Congratulations to Drs. Michael Scheel and Gina Kunz on their recent award from the Woods Charitable Fund to support the “Building Bridges through Relationships” high school dropout prevention program. The prevention program offers at-risk students a fresh start in high school with support to reverse trends that would eventually lead to dropping out of high school. Dr. Scheel and his students work closely with school counselors at each school to provide collaborative and integrated services to the students. The program is designed to support increases in student psychological engagement to school, resulting in progress toward graduation for students transitioning from middle school to high school identified as at risk for dropping out. Under Dr. Scheel’s direction, this program has been implemented in Lincoln Northeast High School for the past four years. With additional funding from the Woods Charitable Fund, this program will continue at Lincoln Northeast, be extended to North Star High School, and provide pilot data to inform a larger study in the future.

The Nebraska Center for Research on Children, Youth, Families and Schools extended the gift of creativity to impoverished children, families, and schools in and around Nebraska during the 2009 holiday season.  The importance of creative experiences in children’s lives is well understood. Unfortunately, many children living in low-income conditions have no materials in their homes and few in their classrooms.  As a result, direct access to colors, paints, and other such materials is extremely limited for these impoverished and disadvantaged children. The result is an ever-widening gap between those who are privileged with the basic tools to survive and thrive in life, and those who are not as privileged. Thus, during the month of December, we collected virtually hundreds of new children’s art supplies from our faculty and student affiliates, colleagues, and other friends and partners across all aspects of the UNL campus and community constituents.

On December 16, the art supplies were delivered to St. Patricks Grade School, Riley Elementary School, Zeman Elementary English Language Learners Program, and the Head Start classrooms in Grand Island that are part of Head Start Child and Family Development, Inc. Each school determined how the art supplies would be distributed to families, and some select items were retained in classrooms to enhance the arts education provided to students. School principals, art teachers, and other staff were delighted and amazed at the amount of arts supplies given to their schools.

CYFS faculty and staff were genuinely moved by the selfless generosity shown by the UNL campus and our off-campus friends and colleagues, supporting our effort to make the holidays more colorful and enjoyable for children and families in Lincoln and Grand Island. This joyous event in 2009 marks the third year CYFS has coordinated donations to area schools. We are extremely appreciative to all those who helped us make this holiday season more special to families in need. We are privileged to have you as friends.

This nearly $10,000,000, 5-year grant from the U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences (IES), is under the direction of Drs. Susan M. Sheridan (PI and Center Director), Todd Glover, Gwen Nugent, Gina Kunz, and Jim Bovaird. Beginning July 1, 2009, the R²Ed Center will conduct cutting-edge rural education research. Ultimately, it aims to improve rural student learning in reading, science and math. It will do so by identifying how best to provide ongoing professional development to assist teachers in delivery of effective instructional strategies that produce the greatest outcomes for rural students. Research on rural education is limited, and the Center will provide the infrastructure, leadership and expertise to focus on unique rural needs.

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National Institutes of Health (NIH) is restructuring and shortening applications submitted for Fiscal Year 2011 funding (effective for all applications with due dates on or after January 25, 2010). Noteworthy changes include new forms, page limits, research plan criteria, biosketches, resources, and other important features of applications. All competing applications, including resubmissions, must use the new forms and adhere to new page limits and instructions. More details can be found at the NIH website:
http://enhancing-peer-review.nih.gov/
restructured_applications.html

• Policy Announcement
• Table of Page Limits
• Details of Application Changes

CYFS highlighted in the 2009 Research Fair Video
The Annie E. Casey Foundation 2009 Kids Count Data Book Now Available