Empirically Based University-School-Community Partnership Framework for the Provision of School-Based Extracurricular Academic, Social, and Skill-Building Youth Development Programming; and Evidence-Based Practice-Linked Performing Arts Youth Development Music Education Intervention Model For Improved School-Community and Student Outcomes

Transforming and Renewing School-Communities: Population Health Equity and Disease Prevention Framework For Promoting Developmental Health, Economic and Social Justice

Anthony M. Provenzano, MSCR, MSW, MPA, Michael Spencer, PhD, Michael Hopkins, PhD, John Ellis, PhD, Sue Ann Savas, MSW, and Catherine Reishcl, PhD

Institutional and Public Opinion • Renewed and transformed an underperforming low-income culturally diverse

school-community.• Facilitated cultural sensitivity, positive organizational and cultural shifts• Mitigated inequitable and discriminatory policies and practices to reduce

economic, educational, developmental health, and social disparities.• Established a platform for school and civic engagement.• Delivered promotive and protective factors.• Improved economic, educational, developmental health, and social student

outcomes.

Academic-School-Community Partnership • Provided a framework for collaborative partnership development, sustainability and

school-community renewal.• Established an institutionalized structure for multidisciplinary research.• Formed a capacity building process for interdisciplinary multisystemic integrated

approaches for the provision of health promotion, youth development, and prevention programming.

• Created a process for facilitating information sharing and co-learning among key stakeholders across disciplines to collectively plan, design, and evaluate a health promoting youth development prevention program.

• Generated protocols for strategically assessing, planning, and designing a practice linked performing arts youth developmental program for cultural relevancy at the population level.

School-Community Environment • Supported collective and individual identify formation.• Facilitated social and skill-building youth development.• Empowered students learning activation and achievement.• Engendered school pride and broader community recognition.• Fostered civic engagement and community volunteerism. • Informed policy and evidence-based decision making to support equitable and anti-

discriminatory policies and practices.

Pre-post interviews with research investigators, instructors, and principal

Pre and post questionnaire/focus group with students and family members

Video recording of music instruction & concert performances

Data extraction of official school records

• Small sample size exist in the research design• Threats of maturation exist with this elementary school program• Subsequent study will incorporate nonequivalent control group design

Measurements

Multi-Level Results

Limitations and Next Steps

Building School-Community Capacity For Population Health Equity and Prevention Science: Framework For Promoting Developmental Health, Economic and Social Justice

Transforming and Renewing School-Communities (TRSC) is a public health prevention framework for school-communities to evaluate health inequities and institutionalized discriminatory policies and practices that perpetuate economic, educational, developmental health and social injustices. Performing Arts Youth Development (PAYD-ME) Music Education Intervention Pilot Program was designed using the TSRC framework to deliver the mediating mechanisms of developmental health associated with school connectedness: identity formation, peer membership, caring adult support, commitment to education and school climate.

Acknowledgements

Transforming and Renewing School Communities is an essential multidisciplinary population health equityframework and integrated health promoting youth development and disease prevention approach that maximizesresource allocation and fosters innovative university-public agency-partnership development across theeducation, health, and human service systems.• TRSC proved efficacious in building school-community capacity for the provision of extracurricular academic, social and

skill-building youth development programming.• TRSC was highly successful in in combatting antiquated political views, spurious public opinions, denigrating cultural

norms and beliefs, and institutionalized discriminatory policies and practices.• The TRSC framework also provided the necessary structure and CBPR research methods to effectively in engage

students, families, school faculty, and other key stakeholders in developing a culturally relevant prevention program.• In applying the TRSC framework the PAYD-ME pilot program was effective in bolstering school-community organizational

capacity, co-learning and research knowledge critical for targeting the specific cultural and learning needs of this low-income, racially and ethnically diverse community.

• Through an evaluation of the PAYD-ME pilot program the researchers revealed what intervention components wereassociated with the mediating mechanisms developmental health recognized in the literature to effectively measure andimprove school connectedness, promote healthy development, youth empowerment, student learning activation andacademic achievement.

BackgroundIn the United States economic and social inequities combined with increasing academicand developmental health disparities among racially, ethnically, and linguistically diverselow-income communities have increased exponentially over the last several decades.Institutionalized discriminatory policies and practices, and a multitude of economic,political, and social factors have fashioned an inequitable division of high-qualityeducation and structured extracurricular academic, youth development, social and lifeskill-building learning opportunities.

Consequently, low-income urban and culturally diverse school-communities are currentlyinundated by the deleterious developmental health effects of a disproportionate rate ofinadequately resourced and academically underperforming schools. Furthermore, theseschool-communities have student populations with the highest risk for adverse economic,developmental health, social, and educational student outcomes.

The U.S. public education system warrants major reform to eradicate theses increasingdisparities that exist among our Nation’s most vulnerable, exploited, marginalized, low-income, racially and ethnically diverse communities and populations. Systematicintegrated public health response strategies and health promoting, culturally relevantcommunity-driven interventions delivered at the population level are necessary to addressthe developmental health, educational, economic and social inequities that exist amongthe United States’ most vulnerable school-communities.

MethodologyIn a multi-level case study analysis of the Transforming and Renewing SchoolCommunities framework this research examines the efficacy of the TRSC model inbuilding capacity for the provision of health promoting, youth development, andprevention programming. Methods in Community-Based Participatory Research wereused to organize and include interdisciplinary key stakeholders, school faculty, families,and students from the school-community in the utilization-focused evaluation for whichthe researchers incorporated both qualitative and quantitative data collection to: i) assessthe efficacy of TRSC framework; and ii) measure the impact of the Performing ArtsYouth Development-Music Education (PAYD-ME) health promotion and preventionprogram.

The PAYD-ME pilot program was modeled after a Venezuelan ensemble-based orchestralmusic education and social experiment. Through a quasi-experimental two-year singlegroup pretest-posttest study design (n=40) this pilot study evaluated the multi-levelcontextual outcomes of the TRSC framework when implementing a Health PromotingYouth Development and Prevention Program to low-income culturally diverse community.

• Academic-School-Community Partnership model• Adapted El Sistema Inspired Venezuelan Music model• Community-Based Participatory Research approach• Multi-level case study design• Utilization-Focused formative and outcome evaluation• Mixed quantitative and qualitative methods• Quasi-experimental single group pretest-posttest pilot design [2 Student Cohorts]• Recruitment: 40 self-selected students to receive extracurricular string instruction

Student pre and post program surveys: • Student Attitudes Towards School (Anderson)• Student Satisfaction with Life Survey (Gadermann)• Student Conflict Behavior (Kammrath & Dweck)• Student Parent Involvement Survey (Zdinski)• Student Self-Esteem of Musical Ability Survey (Schmitt) Funding sources: Third Century Initiative Grants, School Music Theatre, Dance, School of Social

Work, and School of Education, Jerry and Helga Bilik, and the Birge Family

Student Outcomes [Hopkins. M., Provenzano, A., Spencer, M., & Ellis, J., In Press]• Students experienced high levels of musical academic achievement, increased

opportunities for learning.• Students experienced increased self esteem (p < .05).• Students showed positive Improvement in the way they felt about school (p < .05).• Students’ feelings of acceptance from family members, teachers, and peers improved

significantly (p < .05).

Discussion and Conclusions