Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Transnational Brazilian Project, C. Eduardo Siqueira

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

Since 2012, the Transnational Brazilian Project has been successful in organizing a transnational network of faculty, students, and community leaders to promote collaborative research and service. UMass Boston students and faculty have conducted research in Brazil, volunteered at the Brazilian Immigrant Center (BIC), and several Brazilian students gained research experience at the Mauricio Gastón Institute. In addition, a number of public health faculty from Brazil have visited UMass Boston to discuss future research projects and collaborations.

Conversations Between Communities: Umass Boston Archaeology For And With The Nipmuc Nation & The Eastern Pequot Tribal Nation, Stephen A. Mrozowski, Stephen W. Silliman

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

Community-engaged scholarship, learning, and service are becoming important parts of university missions, ensuring that academic projects do not just “take” but also give back in meaningful ways. For Native American communities and archaeologists who come from and work with them, this kind of research sensitivity and community accountability is fundamentally important. Archaeological projects with, by, and for Native American communities vary as much in their structures and goals as the communities themselves. In order to meet the desires and needs of each community, two archaeological field schools at UMass Boston – Hassanamesit Woods (Grafton, Massachusetts) and Eastern Pequot (North Stonington, …

Addressing The Supportive Transportation Challenges Of Community-Residing Older Adults, Nina M. Silverstein, Kristina M. Turk, Laura Adams, Holly Belanger, Linnea Burke, Stephen Jones, Lauren Lee, David Lopez, Keith Sherman, Lee Paradis, Erin O’Neill, Alycia Rao, Rachael Solano

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

The ability to get to where you want to go, when you want to go there is a key factor for aging-in-place in our communities. It is often taken for granted until that ability is compromised. The informal network of family and friends, if it exists, is not likely to be a sustainable transportation alternative for persons with cognitive impairment or for older adults with limitations that may not fit eligibility criteria for senior transportation services, where they exist. The purpose of this study was to investigate the potential of communities to address the specialized supportive mobility needs of community-residing …

Assessment And Curriculum Modification For Grade 1 Students With Disabilities In Tanzania: A Pilot Study, Angi Stone-Macdonald

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

The purpose of this study was: 1) to analyze aggregated student assessment data from grade 1 students at a public government primary school in Northern Tanzania to determine the efficacy of a curriculum based screen tool, and 2)to examine current practices of inclusion for Tanzanian children in the early grades.

Massachusetts Hospital School Program Evaluation Enhancing Transition To The Community, Russell Schutt

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

Throughout the years, MHS has responded to the changing medical needs of children and young adults in MA and continues to be a model program nationally. Currently, MHS educates approximately 87 students from 58 MA communities. Since 2003, about 10-17 students have graduated each year. At age 22, young adults with disabilities transition from students to emergent adults living in the community. Students graduating from the Massachusetts Hospital School (MHS) are faced with opportunities and choices with respect to how and where they will live, work, study, socialize and receive ongoing medical care. In order to understand how well current …

International Epidemics: Interdisciplinary Thinking And Global Citizenship, Rajini Srikanth, Louise Penner

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

The Honors College aims to serve as a crucible for curricular innovation by enriching and deepening classroom study with on-the-ground learning. The symposium is a year-long course, with the winter session field trip giving students a two-week immersion in the details of HIV/AIDS health care delivery in one province of South Africa. Upon return, students volunteer at health centers or nonprofits exploring related topics, while continuing to study the complexity of South Africa’s history and its attitudes and approaches toward HIV/AIDS at the medical, cultural, economic, and social levels.

The Confucius Institute At Umass Boston, Baifeng Sun

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

One of the 500 Confucius Institutes in 104 countries worldwide and the only one in Massachusetts. Facilitates rich cultural exchanges between the U.S. and China in collaboration with our educational counterparts in Beijing, China.

