Employment and training services offered through Extension are part of and continue a long tradition of policy-focused employment and job training. This paper chronicles the successes of UT Extension's work as a third-party partner in the delivery of workforce development programming geared toward individuals receiving Supplemental Nutrition…

Background: Overprescribing of off-licence psychotropic medications, particularly antipsychotics, for challenging behaviours in people with intellectual disabilities without a psychiatric disorder is a significant public health concern. In the United Kingdom, the National Health Service England launched an initiative in 2016, 'STopping…

Background: School-based physical activity (PA) programs are an equitable, evidence-based approach to combat health and PA disparities. This study examined factors associated with implementation of BE Physically Active 2Day (BEPA 2.0), a K-5 school-based PA program, and examined how support from Cooperative Extension via Supplemental Nutrition…

The National Youth Sports Strategy (NYSS) is the first federal roadmap to unite the U.S. youth sports system around a shared vision: that one day all youth will have the opportunity, motivation, and access to play sports. Six months after the NYSS launched, the COVID-19 pandemic hit, disrupting the youth sports system. While the benefits of…

Head Start programs engage in multiple practices to support children and families during the transition to kindergarten. Children moving from Head Start to kindergarten often encounter discontinuities between the program and services they were receiving and the new elementary school environment. This paper uses multiple datasets and methods to…

To examine the impact of developmental monitoring on child referrals, a retrospective data review, comparing seven pilot programs with seven matched controls in Special Supplemental Nutrition Programs for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) was completed. Pilot programs were trained on developmental monitoring and how to refer families to their…

The Race to the Top (RTTT) program incentivized states to use innovation for systemwide improvement of student outcomes, but little is known about how RTTT-funded innovation was sustained after the RTTT program ended. This mixed-methods study examined state and district approaches to sustaining an international innovation called "lesson…

Food retailers are key stakeholders in the development, implementation, and effectiveness of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) nutrition pilot programs. Qualitative interviews were conducted to gather insight from food retailers regarding the feasibility of proposed strategies to improve food choices among SNAP participants. Two…

Promoting the Readiness of Minors in Supplemental Security Income (PROMISE), a study of 13,444 randomly assigned youth and their families, includes six model demonstration projects and a technical assistance center funded through the U.S. Department of Education and a national evaluation of the model demonstration projects funded through the…

Background: Federal agencies and other funders seeking to maximise their impact aim to understand factors associated with implementing evidence-based interventions (EBIs) to address health problems. Challenges exist, however, in synthesising information from different disciplines and reaching agreement about these factors due to different…

In response to the global pressure that has led to an increased emphasis on international comparisons of student achievement since the 1980s, multiple federal reforms aimed at producing greater consistency in curricula have been initiated in the United States. The purpose of this study was to examine the feasibility of a national curriculum and…

Canada's research policy over the past three decades has steered national science toward industrial innovation. Yet, the outcomes of this policy orientation are debatable. Macro-level indicators continue to show weak performance in firm innovation, and there is also evidence that this policy stance has had material effects on science at the meso…

The paper analyzes how street-level bureaucrats construct and activate the intersectoral network induced by the implementation of the "Bolsa Família" Program (BFP) in a region of extreme poverty in Brazil. BFP is a federal cash transfer program with conditionalities, benefiting 13.8 million families. Based on the educational…

Research Findings In this study, we examined states' kindergarten entry assessment (KEA) policies between 2011 and 2018 and the possible impact federal funding policies may have had in their implementation. Between 2011 and 2018, 31 states received federal Race to the Top-Early Learning Challenge awards and/or Enhanced Assessment Grants to support…

This article employs event history analysis to explore the factors that were associated with the rapid uptake of teacher evaluation reform. We investigate three hypotheses for this rapid adoption: (a) downward diffusion from the federal government through Race to the Top (RTTT), (b) upward diffusion from large school district policies, and (c) the…