The University of North Carolina at Charlotte Institute for Social Capital, Inc

The University of North Carolina at Charlotte Institute for Social Capital, Inc. Serves to Link Faculty and Community to Enhance Research Capacity

The University of North Carolina at Charlotte Institute for Social Capital, Inc. (ISC) was created to serve as a link between community-based government and non-profit agencies and organizations serving children, youth, and families in Charlotte-Mecklenburg, in order to facilitate information sharing between these groups, with the broader goal of fostering research and data-based community decision-making. In addition, the ISC was designed to link the community with University researchers with expertise in a wide range of areas involving children, youth, and families. The ISC’s mission is to foster university social and human capital research and to increase the community’s capacity for data-based planning and evaluation of programs.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg’s policymakers, non-profit organizations, foundations, and social and behavioral scientists increasingly recognize the importance and difficulty of measuring the impact of programs designed to improve the lives of children, youth, and families within our community. In response to this need, the ISC is in the early stages of building and housing a comprehensive database of local program and social service data. By connecting data sets across multiple sources, the database will lay the foundation for a true understanding of the social and environmental factors that affect our community.

Duke Residential Treatment Outcomes Evaluation

Since January, 2007, researchers with the ISC have been working in collaboration with the Children and Family Services Association – North Carolina (CFSA-NC), the South Carolina Association of Children’s Homes and Family Services (SCACHFS), and their member agencies to implement a successful outcomes research strategy across residential treatment agencies in order to strengthen the current system of care and to enhance the quality of programs and services for children and youth. Agencies participating in this research are those providing residential treatment services, broadly defined to include foster care (including family, specialized, and therapeutic foster care), residential group care (low, medium/moderate, and high management levels), residential treatment, and multipurpose residential care.

Projects in Partnership with Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools

Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) Study

The ISC is assisting in analyzing results from the CMS 2009 Youth Risk Behavior Survey for both middle and high schools. To address the risk behaviors reported by students, ISC is facilitating the development of a systematic process for identifying and prioritizing key issues, developing and implementing appropriate evidence-based strategies, and monitoring the effectiveness of these interventions over time. CMS began participating in the YRBS administration in 2005 and has continued to do so on a bi-annual basis with the goal of examining trends in patterns of risk over time. Within the community, there is a sense of urgency in addressing youth risk behaviors such as mental health, safety/violence and physical health issues. Systematic procedures to monitor health-related behaviors, such as the YRBS, will facilitate efforts to develop and to sustain programs, to effect policy changes, and to track changes over time. Asthma Education Initiative The CMS Asthma Education Program is a collaboration between Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools (CMS) and the Mecklenburg County Health Department, School Health Division (MCHD), which is supported by a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). As part of that agreement, CMS has contracted with the ISC to evaluate its progress toward the goal of improving education and services for students with asthma.

Parent University In Fall, 2008, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools (CMS) launched Parent University, an innovative, collaborative initiative designed to reach out to and to engage CMS parents, with a special emphasis on the underserved. Parent University is comprised of unique course offerings, symposia, and workshops in four areas: Parenting Awareness, Helping Your Child Learn in the 21st Century, Health and Wellness, and Personal Growth and Development. The initiative has elicited a tremendous response from the community, with more than 2,700 parents, teachers, and administrators attending 56 course offerings (representing 31 different courses) in its first semester of operation. With the assistance of the ISC, Parent University is developing and preparing to implement a scientific program of outcomes evaluation. To inform this process, CMS has asked ISC to analyze data collected by CMS during the first year of Parent University (i.e., the 2008-2009 academic year). These data include data available through the electronic parent registration system, course rosters, and participants' course evaluation forms.

Bullying Prevention Initiative

Researchers from the ISC and Department of Social Work are evaluating secondary analysis of data previously collected from CMS 6th graders by CMS to help inform them of their Bullying Prevention Initiative Program.

