A child care agency located in the southeastern United States serving homeless youth up to the age of 21 years provided pregnant and parenting teenagers with shelter and support services and provided individual and group counseling sessions focusing on health and nutrition, parenting and child care, sexuality and pregnancy, family support services…

This report chronicles the development of a written compendium of commonly used policies, procedures, and references for use by the visual arts teachers of a fine and performing arts department in a large county-wide school district. The compendium was researched, written, and correlated with shared vision, mission, and purpose statements that…

An Indian child welfare agency realized the need for an HIV/AIDS policy when a diabetic child possibly exposed to the HIV virus was placed in one of the agency's licensed foster homes. A focus-group interview process was selected for policy development because this method appeared to parallel the Native American cultural approach toward consensus…

A practicum project designed to alleviate behavior and discipline problems at a Florida elementary school through the use of a conflict resolution curriculum that emphasized group interaction is described. The third- and fourth-grade students were asked to work cooperatively on projects that guided them through a series of strategies that taught…

This practicum was designed to increase the level of teacher awareness of the concept of empowerment at an elementary school in the rural Southeast. A 12-week program was developed and implemented to train the school's 32 teachers in team building, conflict resolution, communication skills, team dynamics, and facilitative leadership. Weekly…

This practicum developed and implemented an organization development plan to improve agency and team effectiveness and staff satisfaction at a private agency that provides educational and treatment services to children with emotional, mental, or behavioral disorders. An extensive literature review on organizational development was conducted and…

A model for teaching group dynamics to undergraduate occupational therapy students was developed. The model incorporated adult education methodology in the teaching of group leadership and personal growth. A literature review was undertaken to identify the purpose and components of laboratory education, which was recognized as the preferred method…

A project was undertaken to create a community of caring, interdependent, intrinsically motivated learners among 21 freshmen students in a community college preservice teacher preparation seminar. Interviews with students at the beginning of the seminar had revealed that most viewed the classroom as individualistic, competitive, and threatening…

This practicum is designed to assist central office personnel in evaluating the work environment for better coordination to accomplish work, plan for a change effort, and implement a participatory change initiative. The work setting involved a K-12 urban school district (193 schools) containing 431 central-office administrators and more than…

The development and implementation of a program to facilitate communication and improve working relationships between elementary school staff members is described. Methodology involved observation of inservice faculty training sessions and a participant survey. The program was based on three components: a series of faculty inservice workshops,…

This practicum was designed to increase parent awareness of the importance of family play interaction and to foster parents' ability to demonstrate these playskills as a couple and within the family. Questionnaires and personal interviews confirmed the need for more information on the importance of play and of age-appropriate play skills. A…