Interventions for youth are often studied in school settings, yet there are barriers that hinder schools from actively participating in the research studies. To ensure interventions are studied in the context they are intended for, adopted in a timely manner, and regularly used in practice as designed, researchers can conduct studies in a manner…

In recent years, several states have expanded a new publicly funded learning option: Transitional Kindergarten (TK). TK bridges prekindergarten and kindergarten in its eligibility, requirements, and design. Using Michigan as a case study, we examine TK's fit in the early learning landscape. Broadly, we find TK in Michigan reduces some…

Background: Educators in rural schools are uniquely situated to address youth mental health disparities, yet often face challenges in delivering mental health supports. This paper describes the process of adapting the evidence-based Coping Power program, a small group prevention program for youth with aggressive behavior problems, to be a…

The relationship between learning disabilities and behavior disorders is well documented and has led to the development of integrated interventions that target both academic and behavior deficits in elementary students. This paper describes the rationale, development, and implementation of an integrated academic-behavior intervention called…

Community-academic partnerships are believed to increase the effectiveness and feasibility of action research. While factors facilitating and hindering community-academic partnerships have been identified, their influence on the collaborative process is unknown, especially during community-academic partnership initiation and development. This…

Although phonics knowledge and decoding skill are important for academic and life success, there is little research that examines the effects of home-based, family-implemented instruction on the development of these early literacy skills. The purpose of this multiple baseline across participants single case experimental design study was to…

Bullying and sexual harassment are commonly experienced by secondary students, yet these behaviors are seldom targeted for intervention in high schools. Norms and Bystander Intervention Training (NAB IT!) is a program designed to address bullying and sexual harassment through promoting prosocial norms and helping behaviors among high school…

As the youth mental health crisis continues to worsen, there is a need for more evidence-based social-emotional interventions that can be applied in schools -- the setting in which youth are most likely to seek and receive mental health treatment (Simon et al., 2015). Further, exploring ways to culturally adapt interventions for marginalized…

Supporting college and career readiness among youth who encounter significant academic and life challenges requires innovative strategies to help them envision their futures, leverage their strengths and develop dispositions that promote positive trajectories. For youth development professionals who develop and implement novel programmatic…

Purpose: This study presents a novel methodology/process for assessing inclusion of theoretically-based implementation factors within available adoption-ready health promotion programs. Methods: Classroom-based physical activity (CBPA) programs were used as an example to describe the process. Our team selected an implementation science framework…

Purpose: Few caregiver-implemented naturalistic language interventions (NLIs) are available for Spanish-speaking Latinos who have young children under 3 years with language delays, and there is a scarcity of studies that provide information about intervention development or social validity of interventions for this group. This study introduces…

Educators have embraced the promotion of social emotional development, student well-being, and mental health as essential educational objectives to promote academic readiness and growth. To address known research-to-practice gaps and limited availability of evidence-based, universal high school programs, we took a community-based participatory…

This manuscript describes a major revision and update of the First Step to Success Early Intervention Program, now called First Step Next. The original First Step Program was published in 1997 and the revised, updated version was published in 2015 (Walker et al.). First Step Next is a collaborative, Tier II school- and family-supported early…

The Design Implementation Framework, or DIF, is a design approach that evaluates learner and user experience at multiple points in the development of intelligent tutoring systems. In this chapter, we explore how DIF was used to make system modifications to iSTART, a game-based intelligent tutoring system for reading comprehension. Using DIF as a…

Indigenous communities demonstrate immense cultural strengths despite being impacted by mental health and academic disparities due to ongoing systemic racism and historical trauma. Given that schools are a context in which indigenous youths' needs have potential to be met through preventive intervention, this scoping review explores and summarizes…