Graduate Studies In Archives: Proficiency, Experience, Engagement, Darwin Stapleton

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

Role of Archivists in Communities:

• Acquire, manage, preserve, and provide access to historical records
• Assist communities with documenting their unique stories
• Serve as a link to the records that inform family historians and genealogists
• Utilize digital technologies & media to expand public access to on-line collections
• Digitize images and records to make them available for use by peers, researchers, and diverse communities worldwide
• Serve as the bridge between historic information and the users who can benefit from its public availability

The Unequal Burden Of Debt And Its Impact On Health, Elizabeth Sweet, Zachary Dubois

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

Average household debt in America has tripled in the past 30 years. Much of this burden is unequally borne by racial/ethnic minorities and those with lower incomes, who face discrimination in obtaining loans and must devote more household resources to paying off debts. Being indebted is a strong predictor of suicide, depression, and other adverse mental health outcomes. However, its impact on physical health is underexplored.

Higher Order Teaching: University Of Massachusetts Boston, Institute For Community Inclusion And Lowell Public Schools, Lisa Van Thiel

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

The Higher Order Teaching (HOT) partnership builds upon and extends the Lowell Public School’s Birth to Three Alignment grant. One of five pilot sites across the Commonwealth, the Lowell Alignment grant brings together a 15 member Leadership Alignment Team comprised of two, Level 3 & Level 4 public school principals, the District’s Early Childhood Department, and the City’s 7 center based programs, 5 family child care systems, and Head Start to build a common language around alignment, the common core, standards-based curriculum, and to set alignment goals and benchmarks. HOT addresses a widespread need throughout the City to aggressively address …

Inclusive Concurrent Enrollment Partnership, Aimee D'Avignon, Laura Vanderberg, Felicia Wilczenski

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

The Inclusive Concurrent Education Partnership (ICE) has enrolled students with disabilities from local public high schools for the past 4 semesters, since the Fall of 2012. These students audit courses that match their personal interests in order to experience a fully inclusive higher educational setting. A total of 32 students have participated across the two years of program implementation.

Massachusetts Municipal Performance Management Program (Mpmp), Michael Ward

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

The mission of the MPMP is to make the ongoing, systematic use of data, measures, and goals a permanent feature of Massachusetts municipal government, and to accelerate the sharing of ideas among Massachusetts municipalities.

Through a team of highly-skilled Performance Management Analysts, each working directly with a portfolio of cities and towns, the MPMP provides on-the-ground support to Massachusetts municipalities on all aspects of data and analysis.

Urban.Boston (Urban Research-Based Action Network): Creating Meaningful Connections Between Community & Academia, Mark Warren

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

The Urban Research-Based Action Network (URBAN) is a national platform that facilitates community-based research, teaching, and learning for action across disciplinary lines, connecting scholars and community activists within and across cities. It was started in 2011 to honor the memory of activist scholar Marylin Gitell, and has received generous support from SAGE Publications. URBAN currently has 5 local nodes: Boston, Los Angeles, New York City, Northern California, and Philadelphia; as well as 3 discipline nodes: Education, Sociology, and Urban Planning. More nodes will be established in the future. In the meantime, efforts are focused on connecting academics and community partners …

Ultimate Peace, Eben Weitzman, Kylie Millbern

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

Ultimate Peace (UP) builds bridges of understanding and friendship between Middle East youth divided by conflict, using the character building sport of Ultimate Frisbee. UP consists of three main components:

• Summer Camp
• Year-Round Community Program
• With inter-community games and practices
• Coach-In-Training (CIT) Leadership Program

Promoting Awareness, Dialogue, And Culturally Responsive Services, Cedric Woods

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

The mission of the Institute for New England Native American Studies (INENAS) is to develop collaborative relationships, projects, and programs between Native American tribes of the New England region and all of the UMass campuses so that the tribes may participate in and benefit from university research, innovation, scholarship, and education. As the interests, needs, and demographics of Native New England shift, these changing priorities will be reflected in its programming, grant submissions, and outreach efforts.

Building Bridges: Fostering Dialogue And Shared Understanding Between Communities And Government Agencies, Eben Weitzman, Darren Kew

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

Professors Eben Weitzman and Darren Kew of the Department of Conflict Resolution, Human Security, and Global Governance at the John W. McCormack Graduate School of Policy and Global Studies facilitate dialogue among state and federal law enforcement agencies and representatives of Muslim and Sikh communities to help foster shared understanding and navigate challenges and opportunities inherent in their relationship. Working with the BRIDGES program, they are using group dialogue to help stakeholders build lasting, productive connections.

