Appendix C: Self-Study Questionnaire Responses

Family Resource Partnership

The "Family Resource Partnership (FRP): Strengthening Services for Children and Families at Risk" proposal was funded under the URI Partnership Program starting January 1, 1999. The 3-year proposal requested funds in the amount of $448,550 to design and initiate a comprehensive evaluation of the Department of Health Early Intervention services, develop recommendations for staff training, and, in year 3, secure funding for the partnership continuity.

The work of the FRP is organized into three teams each focused on one of the partnerships goals of program evaluation, personnel preparation, and grant writing. The Partnership Review Self Study that follows is prepared to document and analyze the accomplishments of the FRP, and to make recommendations for the future of the URI Partnership Program.

1. List the active faculty participating in the Partnership. How has this changed over time?

Active faculty participation is at any one point in time is dependent on faculty interest and Partnership activity, and has evolved over time. The original FRP proposal listed two Departments (HD& FS: 4 faculty & Psych: 2 faculty) as key faculty in the shaping of this project. The number of key faculty has expanded so that Management Team meetings now include representatives from HD&FS (7: Barbara Newman, Jerome Adams, Jerry Schaffran, Diane Horm-Wingerd, Robert Laird, Karen McCurdy, and Phil Newman; PSYCH (2: Janet Kulberg and Paul Demesquita); and Communicative Disorders (2: Dana Kovarsky and Geralyn Timler).

Collaborating faculty originally included representatives, and has changed over time (current members include): PSYCH (2 to 1); COMMUNICATIVE DISORDERS (1 to 3) PHYSICAL THERAPY (2 to 1: Tom Romeo); NURSING (2 to 3: Margaret McGrath, Mary Sullivan and Dayle Joseph); EDUCATION (1 to 2: Joanne Eichinger and John Boulmetis), COOPERATIVE EXTENSION (1 to 1), and the FEINSTEIN CENTER FOR A HUNGER FREE AMERICA (0 to 1: Kathleen Gorman).

In addition, 2 lecturers, numerous graduate students and the project director have become active participants in the Partnership. It has been our experience that new faculty, joining departments, are more likely to have the time and interest in collaborative research projects.

Partnership activities include management team, personnel preparation team, and grantwriting team. Participation in most FRP activities includes faculty, project director, graduate students, parent advocates and community members (state administrators, direct service providers, and parents of children. Community-wide participation is solicited through a quarterly FRP meeting, advertised broadly using the FRP ListServe, the FRP website (www.uri.edu/frp) and press release notices. Faculty, students, and external partners become actively involved dependent on the project under consideration. For example, the Grantwriting Team attracts various faculty members for the particular grant competition under development. A major interest of the FRP grantwriting team is to identify the constructs of empowerment so that personnel preparation programs can prepare direct service providers with the skills necessary to "empower" families to seek and receive the services needed by their children.

2. List the annual number of research papers and presentations made associated with Partnership activities. Do Not list each citation, but just the number of papers or presentations.

The annual number of research papers and presentations associated with FRP activities is increasing over time. For example, the FRP "Families and Change Spring Lecture Series, initiated January, 2001, has expanded the visibility of the partnership to the broader community, and opportunities to increase awareness of the FRP. Presentations and research papers to date include:

Faculty Member	National Presentation	State-Level Presentation	University Presentations	Research Paper	Dissertation, Theses
J. Adams	2	3	7
J. Schaffran	1 - In Progress 1	4		1 - In Progress
J. Kulberg		6	5	2 3 - In Progress	6 - Complete 4 - in Progress
D. Horm-Wingerd				1- In Progress	1- In Progress
B. O'Keefe, Director	1	6			2-In Progress

An additional research activity that should be included in a discussion of FRP research and presentation activity is the work of Janet Kulberg and Diane Horm-Wingerd both who serve as readers for US Department of program competitions. Dr. Kulberg devotes approximately 300 work hours annually to this activity that benefits the FRP grantwriting initiatives, and Dr. Horm-Wingerd devotes approximately 100 work hours annually.

3. What external funding has resulted from Partnership activities? Give examples of any funding that was directly linked to the Partnership.

