Topics: Mental Health, Substance Abuse, Capacity Building, Grief, Health Awareness

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Description : The purpose of this work plan is to assess the capacity, needs, and current policy/procedures of coroners and related professionals in Nebraska in determining the cause of death in regards to drug overdoses. The results of this study will aid the Drug Overdose Prevention (DOP) program and Injury Surveillance in providing training and other resources to coroners, helping family members who have lost a loved one, focusing prevention efforts, informing the statewide crisis response plan, and serving as a baseline for future studies and grants. Ultimately, the DOP wishes to reduce opioid involved fatal and non-fatal overdoses in Nebraska.

Topics: Juvenile/Adult Justice System

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Description : Assessment programs are a Direct Service program - a program that meets with a youth a few times to conduct a singular service, in this case, to evaluate the youth to identify mental health and/or behavioral risks and needs. Referral Services are agencies that help youth and families find services within their communities based on their assessed needs.

Topics: Mental Health, Substance Abuse, Youth Programming, Capacity Building, Health Awareness

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Description : The purpose of this project is to evaluate the new Better Together program of Heartland Family Service. Collaborating partners include Nebraska Families Collaborative and Douglas County Housing. Better Together is designed to assist child welfare-referred parents who are struggling with substance abuse issues, and their children (see logic model). Process evaluation components determine if services were delivered as intended, how multiple stakeholders worked together to deliver the services, client satisfaction, and to provide a cost-benefit analysis of the program. The outcome evaluation components will determine the outcomes for the families, parents, and children. A nonequivalent quasiexperimental time series research design with follow-up will be utilized with standardized measurement tools. Qualitative research will be utilized to capture rich data for both process and outcome evaluation purposes. Focus groups and semi-structured interviews will be conducted with Better Together parents. The sample available for the second year's outcome evaluation is anticipated to be 25 families in the experimental group (Better Together) and 25 families in the Treatment As Usual (TAU) group.

Topics: Juvenile/Adult Justice System

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Description : Assessment programs are a Direct Service program - a program that meets with a youth a few times to conduct a singular service, in this case, to evaluate the youth to identify mental health and/or behavioral risks and needs. Programs may use any number of different assessment tools to assess the risks and needs of the youth and provide recommendations for services for prevention and intervention. Under Assessment programs are also Assessment Centers, which are a location where staff can meet with youth to complete the evaluations, and Referral Services, which are agencies that help youth and families find services within their communities based on their assessed needs.

Topics: Youth Programming, Capacity Building

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Description : In Years 3 and 4 of our evaluation of the Avenue Scholars Foundation, we will perform both quantitative and qualitative projects to evaluate their high school, college, and career services. Some projects will be submitted for publication and presentation at professional conferences and, therefore, we will seek IRB approval. Other projects, however, will only be completed for purposes of informing Avenue Scholars' services.

Topics: Juvenile/Adult Justice System

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Description : Mentoring programs match a young person (mentee) with a more experienced person who is working in a non-professional capacity (mentor) to help provide support and guidance to the mentee in one or more areas of the mentee’s development. There are 4 types of Mentoring programs: Community, Juvenile Justice, School, and Youth Initiated. School-based mentors meet with youth on school premises to focus on school-related issues. The goal of this relationship is to improve youth attendance, grades, and attitudes toward school so that the youth is more likely to graduate.

Topics: Economic Sufficiency Awareness, Youth Programming, Capacity Building, Social Justice Awareness

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Description : A social work degree is traditionally required for child welfare work. The child welfare cohort provides undergraduate and graduate social work education to increase professionalization of the workforce, improve retention, and improve child and family outcomes. In the second year of this evaluation project, we will continue to assess the provision of social work education to these student-workers, student-workers job satisfaction and retention, and contextual and organizational factors.

Topics: Inclusion, Diversity & Equity, Employment and Workforce, Capacity Building, Social Justice Awareness

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Description : Using a participatory, utilization-focused approach, STEPs will work with the Greater Omaha Chamber to conduct focus groups and analyze results. Additional funds of $1,000 are being provided by the Greater Omaha Chamber to accomplish this component of the original evaluation plan.

Topics: Youth Programming, Capacity Building

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Description : STEPs will work with Partnership 4 Kids staff and key stakeholders to review existing logic models, develop a theory of change, gather program outcome and cost data and research valuation of cost and benefit indicators. This information will be used to create a Social Return on Investment (SROI) report and deliverables appropriate to share with various program stakeholders.

Topics: Juvenile/Adult Justice System

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Description : Family Support Programs are community-based services that help to promote the well-being of children and families as well as increase the strength and stability of families. The services can be for youth and/or parents, and can occur within the home or at community locations. There are 4 sub-types of family support programs: Parenting Class, Advocacy, Social Workers, and Family Support. Parenting classes are a chance for parents to actively acquire parenting skills through sessions that focus on improving parenting of and communication with their children. Parents are taught how to engage in skill building, problem solving, and how to model types of mechanisms in an effort to reduce adverse childhood outcomes. Advocacy Programs help guide youth and/or their families through the juvenile justice system, explaining the process and importance of each hearing, outcome, or decision. Advocates may meet with youth and families at their home prior to court appearances to discuss the purpose of the hearing or what the consequences of not appearing in court may be. Advocates can also accompany youth and families to the proceedings. Social Workers assist youth with increasing their capacity for problem solving and coping, and help them obtain needed resources as well as facilitate interactions between youth and their environment. They seek to improve the youth’s quality of wellbeing through research directed therapeutic methods. The sub-type for Family Support covers the programs that are in the community helping families with a variety of needs that may not fit into the other 3 categories. Family Support workers can help families work out communication issues, resolve school attendance problems, locate resources within the community to help the families meet the needs of all family members, or many other services that can be individualized for the youth and/or family’s needs.