Evaluating Needs Of Older Adults In Massachusetts Communities, Hayley P. Gleason, Caitlin Coyle, Bernard A. Steinman, Ceara R. Somerville, Jan Mutchler

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

Throughout Massachusetts, the ongoing demographic shift toward an older population has required most cities and towns to reevaluate the adequacy of services and programs for older adults. By 2030, the vast majority of municipalities in Massachusetts will have unprecedented proportions of people age 60 or over.

Thrive In 5 Boston Initiative, Center For Social Policy, University Of Massachusetts Boston

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

The Center for Social Policy (CSP) is the external evaluator for Thrive in 5 Boston. As part of the initiative, CSP is helping to identify, implement, and evaluate community interventions designed to increase the readiness of Boston children for success in school at kindergarten age.

Thrive in 5 is transforming Boston into a city that values and proactively nurtures young children’s school readiness, and envisions a city where families, educators, providers, business leaders and communities come together with the knowledge, skills, and resources to prepare children for success in school and beyond.

Moving Home: An Evaluation, Center For Social Policy, University Of Massachusetts Boston

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

The Center for Social Policy (CSP) is carrying out an analysis of data on the housing situations of participants in the Moving Home program, which is run by the Bowery Residents’ Committee (BRC) in New York City (NYC). BRC is one of the largest, most comprehensive social service agencies in NYC, offering a client-focused continuum of 27 programs that serve 2,600 individuals daily. Launched in 2007, BRC’s Moving Home initiative applies an individualized, low-threshold model to transitioning chronically homeless men and women from the streets to permanent housing.

Implementing A Community-Based Intervention For African American Mothers And Daughters, Teri Aronowitz, Nandini Sengupta

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

Adolescents represent one of the fastest growing risk groups for HIV. Inner-city, minority youth are at highest risk because of concentration of HIV in inner-city areas, higher rates of STDs, and early sexual initiation. Mothers are the primary sex educator of daughters, and girls state their relationship with their mother was an important influence on their delaying sexual activity. With 70% of adolescent HIV seroconversions occurring among African American (AA) females, studies are urgently needed to enhance mother-daughter sexual communication. The purpose of this poster is to offer insights on the logistics of carrying out a manualized program.

New Lease For Families: An Evaluation, Center For Social Policy, University Of Massachusetts Boston

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

The Center for Social Policy (CSP) was hired by the New Lease for Homeless Families to conduct an evaluation measuring specific outcomes of the unique housing interventions in their pilot program. New Lease for Homeless Families will connect 400 or more homeless families to affordable housing units provided by private and non-profit property owners over a two-year period. The infrastructure will then be in place to continue matching homeless families coming out of shelter to affordable housing units, which may change the larger systems of reducing family homelessness in Massachusetts.

Combat Paper Project, William Joiner Institute For The Study Of War And Social Consequences, University Of Massachusetts Boston

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

Coming home from war is enormously difficult. A new language is required to express the magnitude of war’s effects and consequences. Combat Paper transforms the uniforms of battle to paper and from this transformation comes art. Developed by veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan in San Francisco, the project has now traveled broadly across the United States and the world.

Massresults – Building A More Effective, Accountable, And Open State Government, John W. Mccormack Graduate School Of Policy And Global Studies, University Of Massachusetts Boston, Edward J. Collins, Jr., Center For Public Management, University Of Massachusetts Boston, Russ Meekins, Amy Branger

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

Through strategic plans, performance reports, and a program-based performance budget, the Patrick administration is using data to manage, making government more transparent and accountable. Working with the Executive Office of Administration & Finance, and partnering with the Commonwealth Performance, Accountability and Transparency office, the Collins Center at UMass Boston has been charged with implementing the MassResults program throughout the executive branch.

Massachusetts Education Partnership: Policy, Leadership, Labor-Management Collaboration, Nancy Peace, John W. Mccormack Graduate School Of Policy And Global Studies, University Of Massachusetts Boston, Edward J. Collins, Jr., Center For Public Management, University Of Massachusetts Boston

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

The Massachusetts Education Partnership (MEP) is a collaborative endeavor on the part of four education-related organizations representing teachers, superintendents, and school committees and four research institutions. By working together, the Partnership aims to improve student achievement through labor-management collaboration and to foster the development of collaborative cultures in Massachusetts school districts. As of March 1, 2014, the MEP has trained labor and management leaders from 34 school districts in interest-based bargaining (IBB) and provided intensive facilitation to seven school districts where labor and management are working collaboratively on a program or issue of their choosing.

