Topics: Employment and Workforce, Capacity Building

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Description : Using a participatory, utilization-focused approach, STEPs will evaluate the Career Connectors Pilot Program at Metropolitan Community College. The evaluation will include developing a logic model, multivariate analysis, a costbenefit analysis, and obtaining and evaluating participant feedback.

Topics: Disadvantaged Populations, Raise Awareness, Art

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Description : The gallery will feature nationally-curated art meant for more senses than sight, tactile interpretations of classic art, and artwork created at four art workshops for the visually impaired, which were held at UNO over the summer. The name of the exhibit says it all: this art is meant to be touched. The art workshops were made possible with assistance from the Nebraska Arts Council, WhyArts?, Omaha Association of the Blind, Outlook Nebraska, Pamela Duncan (interpreter), and volunteer student interpreters from UNO.

Topics: Gardens/Plantlife

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Description :

Topics: Human Rights & Trafficking

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Description : The Nebraska Prison Post-Secondary Education Project (NPPSEP) is hosting a series of panels and a keynote speaker related to their purpose and work they've done in partnership with the Omaha Correctional Center. This event will take place Wednesday, April 17 from 10 A.M. - 1 P.M. inside the Community Engagement Center, rooms 201/205/209. A pizza lunch will also be provided during this time. Let’s overcrowd the prison with our favorite books! Please bring your favorite book to the symposium to donate to the Omaha Correctional Center. They need copies of fiction, poetry, and some nonfiction for their library. Panel 1: Writing Corrections Nicholas Bell and Tyrone Harper III of Writer’s Block, Carmala Aderman of Hero’s Journey, and Steve Langan and Alana Alexander of Programming Life 101 will discuss the creative writing that occurs within and beyond spaces of confinement. Panel 2: Education and Re-entry Diane Good-Collins and formerly incarcerated individuals who are transitioning from correctional facilities will discuss some of the educational opportunities offered by the Metropolitan Community College’s 180 Re-Entry program. Keynote Speaker: Dominique Morgan Dominique Morgan is the national director of Black and Pink, the largest prison abolitionist organization in the United States. Partnering his lived experience of incarceration as a youth (which included 18 months in solitary confinement), and a decade of change making advocacy and background in public health, Dominique continues to work in spaces of sex education, radical self-care, and youth development with intentions of dismantling the prison industrial complex and the impact it has on our community. The Nebraska Prison Post-Secondary Education Project was created with the belief that education is one solution to America's prison problem. This program was developed in Fall 2017 through private funding to create a partnership between the University of Nebraska Omaha (UNO) and the Omaha Correctional Center (OCC). The primary purpose of this project is to offer UNO courses, taught by UNO professors, lecturers and instructors, within OCC.

Topics: Employment and Workforce, Youth Programming, Capacity Building

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Description : STEPs will begin a comprehensive evaluation of the Metropolitan Community College (MCC) Express program. In this first six-month period, we will complete a literature review and an analysis of their existing data. We will work on multiple projects to complete a process evaluation and lay out an outcome evaluation plan. In addition, we will prepare a brief environmental scan to help them make evidence-informed decisions about program expansion. MCC Express is a community-based initiative to provide educational programming, services and support focused on workforce and college readiness. The mission of STEPs is to provide participation, utilization-focused evaluation of programs serving children, youth, and families in poverty