The paper presents a proposal for the addition of a specialized adoption agency for sexually abused children and youth to current services of a residential group home. The proposal resulted from the lack of appropriate families for children completing the Agency's Preparation for Adoption Program. Evidence suggested placements have been hindered…

North Arkansas Community/Technical College (NACTC) was formed in July 1993 by the consolidation of a community and technical college in the community of Harrison, Arkansas, but used the mission statement, goals, and institutional objectives developed by the community college. A project was undertaken to develop a process for reviewing and revising…

In the face of rising juvenile violent crime rates and media talk of waste, abuse, fraud, and ineffectiveness within the Florida Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services (HRS), the state recommended the adoption of a family-focused approach in client intervention strategy. The Florida Atlantic University Professional Development Centre…

In an effort to provide new members of the North Arkansas Community/Technical College (NACTC) Foundation Board with college- and foundation-related information needed to carry out their duties, a project was undertaken to develop a board orientation manual. To determine what information should be included in the manual and how it should be…

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…

This practicum's goal was to improve the organizational components of a university child care center through the development and implementation of a comprehensive program of evaluation. Several evaluation models were considered. The Context-Input-Process-Product Model was selected for its flexibility in providing formative and summative results,…

A 10-week training program in a private nonprofit residential treatment program for children and youth was designed to help a treatment team increase its team functioning skills as measured by a pre- and post-training survey of individual and team effectiveness. The treatment program was located in a rural community and served people from eight…

A sequentially planned program using quality circle techniques was adapted for the educational environment and Implemented in an elementary school in central Florida. The program consisted of 10 sessions designed to acquaint team leaders and administrators with the quality circle techniques and, under the direction of a trained facilitator, to…

A study examined the impact of work teams on production, quality, and morale within the State of Alaska Division of Vocational Rehabilitation, using data from fiscal years 1992 and 1993 when a change from a hierarchical organization to a team-based approach took place in the agency. Production was defined as the percentage of placements achieved…

A study examined the problems encountered when organizations adopt management strategies based on teamwork and total quality management (TQM) and the effectiveness of training in avoiding such problems. Survey instruments were mailed to 85 individuals involved in implementing work teams at 85 companies in 4 Missouri cities; 23 responses (27.1%…

In 1990, a study was conducted to holistically evaluate the activities of the Employee Development Program at Paradise Valley Community College (PVCC) and to determine if employee groups differed significantly in their evaluations of the effectiveness of the activities. Of the 114 full- and part-time board-approved employees of PVCC, 86 (75%)…