Chelsea Achieves In Mathematics: University Of Massachusetts Institute For Community Inclusion, Chelsea Public Schools And Capic Head Start Funded By The Board Of Higher Education Improving Teacher Quality, Institute For Community Inclusion, University Of Massachusetts Boston

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

Partners: Chelsea Achieves in Mathematics (CAM) is a partnership between the University of Massachusetts Boston (UMB) and Chelsea Public Schools, Early Learning Center (ELC) and Capic Head Start (CHS). CAM will provide 15 hours of professional development on mathematics to early educators for PDP/CEU each year.

Principal Objectives: CAM will increase early educators’ content knowledge in mathematics and application of pedagogy into practice. CAM will integrate the Building Blocks Mathematics (BBM) into the Opening the World of Learning (OWL) Curriculum framework. The merging of two scientifically based research curriculum will improve teachers’ effectiveness and student outcomes in mathematics, language, and …

Massachusetts Community Mediation Center Grant Program, Massachusetts Office Of Public Collaboration, University Of Massachusetts Boston

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

The CMC Grant Program was established in FY 2013 to distribute state operational funding to qualified community mediation centers serving primarily low income citizens. Mediation services are provided through trained volunteers for a wide-range of family, neighborhood and community conflicts referred through courts, public agencies, local businesses, organizations and individuals. Centers deliver training, conduct outreach and education, and actively engage community members on their boards and through local partnerships.

Youth Violence/Conflict Prevention Mini Grants, Massachusetts Office Of Public Collaboration, University Of Massachusetts Boston

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

As part of the Community Mediation Center Grant Program, the MA Office of Public Collaboration (MOPC) in FY 2014 awarded four community project grants on youth violence/conflict prevention under a Positive Youth Development (PYD) framework, which includes peer mediation and other youth-focused conflict resolution in schools, communities, and/or families. Four community mediation centers from across Massachusetts were awarded $34,000 to carry-out these projects in partnership with a municipality/municipal entity. An example is the project by Community Dispute Settlement Center (CDSC) in Cambridge, who in partnerships with the Cambridge Police Department and the Department of Human Services has so far trained …

The Parent Mediation Program – A Pathway To Cooperative Parenting, Massachusetts Office Of Public Collaboration, University Of Massachusetts Boston, Department Of Revenue Cse Division, Ma Community Mediation Centers

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

The Parent Mediation Program was established in 2008 as a state-local collaboration to raise awareness of mediation as a viable option for creating workable parenting plans and to mediate parenting issues for never-married, separated, divorced or separating parents across the state. The program aims to annually provide direct educational services to around 250-300 disputing parents, about 170-220 of whom will also receive mediation services.

The Campus Kitchen At Umass Boston Student-Powered Hunger Relief In Boston, Office Of Student Leadership And Community Engagement, University Of Massachusetts Boston, Walter Denney Youth Center, Housing Opportunities Unlimited, St. Peter's Teen Center, John Winthrop Elementary, Project Alerta, University Of Massachusetts Boston, Camp Shriver, University Of Massachusetts Boston, Massachusetts Law Reform Institute, Inc., Sodexo

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

The Campus Kitchen at the University of Massachusetts Boston (CKUMB) is a part of The Campus Kitchens Project. (CKP), a national network of student volunteers, works to rescue excess food to create meals for those in need. CKUMB opened in 2010 to provide meals for the Dorchester community. By taking the initiative to run a community kitchen, students develop entrepreneurial and leadership skills, along with a commitment to serve their community, that they will carry with them into future careers.

Pension Action Center, Pension Action Center, University Of Massachusetts Boston

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

The Pension Action Center, (PAC) strives to improve retirees’ and workers’ standard of living in retirement through individual case advocacy; referrals to appropriate programs and professionals; and issue analysis and reform of public policy. The center, which is part of the Gerontology Institute at UMass Boston, focuses on the experience of participants in retirement plans throughout its work. The PAC is a one-of-a-kind organization in New England that touches the lives of thousands of people.