Evaluation of Workforce Initiative for Supportive Housing (WISH)

The ISC serves as the evaluator for the Workforce Initiative for Supportive Housing (WISH). Through a collaborative effort involving A Way Home, Crisis Assistance Ministry, Lutheran Family Services in the Carolinas, Goodwill Industries, Family Promise, Crisis Assistance Ministry Urban Ministry Center, United Family Services, and other agencies, intensive services are provided to families comprised of the working poor who are homeless or at immediate risk of becoming homeless. The families who participate receive a rent subsidy for an affordable apartment, along with life-skills services. Participating families are also linked to volunteers from area faith organizations, which provide mentoring and other supports. This project is designed to integrate a program of scientific outcomes research into WISH, with the overarching goal of evaluating the effectiveness of WISH as an economical intervention for homeless families with children. More specifically, the project focuses on documenting outcomes for children served through WISH. The Charlotte Post Foundation Initiative

The Charlotte Post Foundation has forged a working relationship with the ISC to support its campaign to reduce academic disparities for African-American youth. Through the ISC, Drs. Sharon Portwood, Jeff Shears, and Lyndon Abrams have been working with the Foundation to define its mission, to develop an action plan, and to utilize research to inform action steps. Initial analyses of data available through the ISC Community Database for African American students from the most challenged areas of the Charlotte community indicated that many of those children who were struggling academically as early as third grade continued to perform poorly throughout high school. As a result of these findings, the Charlotte Post Foundation has identified its first class of Charlotte Post Scholars, current second grade students at Billingsville Elementary School, and has provided scholarships for these students to attend Freedom School for six weeks during the Summer, 2009. Researchers affiliated with the ISC will continue to monitor the progress of these students to assess the success of the Charlotte Post Foundation’s efforts.

Evaluation of Freedom Schools

Seigle Avenue Partners have contracted with the ISC to conduct an outcome evaluation of their Freedom Schools Initiative. Freedom Schools engage children in grades K-8 in a six- week summer program designed to prevent the “learning loss” that students typically experience over those months when school is not in session, as well as to have a positive impact on children’s character development, leadership, and community involvement. This evaluation focuses specifically on the program’s primary goal of enhancing academic performance for participating children. More specifically, this outcome evaluation assesses the extent to which the program meets the following objectives: (1) to increase children’s “love” of reading; (2) to increase children’s reading performance; and (3) to maintain or to increase children’s reading level from the end of the school year until the beginning of the proceeding school year.

ISC Faculty Research Scholars Awards Program

The ISC has selected four faculty members as award recipients for the 2008-2009 ISC Faculty Research Scholar Awards Program. ISC Faculty Research Scholars work closely with the ISC to develop a project within their area of expertise in collaboration with a community partner. Priority is given to projects utilizing or with the potential to expand the ISC Community Database. Through this experience, faculty have the opportunity both to develop and to expand existing collaborative relationships and to enhance their own programs of research.

Dr. Keonya Booker, Assistant Professor of Educational Leadership, is conducting research involving correlations of academic achievement in ethnic minority adolescent populations. She is interested in how school engagement affects the academic performance of African American high school students.

Dr. Jose Gamez, Associate Professor of Architecture, is conducting his research on impacts of cultural issues upon urban spaces. He is particularly interested in investigating the growth of Latino communities in Charlotte and the changes in various parts of the city that have arisen as a result of immigration from Latin America. Dr. Robert Herman-Smith, Assistant Professor of Social Work, is conducting research on the evaluation of programs from young maltreated children and their families. He recently completed a study that explored the implementation of federal legislation directly child welfare agencies to refer maltreated children under the age of 3 to publicly funded early childhood intervention (ECI) programs. The next phase of his research will examine why families are under-utilizing ECI programs.

Dr. Chuang Wang, Assistant Professor of Educational Leadership, is conducting his research on the academic achievement gap between at-risk youth verses youth not at-risk. With previous support from the International Center of Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools he studied the achievement gap between English language learners with native speakers of English in elementary schools. Currently, he is collaborating with the Center for Civil Rights at UNC Chapel Hill to look at the achievement gap between at-risk youth attending CMS high schools and other CMS high school students.