The present study evaluated Magic Circle, a primary prevention strategy aimed at fostering positive self-esteem and attitudes connected with school. Process evaluation indicated that although the teachers valued the training process and content and mastered most of the skills involved, the number of Circles conducted by the teachers varied considerably. At posttest, experimental teachers were more satisfied with teaching than were controls. Analysis of class-level student data revealed higher social self-esteem but more minor discipline problems for experimental boys. No effects were found for girls. Results were unrelated to amount of Magic Circle exposure.
This study sought to come up with intervention measures that could be put in place to mitigate the challenges experienced in non-formal schools to enhance safety and security of children. Purposive sampling was used to select Nairobi City County and all the pre-primary schools attached to nonformal schools in informal settlements in the county and the head teachers/managers and teachers working in these pre-primary schools. A sample size of 54 pre-primary schools was selected. A total number of 136 participants from the sampled pre-primary schools participated in the study comprising of 78 preschool teachers, 54 head teachers, and four education officers. The findings revealed various intervention measures by participants such as intervention by: county government, school management such as picking and dropping children, fencing school and having lockable gates.
Background: Implementation of healthy lifestyle promotion in routine primary has been suboptimal. There is emerging evidence that coordinating care can improve the efficiency and quality of care. However, more research is needed on the implementation of coordinated care in healthy lifestyle promotion, the role of patients in implementation and the long-term outcomes of implementation efforts. Overall aim: To investigate the implementation of coordinated healthy lifestyle promotion in primary care in terms of process and outcomes, from the perspectives of both staff and patients. Methods: In 2008, Östergötland county council commissioned primary care centres to implement a coordinated care initiative, lifestyle teams, to improve healthy lifestyle promotion routines. A lifestyle team protocol stipulated centres to: (1) create multi-professional teams, (2) appoint team managers, (3) hold team meetings, and (4) create in-house referral routines for at-risk patients. Paper I investigated the implementation process of three lifestyle teams during a two year period using a mixed method, convergent parallel design. A proposed theory of implementation process was used to analyse data from manager interviews, documents and questionnaires. Paper II explored patients' role in implementation using grounded theory. Interview data from patients with varied experience of promotion was used. Paper III investigated implementation outcomes using a quasi-experimental, cross-sectional design that compared three intervention centres (lifestyle teams) with three control centres (no teams). Data were collected by staff and patient questionnaires and manager interviews at 3 and 5 years after commissioning. The RE-AIM framework was modified and used to define outcome variables: Reach of patients, Effectiveness (attitudes and competency among staff), Adoption among staff, Implementation fidelity to the lifestyle team protocol, and Maintenance of the results at 5-year follow-up. Results: Paper I: The implementation process was complex including multiple innovation components and groups of adopters. The conditions for implementation, e.g. resources varied between staff and team members which challenged the embedding of the teams and new routines. The lifestyle teams were continuously redefined by team members to accommodate contextual factors, features of the protocol and patients. The lifestyle team protocol presented an infrastructure for practice at the centres. Paper II: A grounded theory about being healthy with three interconnected subcategories emerged from data: (1) conditions, (2) managing, and (3) interactions regarding being healthy. Being healthy represented a process of approaching a health ideal which occurred simultaneously with, and could contradict, a process of maximizing well-being. A typology of four patient types (resigned, receivers, co-workers, and leaders) illustrated how processes before, during and after healthy lifestyle promotion were interconnected. Paper III: Reach: significantly more patients at control centres received promotion compared to intervention centres at 3-year (48% and 41% respectively) and 5-year followups (44% and 36% respectively). Effectiveness: At 3-year follow-up, after controlling for clustering by centres, intervention staff were significantly more positive concerning perceived need for lifestyle teams; that healthy lifestyle promotion was prioritized at their centre and that there was adequate competency at individual and centre level regarding lifestyle promotion. At 5-year follow-up, significant differences remained regarding prioritization of lifestyle promotion at centre level. The majority of both intervention and control staff were positive towards lifestyle promotion. Adoption: No significant differences were found between control and intervention centres at 3 years (59% and 47% respectively) or at 5 years (45% and 36% respectively). Implementation fidelity: all components of the lifestyle team protocol had been implemented at all the intervention centres and at none of the control centres. Conclusions: The implementation process was challenged by a complex interaction between groups of staff, innovation components and contextual factors. Although coordinated care are used for other conditions in primary care, the findings suggest that it is difficult to adopt similar routines for healthy lifestyle promotion. Findings suggest that the lifestyle team protocol did not fully consider social components of coordinated care or the varied conditions for change exhibited by adopters. Patients can be seen as coproducing implementation of healthy lifestyle promotion.
Recent presidential nominating contests are effectively over sometime during the first half of the election year, well before the official nominations are bestowed at the party conventions. Yet some candidates become the presumptive nominee as early as February, while others do not obtain this moniker until May or June. This article takes a preliminary look at the dates candidates became the presumptive nominees and their general election fates. Adapted from the source document.
AbstractWe determined the relative importance of the so‐called approximate number system (ANS), symbolic number comparison (SNC) and verbal and spatial short‐term and working memory (WM) capacity for mathematics achievement in 1,254 Grade 2, 4 and 6 children. The large sample size assured high power and low false report probability and allowed us to determine effect sizes precisely. We used reading decoding as a control outcome measure to test whether findings were specific to mathematics. Bayesian analysis allowed us to provide support for both null and alternative hypotheses. We found very weak zero‐order correlations between ANS measures and math achievement. These correlations were not specific to mathematics, became non‐significant once intelligence was considered and ANS measures were not selected as predictors of math by regression models. In contrast, overall SNC accuracy and spatial WM measures were reliable and mostly specific predictors of math achievement. Verbal short‐term and WM and SNC reaction time were predictors of both reading and math achievement. We conclude that ANS tasks are not suitable as measures of math development in school‐age populations. In contrast, all other cognitive functions we studied are promising markers of mathematics development.
Courts, child welfare agencies, and schools are all important to the achievement of safety, permanency, and well‐being for children in foster care. Although safety and permanency performance measures have been established, tested, and implemented, the development of court‐related well‐being measures have not. This article describes the initial effort to establish a set of educational well‐being measures to track success in improving educational outcomes for children in foster care.Key Points for the Family Court Community: This article provides insights to assist children in care achieve successful educational outcomes—a key to becoming self‐sufficient, productive adults. These newly developed education performance measures provide courts with a tool to measure the educational outcomes for children and youth under its jurisdiction.
This "Cheap Lessons" article emphasizes the importance of selecting an appropriate outcome. A brief example from the sports medicine literature relating to baseball pitching performance and the "Tommy John surgery" (TJS) is discussed. The example illustrates how an inappropriate outcome measure often utilized in studies involving the TJS has resulted in deceptive, overestimates of the surgery's success rate. The unintended consequence of this methodological miscalculation is that numerous athletes have elected to pursue this unnecessary medical procedure and put both their health and sporting careers at risk.
