This 'teaching tip' shares the success of a service-learning opportunity created to work with university students in a meaningful way in the community. It describes a program called Fit 4 Tots that resulted in more toddlers, university students and community members benefiting from learning and movement experiences.

Community-Based Research (CBR) presents a wide range of benefits in higher education to students, community partners, and universities. Yet on our campus (and many others), CBR remains less common than other high-impact practices (HIPs) such as service learning and undergraduate research due to lack of effective institutionalization. Moreover,…

Community-based participatory research (CBPR) is an effective approach for addressing health disparities by integrating diverse knowledge and expertise from both academic and community partners throughout the research process. However, universities and funding agencies have not done enough to invest in the foundational infrastructure and resources…

Background: There is a lack of research on psychotherapy interventions for transition-aged students ages 18 to 21 that integrate horses or other equines in the provision of services. A critical early task in researching such complex interventions involves elucidating an intervention's critical elements and theoretical assumptions. Purpose: The…

Each community-based participatory research (CBPR) partnership may incur "ripple effects" -- impacts that happen outside the scope of planned projects. We used brainstorming and interviewing to create a roadmap that incorporated input from nine CBPR participants and five community/academic partners to retrospectively assess the ripple…

Extension has developed a strong evaluation culture across the system for the last 15 years. Yet measures are still limited to the private value of programs, looking at problems in a linear way and at isolated efforts. Across the country, Extension evaluators and administrators need to step up to help answer the "so what?" question about…

This article introduces the concept of "co-impact" to characterise the complex and dynamic process of social and economic change generated by participatory action research (PAR). It argues that dominant models of research impact tend to see it as a linear process, based on a donor-recipient model, occurring at the end of a project…

This brief presents a third party, external perspective on the Akamai Workforce Initiative (AWI), highlighting some of the contributions of the initiative over the last ten years. AWI is a program that seeks to develop a skilled local STEM workforce to meet the needs of Hawai'i's growing high-tech industry. It began as an internship program…

With funding through grants and donations, an international development organization has provided developmental services to a woreda in southern Ethiopia since the early 1980s. This study is intended to assess the outcome and impact of the program and address the following questions: (1) Did direct beneficiaries of the CDTP program exhibit better…

This paper provides estimates for a comprehensive set of social benefits and costs associated with the federal Housing Choice Voucher (Section 8) program. The impact categories for which we provide empirical estimates include the value of the voucher to recipients; additional services and public benefits induced by voucher receipt; improvements in…

Since 2008, Taiwan's Ministry of Education has sponsored a number of short-term residential educational programs aimed at senior citizens and administered by local colleges and universities. In 2009, the Ministry of Education named a project the Elderhostel Program (notwithstanding the lack of involvement by the United States organization, which…

Home visitation has emerged as a key strategy for promoting child and family well-being in the current policy context. This article examines the effectiveness of the Early Head Start (EHS) home-based program for children and families at the end of the program and 2 years later, with a particular focus on the role of program implementation in the…

Three years after signing the Higher Education Act (HEA) of 1965--legislation that established the Basic Education Opportunity Grant (now called the Pell Grant)--President Lyndon Johnson declared that "every man, everywhere, should be free to develop his talents to their full potential--unhampered by arbitrary barriers of race or birth or income."…

Decades of research show that high school dropouts are more likely than graduates to commit crimes, abuse drugs and alcohol, have children out of wedlock, earn low wages, be unemployed, and suffer from poor health. The ChalleNGe program, currently operating in 27 states, is a residential program coupled with post-residential mentoring that seeks…

Communication between health care professionals and Aboriginal patients is complicated by cultural differences and the enduring effects of colonization. Health care providers need better training to meet the needs of Aboriginal patients and communities. We describe the development and outcomes of a community-driven service-learning program in…