Labradorescence.  That is the word i think of as i consider the voices and concerns of parents.  The Parent workshop at Oakland University provided another glimpse into the world of GEAR UP youth and thier families.  I heard concerns about costs of college, the value of their understanding the college experience, the group/social interaction value of safety (my child is with positive non violent youths and in a safe environment) and their struggles as parents to support their children at home and in the program.  Oh yes, i am a bit of an gem stone enthusiast.  Each gemstone has certain properties that make it something unique.  Labradorite is the stone that captures the essence of the northern lights Aurora Borealis--a beautiful phenomenon that occurs when solar winds cause molecules to collide. The stone itself at times appears gray or just ordinary but when it catches the light there is this mysterious  play of colors.  Our parents for the most part are working class parents who engage in all of the everyday responsibilities of parenting--no limelight or glory.  But when you consider their sacrifice of getting involved and supporting not only their children but wanting all of the youths to succeed--that labradorescense--the show of something wonderful something good. When the young people entered the room for lunch they gave a rousing hand clap and thanked the students for doing the right thing and working hard to succeed.

Quite a lot has been going on!  Great news is that we are still moving forward on the student data base process.  We have communicated with all of the University partners to ensure that the student evaluation reports were correct.  Chris and i had phone meetings with several of the partners to discuss discrepancies and updates;  revisions were made and partners received electronic copy of revised final evaluation report. 

We have added a new team members Asma Peracha, UM grad AmeriCorps VISTA;  already she has added an enthusiasm and creativity to the team.  She did a spectacular job with creating the VISTA newsletter, setting up times for phone meetings so that all of us VISTAs can share and discuss what's going on in our programs. Our other additional team member Paula, has been working on SPSS analysis of the evaluation findings using frequencies regarding programming and service delivery.  In addition she shared her interest in parent involvement and conducted some analysis of parental involvement of  UM AA.

Today Kelli, Chris, Asma and I attended the Saturday academy at Oakland University.  This was their last session.  Parent workshop consisted of  a parent sharing, a presentation by Mrs. Georgi, school counselor/consultant who shared with parents challenges, rewards and strategies to better understand how to support their children and mentors sharing their stories.  Great exchange and powerful stories by parents and the GEAR UP  (new) mentors.  Asma, Kelli and i also set in on one of the student life skills/academics workshop.  The other two sessions were post test for the EXPLORE. All in all it was a good day, rewarding.  We also introduced ourselves to staff , students and parents.  Good conversation with Tiffany (coordinator) and Mr. McCloud ( Director)  and good leadership as was evidenced by the relationship they have with students, parents and mentors.

Wow; its been a bit of a whirlwind.  A number of good things have happened.  The team met with Prof Sue Ann on Dec. 14th to discuss the overall eval experience, next steps and future opportunities.  We all agreed that this model and especially the student work was a job well done.  We then discussed key points and findings for further study/review such as insights into program operation-impact on data collection, promising practices and preparing for the Las Vegas conference. It was exciting to talk about the experience as an innovative approach that we may further explore.

A quick note, we will be adding a special topics student to our team; her name is Paula and she is from Chile.  Prof. Sue Ann will create the syllabus and course;  we will be meeting the student in January to get an idea of her interest, goal and how she may assist with the state wide eval project.

We then set up a meeting schedule for 2013.  Chris and i still need SPSS review and so we will return for a session as part of our follow up data expansion.  Chris and i also set up some times to meet in the remaining part of Dec to start more analysis.  We met over the next two weeks.  Chris created an excel spreadsheet for initial analysis of findings from our U partners;  we did our half and half divide assignment.  I completed inserting the info on the spreadsheet for the U partners i was assigned to.  We had phone and face to face meetings over the holiday about the findings and what to do next.

Met with Chris on Thurs Jan 3rd to discuss prep for team session.  We continued reading the reports from the U  partners we were assigned to review.  Met with all of the team the following Friday.  Dr. Gant reviewed the big picture and what we want to accomplish particularly in the next 6 months.  Chris shared her thoughts on the impact of outcomes by wrap around services.  We all agreed to further research wrap around services etc.  Dr Gant also talked about the creation of a white paper which would include our thoughts on what we are doing--promising practices, wrap around services, mixed methods, innovative practice in evaluation.

Chris and i meet this week to continue our work ...

