developmental Education in Community Colleges: The Role of State Policy

Outlines the need to strengthen community college students' basic English and math skills as required for college courses in order to meet workforce needs. Describes promising approaches to improving developmental education and recommends state policies

The effects of an intensive training and feedback program on investigative interviews of children

In the present study, we assessed the effectiveness of an extensive training and feedback program with investigative interviewers of child victims of alleged abuse and neglect in a large Canadian city. Twelve investigative interviewers participated in a joint training initiative that lasted eight months and involved classroom components and extensive weekly verbal and written feedback. Interviewers were significantly more likely to use open-ended prompts and elicited more information from children with open-ended prompts following training. These differences were especially prominent following a subsequent ‘refresher’ training session. No negative effects of training were observed. Clear evidence was found of the benefits of an intensive training and feedback program across a wide variety of investigative interviews with children. Although previous research has found benefits of training with interviewers of child sexual assault victims, the current study extends these findings to a wide range of allegations and maltreatment contexts

Using Spaced Learning Principles to Translate Knowledge into Behavior: Evidence from Investigative Interviews of Alleged Child Abuse Victims

The present study assessed the progress of 13 investigative interviewers (child protection workers and police officers) before, during, and after an intensive training program (n = 132 interviews). Training began with a 2-day workshop covering the principles of child development and child-friendly interviewing. Interviewers then submitted interviews on a bi-weekly basis to which they received written and verbal feedback over an 8-month period. A refresher session took place two months into training. Interestingly, improvements were observed only after the refresher session. Interviews conducted post-refresher training contained proportionally more open-ended questions, more child details in response to open-ended questions, and proportionally fewer closed questions than interviews conducted prior to training and in the first half of the training program. The need for ‘spaced learning’ may underlie why so many training programs have had little effect on practice

Children’s episodic and generic reports of alleged abuse

With the present data, we explored the relations between the language of interviewer questions, children’s reports, and case and child characteristics in forensic interviews. Results clearly indicated that the type of questions posed by interviewers – either probing generic or episodic features of an event – was related to the specificity of information reported by children. Further, interviewers appeared to adjust their questioning strategies based on the frequency of the alleged abuse. Children alleging single instances of abuse were asked more episodic questions than those alleging multiple abuses. In contrast, children alleging multiple incidents of abuse were asked a greater proportion of generic questions. Given that investigators often seek forensically-relevant episodic information, it is recommended that training for investigators focus on recognition of prompt selection tendencies and developing strategies for posing non-suggestive, episodically focused questions

Identification of rice blast disease-suppressing bacterial strains from the rhizosphere of rice grown in Pakistan.

Sixteen bacterial strains isolated from the roots and rhizosphere of rice plants growing in saline and non-saline soils from the Shorkot area of Pakistan were tested for their ability to promote plant growth and reduce the incidence of rice blast disease. When applied to the soil, many of the isolated rhizobacterial strains increased seedling growth and/or suppressed rice blast disease in greenhouse-grown plants of the cultivars Super Basmati and Azucena, but each cultivar responded to different subsets of the bacteria. In the cv Super Basmati, increased blast resistance was correlated with the production of siderophores by the rhizobacteria. Several strains inhibited the growth of the causative agent of rice blast disease, the fungal pathogen Magnaporthe grisea, in an in vitro dual culture assay. Direct bioantagonism was correlated with disease resistance in Super Basmati, but not in Azucena, and direct antagonism as a cause for the reduced disease incidence is also unlikely since no epiphytic colonisation of leaves was detected. Rhizosphere colonisation by the bacteria in plants grown in sterile sand was correlated with disease resistance in Super Basmati, but not in Azucena. As well as the differences in strains that protected each cv against blast disease, we also found that there were differences in the ability of some strains to protect plants against blast depending on soil type. Hence, there are complex interactions between rhizobacteria and rice plants with respect to biocontrol of rice blast disease, dependent upon both rice cv and soil type. The identity of strains that promoted high levels of disease protection, including three that performed well across all plant cultivars and growth conditions, was determined by 16S rRNA gene sequencing