The FRP has been very active in the pursuit of external funding to support FRP sponsored activities, and to meet the 3rd year goal of self-sustainability:

FRP SELF-SUSTAINABILITY SUBMISSIONS	$AMOUNT	STATUS
FEDERAL COMPETITIONS
1. A. OSERS: Development and Expression of Empowerment in Family Centered Service Delivery	$897,038	Unfunded
B. Resubmitted OSERS	$539,503	Pending
C. Plan to Submit OERI		In process
2. OSERS: The Collaborative Development of a Personnel Preparation Model	$599,303	Unfunded
3. OSERS: Student Initiated Research Proposals (2)	$40,000	Unfunded
4. HHS ACYF: Providence Early Head Start Program	$1,887,316	Unfunded
5. OSERS: Trans-Disciplinary Approach to Personnel Preparation	$899,881	Pending
6. OSERS: Personnel Preparation High Incidence		In preparation
7. DOJ: Strengthening Families to Achieve a Drug Free Community	$340,000	Funding Returned*
STATE CONTRACTS
1. RIDE: Reading Excellence	$ 80,000	Funded
2. SAMSHA: Strengthening Families in Washington County	$192,246	Funding Returned**
3. RI EARLY CHILDHOOD SUMMER INSTITUTE 2000
RIDE:	$ 5,000	Funded
RIDOH:	$ 5,000	Funded
RI Parent Information Network, Head Start Assn	In-Kind Donations, Personnel
Participant Registration	$5,100	Funded
Head Start Association	$ 300	Funded
4. DOH: Early Intervention Professional Development Capacity Building Project (July 1, 2000 - June 30, 2001)	$ 65,341	Funded
5. RI EARLY CHILDHOOD SUMMER INSTITUTE 2001
RIDE:	$10,000	Expected
RIDOH:	$ 5,000	Expected
URI Cooperative Extension	$ 2,000	Expected
RI KIDS COUNT, Head Start, Non-Profit Orgs	In-Kind Donations, Personnel
Participant Registration 50 @ $150	$ 7,500	Expected
6. RIDE: An Even Start in Newport Program Evaluation	$10,173	Unfunded
FOUNDATIONS
1. RI EARLY CHILDHOOD SUMMER INSTITUTE 2001
Mott Foundation Proposal	$45,000	Pending
Carnegie Foundation	$45,000	Pending
2. URI Foundation: Student Initiated Proposal	$ 2,000	Pending
*Funding returned to DOJ: University match required
**Funding returned to SAMSHA: Community partner unable to fulfill obligation
TOTAL	$ 5,678,301

In summary, the FRP has submitted proposal requests for $5.7 million. Pending proposals total $1,529,384 plus $22,100 in expected contributions. At this time, awards-to-date total $692,987 ($532,246 never funded/returned), giving a remaining balance - in-hand external funding totaling $160,741. In addition, negotiations are currently underway to secure additional line-item funding support from the Department of Health

4. Give examples of how the Partnership activities are or will be self-sustaining? For those Partnerships that no longer receive funding from URI, has this objective been met? How? For those Partnerships still receiving URI funding, what is the plan to become self-supporting? For both groups, what is the management plan for self-support?

As evidenced by the organizational structure of the FRP, one of the major goals of the 5-year management plan is to become self-sustaining. This goal is supported by the external funding information provided in Question #3. Additional goals include developing a cost share/time allocation formula for personnel working on externally funded projects. The establishment of cost centers will decrease the amount of URI-funded personnel support, moving personnel costs to the appropriate accounting cost center (i.e. Ledger 5). Finally, the management plan for self-support includes a request to use the carryover funds for one additional year to support the project director and the submission of a indirect cost-share proposal to the Vice-Provost of Research. These initiatives are discussed below.