Chris and i met last week to discuss the newsletter and to discuss how the evaluation process by the SW 683 class went and how thankful we were for what a good job students did.  We agreed to read the reports in preparation for the meeting with Sue Ann & Dr. Gant.  Oh side bar, Chris and i downloaded Skype on my computer however the computer needs a sound card..at least that is what pops up as why sound does not work.  I told her i could download on my Netbook which i did this week--but there was a glitch and now i have to have my tech guy look at it. 

So far i have read 10 of the reports and each demonstrates the similarities, challengers and unique attributes of each program.  A couple of observations College Days, Summer Camps and Tutorial-Mentoring seemed to be the most successful programs.  The latter program service Tutoring -Mentoring is administered in a variety of formats from Sat academies to summer camp relationship building.  Everyone is challenged by parent involvement and data access and collection.

Chris and i also agreed that as a result of the meeting and its outcomes we would have a better handle on what to communicate in the newsletters.  Well that pretty much summarizes the past two weeks.

This has been quite a year.  For the past couple of weeks we have been working with Prof Sue Ann and evaluation class to finalize this part of the process regarding collection of data and writing the data up in reporting forms and templates.  I was reminded of my graduate school days.  What i like about this part of the process in particular was it gave students a real world, real time experience with community based programs and services.  Under Prof. Sue Ann's guidance, students were able to engage service providers and their participants in collecting information to create a student level database.  As a result of the process, they were privy to the challenges in administering community based programs such as lack of adequate resources;  they also saw the successes and creativity of coordinators and service providers who often leveraged their "other hats" and collegial relationships to facilitate program implementation.

We also have an opportunity to talk about best practices. Each student group de-briefed regarding their site visits.  As a result we are getting more idea of best practices and other insights and strategies.  For example, LSSU has a best practice model of mentoring via skype--what a creative use of technology. Prof. Sue Ann also shared the value of students presenting themselves in a professional manner as you never know what might lead to a job!

Next, Prof. Sue Ann briefly shared the rough drafts of ten reports;  students still have more work to do.  Second, while in class completing an evaluation plan seemed redundant and at times intrusive and awkward--too many gray areas so it was scrapped.  However what was critical was that the class and the eval team were able to arrive at this conclusion as a result of the process and at this juncture of assessment.

My next comments are on a wonderful parent workshop hosted by U-M AA team!  Chris, Kelli and i attended.  What a turn out.  That type of turn out is rare.  I shared with the team and Chris that this Southfield group would be a great group for a longitudinal study but we shall see.

And finally also, we have a working draft for the newsletter and upcoming meetings with Prof. Sue Ann, de-briefing and next steps and with the UM AA group in January to discuss next steps as well.

UP site visits were very informative.  Also the journey proved to be equally challenging.  Prior to our visit, we did meet with UP team on Oct. 25th to review final details of visit.  Arrived safely and were up and ready for our first site visit at Northern Michigan University. We were greeted warmly by Shirley and Chris began by asking her to share her background with us and how she came to gear up.  One of the first things i noted from her response was the number of hats she wears and how her academic background--english, business and creative writing, support her current role as director;  she is an office of one plus a student.  She leverages her other roles as coordinator or 4s and future faculty to support services to gear up. We then went on to ask questions using our interview script.  A few observations: (1) challenging relationships with both feeder schools, challenges providing services to students and parent involvement.

For the past weeks Chris and i have been continuing to organize the site visits between UM evaluation class and the University partners. The week ending Oct. 19th we spent in conversation with partners regarding details of the visits and assurance of the overall goal of the visits and the value of student level data.  Chris and I also attended to details for our site visits.  This has been challenging trying to get all of the logistics and facilitating cooperation, looking for opportunities where schedules permitted communication and completing the logic models, U evaluation plan, interviews and visits to feeder schools. Ferris and CMU were the last U partners to finalize details. To further support this process Chris and I visited the UM class and met with students with the latest updates.  Also important Sue Ann reviewed the interview script with myself to ensure that it accurately reflected the key data required for the development of the student level database.  She and i also discussed the creation of an observation form and interview protocol for former gear up students;  all of which is important to the triangulation process. We  hope that students will have an opportunity to do 2 out of 3 of the evaluation aspects of the visit.

Now Chris and I began to work on finalizing details for our UP visit;  we obtained an itinerary from Cody, MTU and Shelley--LSSU.  Shirley NMU was out of the office so we just agreed to go with a tentative plan. Additional calls were made to UP student team regarding availability and their roles; also we discussed skype, conference call plan b details as UP cell reception could be a problem.

We then reviewed the newsletter.  Dr.gant had indicated four areas that the newsletter could cover:  evaluation update, parent involvement, community resources-best practices and community events.