Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Adjustments To Social Work Practice During The Covid-19 Pandemic In North Carolina: Effects On Burnout And Commitment, Aaron R. Brown, Jayme E. Walters, Aubrey E. Jones, Lara Cates

Journal of Human Services: Training, Research, and Practice

Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the demand for social workers in the U.S. and abroad has increased. There is demand for more social workers in North Carolina due to ongoing and increasing mental health, substance use disorder, and child welfare needs. COVID-19 has taken a toll on the personal and professional lives of social workers, and research is needed to understand the pandemic’s effects on burnout and commitment among social workers. The present study sought to understand how the COVID-19 pandemic affected the personal and professional lives of social workers practicing in North Carolina and to determine how …

Community Building As A Philosophy, Not An Initiative, Anne C. Kubisch, Kasi Allen, Max Gimbel

The Foundation Review

What happens when a foundation invests in community building for the long haul? The Ford Family Foundation, a rural embedded funder in southern Oregon, has made that transition over the past decade. The result is a transformed organization with a 10-year strategic plan focused on helping rural communities build the futures that they want to see — places where children and families can thrive.

The foundation is pursuing community building not as a stand-alone strategy or “initiative,” but as a philosophy that guides local community development efforts based on capacity building and grantmaking based on partnerships. The shift to a …

The Transformative Power Of The 2030 U.N. Sustainable Development Goals, Anna Wasescha, Christa Otteson, Sarah Casey

The Foundation Review

West Central Initiative, a mostly rural community foundation and regional development organization in Minnesota, integrated the United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals into its strategic plan in 2019. This article explores how aligning the U.N. goals with the foundation’s “nested strategy” of local, regional, and global goals has aligned and energized the disparate functions of the organization.

This article describes the strategic planning process that led to adoption of the goals, articulates how they have helped evolve the interplay of economic development and philanthropy, and identifies lessons learned from the first two years of working with the goals.

Focusing on …

Scaling Rural Access: One Foundation’S Partnership To Expand Fafsa Completion Across Mississippi, B. Tait Kellogg, Ann Hendrick, Kierstan Dufour, Patricia Steele

The Foundation Review

This article highlights Get2College, a program by the Woodward Hines Education Foundation that provide financial aid counseling to Mississippi high school students, and outlines a study that assessed efforts to scale the FAFSA completion initiative to increase the number of students statewide who complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA).

Get2College’s approach to scaling involved a partnership with the state’s rurally based community colleges and leveraged their established support networks to expand its outreach to the state’s often underserved students and increase FAFSA completion rates among that population.

In rural states like Mississippi, underresourced groups are sometimes left …

Partnering For Postsecondary Success In Rural Texas, Allison Pennington

The Foundation Review

Although students living in rural areas perform academically on par with their peers, they are less likely to complete a postsecondary credential due to geographic, economic, and other barriers. Greater Texas Foundation, a private grantmaker focused on postsecondary student success in Texas, fosters rural collaborations as part of its philanthropic strategy.

This article reflects on lessons learned by foundation staff from this strand of work. It describes innovative models for postsecondary support developed by the foundation’s rural partners, discusses the need to balance direct program support and capacity building, and emphasizes the importance of visiting rural communities in person.

To …

Moving Upstream: An Intersectoral Collaboration To Build Sustainable Planning Capacity In Rural And Appalachian Communities, Laura Milazzo, Holly Raffle, Matthew Courser

The Foundation Review

As part of an effort to address health inequities in Appalachian and rural Ohio, the state’s Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services developed an upstream intersectoral health innovation that specifically addressed the lack of infrastructure and other capacity issues that create barriers to obtaining federally funded prevention services among communities with the highest need for those services.

The department partnered with two nonprofit organizations and a university to create a performance-based, stepping-stone investment strategy that provided monetary awards to community organizations and included intensive, customized training and technical assistance that promoted capacity- building for data-driven strategic planning.

This article …

The Relationship Between Admission Criteria And Pre-Service Teacher Preparedness For A Small Rural Educator Preparation Provider, Gerald Mihelic, Chancey Bosch, Kim Boyd, Mary Lou Miller

Administrative Issues Journal

Pre-service teacher preparedness is a measurement of a teacher candidate’s ability to become an effective teacher (Clark, Byrnes, & Sudweeks, 2015). A growing number of Educator Preparation Providers’ (EPPs’) accrediting agencies are insisting that to improve pre-service teacher preparedness, EPPs must increase the rigor of their admission criteria. However, the research is inconclusive regarding whether a relationship exists between admission criteria and pre-service teacher preparedness. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between the Educator Preparation Provider’s (EPP’s) current teacher education program admission criteria and pre-service teacher preparedness measurements to determine if the EPP should increase …

"This Doesn't Happen Here": Child Sex Trafficking In Rural Oklahoma, Denise Blum, Tania Benoiton, Sean Kinder

Administrative Issues Journal

The sex trafficking of minors is a hard-to-detect and underreported crime. Its insidiousness makes it exceedingly difficult to recognize, and treatment, once a victim is recovered, is long-term and costly. Urban areas are in the spotlight when it comes to the trafficking of minors. However, the unsuspecting rural context consists of specific dynamics that may make children in the countryside more vulnerable than in the city. Using the case of an Oklahoma town, the researchers conducted a presentation on child sex trafficking for school personnel at a K-8 rural school. They administered pre- and post-surveys and conducted follow-up interviews with …

By Us And For Us: A Story Of Early Childhood Development Systems Change And Results In A Rural Context, Lisa Payne Simon, Kirsten Scobie, Phoebe Backler, Catherine Mcdowell, Charles Cotton, Susan Cloutier, Clare Nolan

The Foundation Review

Since 2007, the Neil and Louise Tillotson Fund — a donor-advised fund of the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation — has invested in early childhood development in Coös County — New Hampshire’s largest and most rural and economically disadvantaged county. Community providers from a range of disciplines formed strong professional relationships and agreed on common goals and evidence-based strategies to improve services for children and families.

This article describes how local community members joined forces with the fund to create an integrated early childhood development system for Coös’ children and families. It provides background on the investment and initiative strategy, summarizes …