While the FRP received funding effective January 1, 1999, the Project Director was not hired and on-board until September, 1999. The salaries for the Project Director, the half-time secretary and the office start-up costs have all been funded from the FRP award, as have graduate research assistants, and summer salaries for faculty conducting FRP activities. The half-time secretary (a collaborative position with the Feinstein Center for a Hunger Free America) was not on-board until February 2000. The physical office space in the Shepard Building Providence was not available until January 2000. Prior to that time temporary quarters in Quinn Hall housed the Project Director. At this time there are no charges for physical space or facilities at the Feinstein College of Continuing Education although these charges could occur in the future. The FRP plans to continue the collaboration with the Hunger Center for shared staff support (i.e. secretary).

The growing collaboration with the RI Department of Health Early Intervention project (curriculum development, web-site, needs assessment, and committee support) involves increasing amounts of time from faculty, the Project Director and the graduate research assistants. The proposed renewal of this DoH line item budget ensures that the personnel costs associated with this project will be charged to this account.

The original FRP proposal requested funding in the amount of $448,550. The current account deposit schedule has deposited award funds totaling $409,334 (June, 1999 $187,352; July, 2000 $142,200; and July 2001 $79,782). The FRP has been reassured that the remaining $39,216 would be received. Currently, the carryover from the first year of program operation (approximately $70,000) could be used to fund FRP for one additional year of program operation thus ensuring sufficient time to become self-sustaining. Hopefully, sufficient external funding will be secured in the future to support the administrative functions of the partnership.

The quest for self-sustainability has made the FRP aware of the difficulties of the URI overhead recovery rate, mandatory and voluntary cost sharing. Currently, it is our understanding that indirect costs are apportioned with two-thirds (68.8%) going to various URI accounts and one-third to the College Dean (31.2%). The College Dean can then distribute a potion of the College allotment to the appropriate faculty members. The formation of partnerships - especially across departments - makes this allotment problematic. Further, there is little benefit to the partnerships because distribution of cost recovery is distributed away from the nucleus of research activities. The FRP is preparing a proposal that will include the Partnership in this distribution.

Finally, the long-term plan is to increase the number of state partners and external funding awards to cover the costs of operation. State partners and external awards will be supplemented by collaborative efforts within the university. Three examples include: the collaboration with the Feinstein Center for a Hunger Free America to support a full-time, shared secretary has resulted in benefits to both organizations. The FRP collaborates with the Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program by sharing the copy machine, and the URI Cooperative Extension program donated a computer for use in the shared student work area.

5. How have Partnership activities affected faculty workload? Give examples.

Faculty workload is defined as teaching, research and service activities. FRP faculty have experienced a significant increase in all three of these areas. The original project with the Early Intervention program has required that faculty participate in state and local council/committee meetings, conduct local site visits, and research best practices for Early Intervention programs. The project involves a year-round commitment that is partially compensated by summer salaries. This community outreach project has involved up to four graduate research assistants during the academic year, and this increases the number of supervision hours not only for faculty but also for the project director who has been actively involved in curriculum development and delivery. The aggressive approach to secure external funding has required many hours of research, collaboration and discussion.

Faculty have increased mentoring and supervision hours with students throughout the academic year. For example, Dr. Kulberg conducts weekly 1-hour research seminars to support student interests and development of research projects related to the children, families and communities focus area.

Finally, faculty involved in the personnel preparation activities have an increase in teaching hours during the academic year, and the summer sessions. It is estimated that staff, faculty, and student involvement with FRP related projects involve over 4,000 hours annually. In order to compensate for this increasing load the Partnership has purchased a buy-out for Dr. Schaffran during the fall semester (2000-2001).

6. What new courses have been created from the result of the Partnership? List the enrollment in these courses.

The FRP has been busy in the area of personnel preparation (both in-service and pre-service training) with the design and delivery of several seminars, courses and the RI Early Childhood Summer Institute. Personnel preparation programs are designed to earn URI continuing education units, RIDE professional development units, 3 undergraduate credits or 3 graduate credits depending on the program. Personnel preparation activities include:

Initial Pilot of Early Intervention Training					Enrolled
Family-Centered Practice	3-hr seminar		1/27/00		20
Role of the Service Coordinator	3-hr seminar		2/10/00		21
Assessment, Evaluation & IFSPs	3-hr seminar		2/24/00		16
Interagency Collaboration	3-hr seminar		3/9/00		19
Engaging Families w/Complex Needs	6-hr seminar		2/16/01		In design
The Crafting of the Essential IFSP	6-hr seminar		2/16/01		In design
Phase II: Early Intervention Undergraduate Specialization
HDF 298: Introduction to Early Intervention		9/21/00-12/14/00			16
Phase II: Early Intervention Graduate Specialization
HDF 598: Early Intervention Clinical Supervisors		10/31/00 - Present			10
Phase III: Early Intervention Specialization
HDF 298: Introduction to Early Intervention		2/1/01-4/19/01			30
RI Early Childhood Summer Institute 2000		June 21-26, 2000			34
RI Early Childhood Summer Institute 2001		June 21-June 27, 2001			50
Families and Change Spring Lecture Series
"What are the facts about families?" RI KIDS COUNT				1/24/01	80+
"RI Children: Lead Poisoning & Community Intervention				2/21/01	40+
"Families & Children: The Faces of Hunger in America"				3/22/01	Upcoming
"Community Self-Sustainability: What Does this Mean"				4/19/01	Upcoming
Early Intervention Faculty and Friends Spring Meeting, 40				5/5/00	10
Early Intervention Faculty and Friends Winter Meeting, 25				2/26/01	8

7. How many undergraduate students and how many graduate students have participated in the Partnership? How many of the publications and presentations listed in question 2 have had student co-authors?

Students are involved in the FRP in many ways. Students are encouraged to participate in all FRP meetings and committees (FRP Quarterly Meeting, Management Meetings, Personnel Preparation Team meetings, and Grantwriting Team meetings). Six graduate students have received funding support and participate in FRP projects. Six undergraduate students have/are participated(ing) in EI internships, and have/will receive scholarships. As the undergraduate Early Intervention specialty concentration develops this potential career track can effect up to 250 undergraduate HDF majors. Currently, two graduate students are working with faculty and the project director to prepare two journal articles.

Two graduate students in School Psychology have submitted OSERS Student-Initiated research proposals (February 2000). These proposals were not funded but students reported that they enjoyed the practice to design a grant proposal. One student submitted a grant proposal to support her doctoral dissertation during the 2000-2001 academic year.

The FRP has created a FRP Financial Assistance Program for Graduate Research Projects. Established during the 2000-2001 academic year, this program awards scholarship assistance (up to 5 per year in the amount of $500) to graduate students for research projects covered under the children, families and communities focus area. Two graduate students have applied and received these research awards.

Students involved with the FRP have served as authors, co-authors and presented their research interests. The FRP has sponsored the Early Intervention Faculty and Friends Seminars for over two years. During this time, students, involved in the field of early childhood and the Early Intervention program have presented their research interests.

8. What have student participants done after they have left URI? Give examples, especially highlighting how the Partnership benefited the student.

Due to the short life of the FRP, no students involved with FRP have graduated at this time.

9. What service contributions have arisen from Partnership activities, to the professional community, URI, or to the State of Rhode Island?

Service contributions to the professional community, URI and the State of Rhode Island are numerous, and have been referred to above. There have been several requests to the FRP to help prepare grant proposals to obtain federal funding. The FRP Project Director coordinated and wrote an Early Head Start grant proposal for a collaboration involving Meeting Street Center, Providence Head Start, and Bradley Hospital. Tom Romeo was able to design, coordinate and deliver a signed memorandum of agreement between URI and Meeting Street Center effective February, 2001. He also coordinated a second Memorandum of Agreement between Children's Friend and Service Early Intervention Program and URI (November, 2000).

In the area of personnel preparation, the FRP, in working with the Early Intervention program, follows and adheres to a family-centered philosophy as mandated by IDEA '97. The training model used for all personnel preparation training is designed using parent/professional team for instruction. This model is innovative in the classroom and provides a family-centered perspective so that pre-service and in-service instruction mirrors and applies a family-centered approach when delivering services.