The use of paraphrasing in investigative interviews

Objective Young children’s descriptions of maltreatment are often sparse thus creating the need for techniques that elicit lengthier accounts. One technique that can be used by interviewers in an attempt to increase children’s reports is ‘paraphrasing’, or repeating information children have disclosed. Although we currently have a general understanding of how paraphrasing may influence children’s reports, we do not have a clear description of how paraphrasing is actually used in the field. Method The present study assessed the use of paraphrasing in 125 interviews of children aged 4 to 16 years conducted by police officers and social workers. All interviewer prompts were coded into four different categories of paraphrasing. All children’s reports were coded for the number of details in response to each paraphrasing statement. Results ‘Expansion paraphrasing’ (e.g., “you said he hit you. Tell me more about when he hit you”) was used significantly more often and elicited significantly more details, while ‘yes/no paraphrasing’ (e.g., “he hit you?”) resulted in shorter descriptions from children, compared to other paraphrasing styles. Further, interviewers more often distorted children’s words when using yes/no paraphrasing, and children rarely corrected interviewers when they paraphrased inaccurately. Conclusions and Practical Implications Investigative interviewers in this sample frequently used paraphrasing with children of all ages and, though children’s responses differed following the various styles of paraphrasing, the effects did not differ by the age of the child witness. The results suggest that paraphrasing affects the quality of statements by child witnesses. Implications for investigative interviewers will be discussed and recommendations offered for easy ways to use paraphrasing to increase the descriptiveness of children’s reports of their experiences

Referral Policy for Moderate to High-Risk Obstructive Sleep Apnea Patients Identified by the STOP-Bang Questionnaire: A Quality Improvement Project

BACKGROUND: An increase in the prevalence of Obstructive Sleep Apnea is as high as 70% in the surgical population. OSA is associated with a higher incidence of complications in the perioperative setting showing the increased need for proper identification of moderate to high-riskpatients for referral to local sleep clinics. Identifying and treating OSA is an important step to improve managementof chronic diseases, decrease complications both inside and outside the perioperative setting, and reduce healthcare spending. METHODS: The purpose of this project was to create an OSA referral program for patients undergoing general anesthesia at a hospital in Mississippi. The recommended OSA referral policy was a quality improvement project to improve the OSA referral process through policy development. The Modified Prisma 2009 Checklist of systematic review evaluation tool for quality in literature was used to analyze the recommendations in the creation of a recommended OSA referral policy. The referral program aimed to identify patients with a moderate to high-risk for OSA and refer them to local sleep medicine specialists for diagnostic testing. This project utilized a hospital located in Mississippi home to 400 inpatient beds, 18 operating rooms, and is a level II trauma center. The only accredited sleep disorder center in the State of Mississippi is located within the hospital. The sleep disorder center offers both inpatient and outpatient assessments as well as contains certified staff experts in sleep disorder medicine. INTERVENTION: A systematic review of best practices was performed to recommend the creation of a policy for the referral of patients to local sleep clinics based on preoperative STOP-Bang Questionnaire scores. With the creation of a policy, undiagnosed OSA patients are more likely to be identified and properly treated with referral to local sleep clinics. CONCLUSIONS: With the use of the STOP-Bang Questionnaire in place at a hospital in Mississippi, a coinciding referral policy does not currently exist for patients scoring ≥ 3 for referralto an accredited sleep center. The increased perioperative risks associated with undiagnosed and untreated OSA raises concern to support a referral policy. The increase in the referral of patients with moderate to high-risk for OSA can aid in decreasing perioperative risk and increasingthe overall health status of patients

The effects of an intensive training and feedback program on investigative interviews of children

In the present study, we assessed the effectiveness of an extensive training and feedback program with investigative interviewers of child victims of alleged abuse and neglect in a large Canadian city. Twelve investigative interviewers participated in a joint training initiative that lasted eight months and involved classroom components and extensive weekly verbal and written feedback. Interviewers were significantly more likely to use open-ended prompts and elicited more information from children with open-ended prompts following training. These differences were especially prominent following a subsequent ‘refresher’ training session. No negative effects of training were observed. Clear evidence was found of the benefits of an intensive training and feedback program across a wide variety of investigative interviews with children. Although previous research has found benefits of training with interviewers of child sexual assault victims, the current study extends these findings to a wide range of allegations and maltreatment contexts