School districts are an integral part of the U.S. education system. Every state in the nation guarantees citizens free public education. To ensure all students are served, the states divide their land into school districts intended to provide all students with reasonable access to a school near where they live. These districts exist as units of…

This report provides a detailed account of the Regional Educational Laboratory (REL) Program's experience establishing and supporting research-practice partnerships (called "research alliances") during its 2012-17 contract cycle. The report adds to the growing literature base on researcher-practitioner partnerships by sharing how the…

Background: Within the context of high school student clubs, the acronym "GSA" originally stood for "Gay-Straight Alliance." It described gay and straight youth working as allies to learn about themselves and each other's lives and to navigate and address interpersonal and institutional anti-LGBTQ school policies and practices.…

Several university alliances have been established in Europe in an attempt to influence the development of policies in research and education. As such, these alliances can be seen as being new players in the increasingly complex multi-actor, multi-level governance in this policy domain. The paper compares two key university alliances in Europe; in…

The onset of most mental illness and substance dependency typically occurs during adolescence and early adulthood, which coincides with the very age when the majority of students are first encountering the pressures associated with postsecondary education. An effective and easy-to-navigate mental health-care system for postsecondary students helps…

Therapeutic alliance is often an important aspect of psychotherapy, though it is rarely examined in clients with autism. This study aims to determine the child pre-treatment variables and treatment outcomes associated with early and late alliance in cognitive behaviour therapy targeting emotion regulation for children with autism. Data were…

With the growing acceptance and normalisation of same-sex attraction in the West, scholars from a range of fields have documented a 'post-gay' shift, or a decline in the significance of sexual identity labels among youth. Despite this shift, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer (LGBTIQ) youth continue to experience…

Background: This study examines participant satisfaction and effectiveness of the online mindset intervention 'The Growth Factory' (TGF) for youth with intellectual disabilities using a randomised controlled trial design. Method: Youth with mild to borderline intellectual disabilities (N = 119; 12-23 years) were randomly assigned to TGF (n = 60)…

Therapeutic alliance is associated with treatment outcomes across a diverse range of intervention models and clinical populations. Likewise, the perceived quality of working alliance in adult psychotherapy has been a consistent predictor of engagement, while research with children is limited. This study draws from a sample of 180 children who were…

While clinical engagement is widely considered to be essential to the rehabilitation process, little empirical evidence exists examining the influence of engagement-enhancing practices on clinical performance. This dissertation study sought to evaluate the impact of a set of clinician-driven engagement practices, targeting key affective states,…

E3 Alliance is a regional, data-driven education collaborative based in Austin, Texas. They are helping to build the strongest educational pipeline in the country to drive regional economic prosperity. They are focused on educational systems change, and use data to inform those efforts. Given that their approach to supporting educational…

With growing attention to youth's efforts to address sexual and gender diversity issues in gender-sexuality alliances (GSAs), there remains limited research on adult advisors. Do advisor characteristics predict their youth members' advocacy? Among 58 advisors of 38 GSAs, we considered whether advisor attributes predicted greater advocacy by youth…

The Denver Afterschool Alliance (DAA) is a community collaborative whose mission is to increase access to and participation in quality afterschool programs to keep Denver's youth safe, inspire them to learn and prepare them for the future. It represents a collaboration of many stakeholders, including the City and County of Denver, many…

Supervisee development is integral to counselor training. Despite the general acknowledgement that supervisors adopt different styles when supervising counselor trainees at varying levels, there is a paucity of studies that (a) measure supervisee levels using reliable and valid psychometric instruments, other than a broad categorization of…

As predominantly White institutions (PWIs), independent schools in the United States can alienate students who are either not White or do not possess the cultural capital necessary to navigate those spaces. Scholars have argued that alliance/affinity spaces help students of color acclimate to PWIs and help create a sense of belonging. My work with…