The FRP has attended and maintains a presence at most Early Intervention statewide meetings. The Inter-agency Coordinating Council membership includes a URI faculty member as representative of institutions of higher education. The Partnership has sponsored the Early Intervention Faculty and Friends meetings, featuring the Partnership activities and student achievements. Faculty, project director and graduate students have participated in meetings, seminars, and conferences with the RI Departments of Administration, Health, Education and Special Education, Human Services, and the Children, Youth and Families. Non-profit organizations receiving service benefits, technical support, etc. include the RI Parent Information

Network, the Parent Support Network, South County Community Action Agency and the Even Start in Newport program.

The FRP Personnel Preparation team have been active participants, and have served as the committee support to develop the agenda and activities for the Early Intervention Program Comprehensive System of Personnel Development committee and the Faculty and Friends Quarterly Seminars for the past two years.

Service contributions to URI include the provision of a platform for the development of research proposals that wouldn't have been developed under the traditional framework. The collaborations across departmental lines has increased interdisciplinary learning for faculty and students involved in the project. The FRP activities have raised the visibility of the children, families and communities focus area in terms of research, personnel preparation and policy-making.

10. What does the Partnership need to become more effective?

The FRP would like to have a little more time to become self-sustaining. As can be seen by the work of the FRP - organizational and management, personnel preparation, evaluation and technical assistance, and grantwriting - we have created a framework to match the traditions of our land grant university.

11. What changes to the Partnership program could be made to make it better?

The success of this and other partnerships may in part rest with a commitment to overhead cost recovery as a means to sustain the administrative function of the organization. As partnerships become more self-sustaining the funds generated from this recovery could ensure the successful operation. As noted previously, we are preparing an indirect cost recovery proposal to include the Partnership in the distribution of indirect costs obtained from external funding.

Also, personal experience has shown that recognition by URI of the efforts of faculty towards the development of the FRP is a valid and valuable contribution to tenure and promotion review.

Other infrastructure recommendations include the upgrading of the research accounting system to track all accounts managed by a partnership. Currently, the accounting system is designed on parallel tracks so that a Ledger 5 account has no relationship to a Ledger 3 account. While this may be functional for more traditional organizational design, the partnership model across departments, ledgers, and other state designed systems requires work. Again, the personnel working on a partnership - especially a successful one - need a personnel time management system model. For example, the business community can track a staff member's time by amount of time devoted to a particular project. If a portion of time for a particular faculty member is assigned to a partnership, we then need a system to track amount of time spent on a particular project.

At the present time we share office space and personnel with the Feinstein Center for a Hunger Free America in the Shepard Building. The issue of limited physical space to house the FRP is the same question that each department and/or organization within the university has. Ideally, we would like to have an office space to have a more visible nucleus of activity. Our concern, however, is that soon the FRP may be asked to pay rent ($17.50 sq/ft) for the space occupied at the Shepard Building. Our understanding is that the original negotiations to establish the FRP-Hunger Center collaboration in the Shepard Building was part of a larger plan that did not include a physical space charge. Our space requirements are small at this time - we have space for the project director, a shared secretary cubby, and a student kiosk (shared space for three students, two computers) but the potential for a space fee of approximately $3-4,000 month is daunting.

The URI Partnership program could be improved if infrastructure changes, especially in financial/accounting systems, could be made between Rhode Island state agencies. The FRP experience with a collaboration to write a Department of Education research proposal with the RI Department of Education provides our last example. The grant proposal included an evaluation plan developed and written by a FRP faculty member. When the proposal review notice was received, the reviewer comments mentioned that the evaluation plan was excellent, and indeed, led to the competition award. The evaluation plan enabled the RIDE to be awarded the $4 million project. The RI Department of Administration then disqualified URI to receive the dollar amount for the evaluation plan, and required that the evaluation plan be contracted out for bid. URI subsequently bid on the evaluation plan, and was awarded the contract to conduct the evaluation plan. This process took a large amount of time and effort on the part of the faculty member, and it would seem that improved coordination between state agencies could have avoided this costly extension. While URI many not have control over accounting across state departments, we feel it would be an important infrastructure improvement if the inter-departmental accounting systems across state agencies were streamlined to support collaborations and partnerships.

12. For those Partnerships no longer receiving URI funding: Did the Partnership receive additional funds from the Provost after the initial grant expired to support student activities? How were those funds used?

Non-applicable