Joseph June won the Social Research Policy And Practice Section Outstanding Poster Award for his poster titled "Keeping Cool in Florida Assisted Living Communities: Barriers to Power Rule Implementation". The session was held during the annual meeting of the Gerontological Society of America in Austin, Texas. Dr.'s Kathy Hyer, Lindsay Peterson, and Debra Dobbs co-authored the poster.

On November 20, the Federal Office of Rural Health Policy spotlighted rural health with a twitter chat on rural substance use disorders, as part of National Rural Health Day. The Federal Office of Rural Health Policy is a part of the Human Resources and Services Administration, an agency of the US Department of Health and Human Services. National Rural Health Day was created to "celebrate the power of rural," to draw specific attention to rural health and to highlight all that rural areas have accomplished. Khary Rigg was one of five panelists selected to participate in the twitter chat on substance use disorders and take part in promotional activities. As part of the event, he and other panel members were asked to provide commentary on the unique challenges people in rural communities face regarding substance use disorders, as well as answer questions from the public.

Lise Fox (CFS)
Let's Play Together! Peer Implemented Pivotal Response with Preschoolers with Autism
Sponsor: Organization for Autism Research
7/1/2019-12/31/2020
Amount: $1,179.47

Graduate Research Grant Competition award to conduct research related to individuals with autism. Organization for Autism Research. Preschool is a critical time in the development of play and social skills for all children, and in particular children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). Children with ASD often experience delays in age appropriate play skills and are deficient in the social skills require to successfully engage with peers in the classroom. These delays can impact children's engagement in the classroom and learning outcomes that are critical for transitioning into kindergarten and academic learning. A strategy that is recommended as an evidence-based practice to promote child engagement is peer-mediated intervention. This study seeks to evaluate typically developing children's ability to implement Pivotal Response Training (PRT) as a peer-mediated intervention during center play with children with ASD in their blended (i.e., inclusive) preschool classroom. A concurrent multiple probe baseline across peer pairs will be used to assess peers ability to implement PRT strategies with children with ASD and the effect of intervention on the play and the communication behaviors of the children with ASD.

Roxanne McNeish (CFS)
Making Connections for Mental Health
Sponsor: Movember Foundation
10/19/2015-10/18/2020
Amount: $2,337,808

The evaluation focuses on 2 central questions: How do prevention programs maximize community-level impact and what strategies are most successful in achieving this impact? The goal of the evaluation is to answer these questions while providing support for program planning and implementation both within and across Initiative grantees. To accomplish this, formative evaluation is employed with the aim of improving the project's design and performance during program implementation. Formative evaluations are conducted during a program's implementation and are therefore able to support real-time feedback and recommendations to Initiative grantees as well as feedback to the Prevention Institute and Movember Foundation.

Pamela Menendez (CFS)
QPI Just in Time Training-Cuyahoga County Ohio
Sponsor: Cuyahoga County Division of Children & Families
8/13/2015-12/31/2019
Amount: $131,918.13

The QPI Just in Time Training-Cuyahoga County Ohio website provides information and web-based training videos that facilitate and support foster parents, relative caregivers, and birth parent learning strategies to improve their parenting skills. The web based trainings include such topics as: trauma informed parenting, mentoring of birth parents by foster parents, strategies to support successful reunification, how to support foster children's education, supporting youth through transitions, caring for teens, quality healthcare, as well as age appropriate development. QPI/JIT website include interactive tools to share best practices, experiences, and promote the values of QPI.

Leokadia Rohrer (CFS)
Evaluation of the State Targeted Response and Partnership for Success Projects
Sponsor: Florida Dept of Children & Families
8/15/2017-8/15/2020
Amount: $319,305.96

Florida's Opioid State Targeted Response (STR) and Partnerships for Success (PFS) projects are designed to address the opioid crisis in Florida. The primary objectives of STR are to provide life-skills training to students in six rural counties in order to prevent opioid misuse as well as reduce opioid-related deaths through the widespread distribution of naloxone. The primary objectives of PFS are to provide school-based prevention training, build awareness of the opioid epidemic, provide training for overdose prevention, monitor drug trends across the state, and improve care coordination for substance abuse treatment. The evaluation team is responsible for the process and outcome evaluations of the individual components of PFS and STR. Evaluation activities include assisting providers with data collection, entering and analyzing school-based and training data, conducting focus groups and interviews, and compiling comprehensive reports with findings and recommendations.

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