Juvenile Rehabilitation (JR) became part of Washington State's Department of Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF) on July 1, 2019. JR serves the state's highest-risk youth who have been charged with a qualifying offense and either adjudicated in a county's juvenile court or convicted in an adult criminal court. In 2000, JR needed to further define…

Using a stratified random sample and real-time virtual focus group sessions, we evaluated the regional administrative model, addressing personnel supervision, program direction, financial management, and administrative leadership. We concluded that the regional administrative model remains a highly charged topic, there is no common understanding…

This article presents a description of how an interdisciplinary network of academic researchers, community-based programs, parents, and state agencies have joined together to design, test, and scale a suite of innovative intervention strategies rooted in new knowledge about the biology of adversity. Through a process of cocreation, collective…

One factor that may facilitate a successful reunification of children in foster care with their parents--or failing that, provide an alternate route to permanency through adoption or guardianship--is children's connections with extended family. However, because foster care frequently disrupts social connections, practitioners may need to take…

This document was produced by the authors based on their research for the report, "Family Finding Evaluations: A Summary of Recent Findings. Publication #2015-01," and is an added resource for further information. The report reviews the results from 13 evaluations of Family Finding. The Family Finding model provides child welfare…

As our world becomes more interconnected on international, domestic, and personal levels, our need to be more culturally competent increases (Samovar, Porter, & McDaniel, 2007; Ting-Toomey, 1999). Recognizing this need, Washington State University Extension sought to increase skills of its personnel by developing a set of cultural competencies…

The "New Environmental Paradigm" or NEP appears to have gained considerable popularity in academic and intellectual circles, as well as among many college students; however, very little is known concerning the degree to which the general public has come to accept the ideas embodied in it. Thus, although there have been dozens of studies…

Response to intervention (RTI) can be both a system for providing early interventions to struggling students and a special education diagnostic tool for evaluating and identifying students with specific learning disabilities. Contributing to the very limited literature on state-level approaches, this report describes how nine states define and…

In 2006, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation launched the Early Learning Initiative (ELI) to improve the school readiness of Washington State's children through three main strategies: (1) development of high-quality, community-wide early learning initiatives in two communities; (2) enhancement of statewide systems that support early…

This report represents a synthesis of data related to the impact of the Parent Education Follow Through (PEFT) Program in the Yakima (Washington) School District. It was compiled from reviews of written documents and interviews with both model sponsor staff and parents, teachers, community leaders and others within the Yakima School District. The…

This report, the first in a three-volume study evaluating federally-supported day care in Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington, contains a discussion of various issues related to the use of federal standards for day care services and presents four optional strategies for upgrading the quality of day care in the four states. Each strategy includes…

This report is divided into five major components. Part 1 contains a brief description of middle schools as they have developed throughout the U.S. since the beginning of this century. Part 2 reviews the history of middle schools as they have evolved in the Seattle School District. Emphasis is placed on the role that the district's mandatory and…

According to the second external review of the Partnership for Rural Improvement (PRI), the program demonstrated very good achievement of two of its major objectives: increasing collaboration among agencies and institutions and increasing competency of educational institutions to support rural development and planning. Between February 23 and…

The state of Washington implemented the Readiness to Learn program as part of the state's Family Policy Initiative. The primary goal of the program is to serve as a formal link between education and human services by authorizing grants to local school-linked, community-based consortia to develop and implement strategies that ensure children arrive…

In 1980-1981, extended funding from the Kellogg Foundation and a total budget of $561,316 allowed the Partnership for Rural Improvement (PRI) to add to its program while continuing to emphasize project development, organizational development, interorganizational coordination, and training and education. PRI began to use task forces as a method of…