HSE 215 Final Project Guidelines and Rubric Overview As a human services practitioner, you will mostly likely work with children and families at some point in your career, during which you may need to provide support to children from birth to adolescence, as well as to their parents or guardians. This necessitates determining age-specific needs and risk and resiliency factors to recommend programs that are best tailored to address these needs and factors. As there may be gaps in service, you may also, at times, need to research interventions to fill these gaps. In this final project, you will be asked to do exactly this. Not only will you evaluate a current community or school-based program for the extent to which its interventions are tailored to meet the client’s needs, but you will also identify gaps in service and research an intervention to fill these gaps, and create a plan to implement it. This plan will include a way to measure outcomes and incorporate evidence-based practices to ensure the intervention is meeting its intent. The project is divided into three milestones, which will be submitted at various points throughout the course to scaffold learning and ensure quality final submissions. These milestones will be submitted in Modules Two, Four, and Five. The final submission is due in Module Seven. In this assignment, you will demonstrate your mastery of the following course outcomes: • Assess the extent to which community and school-based resources and intervention programs address the developmental needs of children • Determine the impact of developmental risk and resiliency factors on treatment and intervention programs for child growth and development • Formulate intervention strategies that promote improvements in the personal and social function of children living in diverse circumstances • Explain the use of evidence-based practices and outcomes measurement within child growth and developmental resources Prompt For this evaluation, you will identify a community or school-based program in your geographical area or in an area of your choice. You will determine the targeted age group of the program, and this will be your focus of study. (If the program targets more than one age group, simply choose one of the groups.) Using this age group and the program, you will determine how the interventions provided within the program either address or do not address the age-specific developmental needs and risk and resiliency factors of the children. After identifying gaps in services, you will research and select an intervention to address these gaps, providing justification around the selection. Specifically, the following critical elements must be addressed: I. Introduction: Select a community or school-based program that serves children, and describe the targeted age group and related risk and resiliency factors. Include the following: A. Provide an introduction by describing the purpose of the evaluation and how it will be completed. Do this by stating the purpose and describing the process of the evaluation (generally, the sections of your report). B. Identify one community or school-based program from your geographical area or the area of your choice. Examples include, but are not limited to, YWCA/YMCA programs, Boys & Girls Club, Big Brothers Big Sisters, Early Head Start, Head Start, mental health services, child development services, and after-school programs. Be sure to indicate whether the program is community or school-based. C. Identify the age group served by the program. Typical age groups include infancy (0–3), early childhood (3–5), middle childhood (5–12), and adolescence (13–18). If the program serves multiple age groups, select and identify one group you will address. D. Identify the major developmental needs and risk and resiliency factors of your selected age group. Refer to the Definitions handout (linked within the Milestone One Guidelines and Rubric document) for an explanation of developmental needs, risk factors, and resiliency factors; refer to the textbook for age-specific developmental needs and risks, and to the assigned web resources for the resiliency factors. This section may be presented in paragraph or bulleted-list format. 1. Developmental needs include but are not limited to learning to walk and run, reading and writing, gaining independence, and making friends. 2. Risk factors include poor parenting skills, drug use in the household, social isolation, living in a high-crime neighborhood, and others. 3. Resiliency factors include appropriate parenting, good schools, reading and writing supported in the home, healthy meals, appropriate developmental supports, high self-esteem, and others. E. Describe the service (intervention) or services (interventions) provided by the program. Your description should provide some detail without overwhelming the reader. Briefly describing the specific activities provided by the program and their stated purpose, if provided. II. Analysis: Analyze the selected community or school-based program. Determine which risk and resiliency factors the program address regarding your targeted age group and why? Describe how well the interventions address personal and social (socioemotional) functioning, and how they could be improved. Keep in mind that some programs incorporate evidence in their practices, while others may not. It is important that you consider the accumulation of evidence for the age group you are targeting. Is there sufficient evidence to support inclusion of the interventions? Include at least three research studies for one intervention. A. What are the most important needs of the selected age group with respect to the personal and social functioning targeted by the program? What is the importance of addressing these needs? For example, why is learning to cooperate so important for infants? B. In what ways are the program’s interventions tailored to the unique developmental needs, risk and resiliency factors of the targeted age group? For example, teaching cooperation should take different forms for different age groups. Explain why this is important? C. In what ways are the program’s interventions not tailored to the unique developmental needs, risk and resiliency factors of the targeted age group? Are they too generalized, or more appropriate for a different age group? D. What is the role this program and its interventions play in promoting the improvement of personal and social functioning of children from birth to adolescence? In other words, how does this program contribute to the development of the future adult? Provide specific examples. E. Explain how this program and its interventions incorporate or fail to incorporate evidence-based practices. Some questions to consider include the following: How are evidence-based practices used? Are they incorporated into the program interventions? What evidence is provided that tell us the practices are effective? What benefit does incorporation of these practices provide? Are there any drawbacks to them not being incorporated? Where are the opportunities for further incorporation of evidence-based practices, and how did you identify these gaps? F. How do risk and resiliency factors for the targeted age group influence the type of interventions provided by the program? G. How do the specific interventions take into consideration risk and resiliency factors? III. Intervention Plan: Now that you have identified the needs of the target age group and evaluated the efficacy and utility of the community program you have selected, propose an additional intervention. Your intervention should help strengthen the program by promoting personal and social (socioemotional) functioning and incorporating outcome measurement and evidence-based practices. You will research current interventions and recommend an intervention plan that best fits the age group and program. A. Based on your research, what is an intervention that would add to the effectiveness of the program in promoting personal and social (socioemotional) functioning for children living in differing circumstances? How would the intervention promote personal and social functioning? B. How would you take different cultures into consideration when applying this intervention? Provide an example. C. What outcomes would be expected from this new intervention? What is one method of measuring whether the intervention met the desired outcomes, and how would this method be applied to the intervention? How would the outcomes be measured? D. Does this intervention constitute an evidence-based practice, or include evidence-based practices? What is the evidence that supports the practice(s)? Alternatively, how could evidence-based practices be applied to this intervention, and what would be the benefit of doing this? How would the practice(s) support the intervention in meeting the desired outcomes? E. How will this intervention consider the risk and resiliency factors of the specific age group? How would addressing these factors benefit the intervention in promoting personal and social functioning? F. What are ways the intervention will reduce risk and increase resiliency factors? How will the intervention do this? Milestone One: Draft of Introduction Milestones In Module Two, you will submit part I., the introduction, of the program evaluation. This milestone is graded with the Milestone One Rubric. Milestone Two: Draft of Analysis In Module Four, you will submit a draft of the analysis section, including all critical elements as listed in section II. In writing your draft, be sure to specify the chosen age group and their needs that will be addressed by the intervention that you are planning for section III of your program evaluation. Look for specific evidence-based practices that will support this target group and their development. Include some risk and resiliency factors that you believe the interventions will address. This draft should be at least 2 pages in length, in addition to a separate references page. This milestone is graded with the Milestone Two Rubric. Milestone Three: Draft of Intervention Plan In Module Five, you will submit a draft of the intervention plan, including all critical elements as listed in section III. The plan will add to the effectiveness of the program in promoting personal and social functioning for children living in diverse circumstances. How will the intervention reduce developmental risk and increase resiliency? This draft should be at least 2 pages in length, in addition to a separate references page. This milestone is graded with the Milestone Three Rubric. Final Submission: Program Evaluation In Module Seven, you will submit the Program Evaluation in its final form. It should be a complete, polished paper containing all the critical elements of the final product. It should also reflect the incorporation of feedback gained throughout the course. Your final paper is graded with the Final Project Rubric. Deliverables