Progress 07/01/23 to 06/30/24
Outputs
Target Audience:Our project is currently serving 6th and 7th graders from three schools which were chosen for this project based on the high need for prevention programs. Combined, Northwest Middle School, Bloom-Vernon Elementary School, and Valley Middle School, have 50.46% (Ohio Department of Education, 2023) of students receiving free and reduced lunch and this amount is expected to increase in the coming years. Our project is also offering programs to adults, families, and caregivers at all three school sites. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Two staff from Scioto County Extension were trained in Mind Matters curriculum prior to the start of implementation. Additionally, all staff were trained on evaluation protocols for administering pre and post test surveys (CYFAR Common Measures). How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?We plan to communicate project outcomes and data summaries at the end of the school year in June. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Goal: Implement Mind Matters Curriculum for 6th and 7th graders We plan to schedule three more cohorts of Mind Matters, for a total of 265 students, across all three sites in year two of the project. We will administer pre and post tests using the CYFAR Common Measures instrument. The goal of the program is to help students cope in healthy ways with trauma and mental health challenges. Additionally, we anticipate youth will increase protective factors and resilience traits as they complete the program. Goal: Provide resilience enhancement programming for youth and families As part of mental health and wellness, 265 youth from Bloom Vernon Elementary School, Northwest Middle School, and Valley Middle School will participate in a field trip to engage in outdoor educational activities at a local camp. The outdoor activities will include high ropes, zip line, team building, climbing wall, hiking trails, and more. Transportation will be provided by local school buses. Additionally, reinforcing the educational messages of the Mind Matters curriculum and classroom activities is one method to continually remind youth of the importance of practicing resiliency skills. Our County Extension team has planned to create reinforcement messaging include calendars, magnets, banners and other forms of messaging We anticipate these magnets being placed in or on the student's locker at their school to be placed in high-traffic areas so youth, parents, school personnel, and community members will be able to see them. It is important to create and maintain a culture of care from within the school setting, and this messaging campaign will be one way that the school leadership can demonstrate to students that school is a safe place to practice resilience skills. Goal: Offer Active Parenting of Teens to families and caregivers We plan to offer Active Parenting of Teens for families at all three community sites with the goal of reaching at least 10 family members per cohort at each site in the second year. This will include creating a parent kit for each family. Parent kits will be provided to each family at the end of each parent education session for 4 times per school. These kits will each include educational materials and all needed supplies for families to complete activities together each week. The kits will focus on helping families improve communication, teaching responsibility and cooperation, and doing something fun together as a family unit. Meals will be provided during these sessions and pre and posttests will be administered at the beginning and end of the sessions. The goal is the increase positive parenting attitudes and skills for participating caregivers. Goal: Organize 4-H Special Interest Club (SPN) for youth Offered at each parent class, the SPN club will aim to recruit at least 15 youth per club. The club will meet 4 times during the parent program. The SPIN club focuses on STEM activities and learning centered around different themes that enhance skill-building, teamwork, and positive relationship building among peers. The goal is to engage youth in positive programming that builds character, knowledge, and skills and prepares youth to work in groups and teams cooperatively. Goal: Create strong community-school networks Our state team continues to offer technical assistance to community staff and stakeholders involved in programming. Additionally, we will communicate with the county staff and teachers to provide requested professional development trainings as requested. In June, we plan to host our CYFAR coach for a two-day meeting at our community site location and at one of our state Extension offices. This meeting will provide an opportunity for project updates across all partners and will also serve as a touch point to offer our annual evaluation training for staff and review all outcomes reviewed to date. In June, staff will also attend the CYFAR PDE in Minneapolis, MN to gather strategies and ideas for improving our project in the coming year. We will devote time in the summer to planning for the upcoming school year and preparing for another smooth year of implementation at all three sites.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
In May, before our project started, Co-PD Kelly Cabral attended the CYFAR Professional Development Event in Phoenix, Arizona. This enabled our leadership team to get a head start on planning for implementing the project plans in the first year. In July and August, our project management team met with the evaluation team to finalize our evaluation plan for the coming school year. This included having weekly meetings to discuss plans for distributing the CYFAR Common Measures instrument across three community sites for the 2023-2024 school year. Goal: Implement Mind Matters Curriculum for 6th and 7th graders Our team had the advantage of leveraging existing relationships with our community sites and an eagerness from community site staff and county Extension staff to continue offering Mind Matters for youth in the schools and Active Parenting to parents and caregivers after school hours. Part of this process also included communicating with the schools to solidify the partnership for the project and schedule cohorts for the school year. Once plans were in place, we could begin implementation in this first year. In August, we focused on increasing county-level capacity to teach Mind Matters to multiple cohorts in the schools and had two additional staff members trained in the program by the program provider, The Dibble Institute. In September, staff supporting all three sites distributed the CYFAR common measures to 89 6th graders and 81 7th graders at Northwest Middle School, 62 6th graders at Bloom Vernon Elementary, and 75 7th graders at Valley Middle School. According to evaluation protocol, the surveys were distributed before the Mind Matters program started. Programs were then started at each school and continued through December 2024. The Co-PD collected all pre-test assessments completed by all three schools and delivered them to the evaluation team to begin processing and entering data. Upon the program's conclusion, post-tests were administered to all students and this data was transferred to the Co-PD and then the evaluation team. Goal: Provide resilience enhancement programming for youth and families County Extension staff coordinated resilience kits for all 6th and 7th grade youth to take home over the holidays to ensure they had adequate opportunities to continue practicing the skillset they were learning in the curriculum. These resilience kits served as an educational enhancement for 265 youth in the program. Goal: Offer Active Parenting of Teens to families and caregivers County Extension staff also recruited 16 parents and caregivers from Bloom Vernon Elementary School to attend an afterschool Active Parenting class in November and 4 from a second cohort from Northwest Middle School in February. Using an evaluation instrument adapted by the Ohio Youth Resilience Collaborative's evaluation team at OSU, pre and post tests were collected from this group. During this four-week program, parents learn important positive parenting skills, healthy coping mechanisms and discipline for youth, and ways to build healthy relationships with their teens. Parents receive workbooks as part of this program. Goal: Organize 4-H Special Interest Club (SPN) for youth While staff led this parent program for adults, 4-H staff coordinated a SPN 4-H club for 12 of the children of parents attending programming at Bloom Vernon Elementary School and 4 at Northwest Middle School. The SPIN club focuses on STEM activities and learning centered around different themes that enhance skill-building, teamwork, and positive relationship building among peers. Goal: Create strong community-school networks During this same time, our state-level staff were organizing meetings with our assigned CYFAR coach and communicating with the county staff to provide technical assistance regarding implementing the CYFAR Common Measures instrument. Since we are in year 1 of this project, we have not yet reviewed our data and analyzed changes needed for more successful implementation in the second year. However, staff attended the CYFAR PDE in May and brought back strategies and best practices for our community sites and continue to offer technical assistance to community site teams.
Publications
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