examples of current projects ...

Community Intervention for Health (CIH)

CIH is a multinational chronic disease intervention project focused on targeting the 3 leading risk facors (tobacco use, unhealthy diet and physical inactivity) for chronic diseases.The inventions will take place across multiple settings (health centres, schools, workplaces, and neighborhoods). The 3 main components that are integral to the design of the interventions include:

• building community coalitions
• providing health and education
• focusing on structural changes

The pilot project will take place at 8 sites in 7 countries and include:

• China
• India (Delhi and Kerala)
• Tunisia
• Mexico
• Argentina
• Israel
• UK (Leicester)

Please visit http://www.oxha.org/initiatives/cih for more information about the project.

Connecticut Adolescent Substance Abuse Coordination Project (CASAC)

CASAC is a statewide project to improve adolescent substance abuse treatment services. Famlies are importan partners in the is improvement process.

Website CTASU. Accessing resources and information concerning alcohol or drug use for yourself or a young family member can be a daunting task. The goal of this site is to provide Connecticut teens, parents/caregivers, and professionals easy access t othe latest information and resources about drug and alcohol abuse and avaible treatment services for youth.

CTASU.org is also a place where parents, teens, and/or professionals can talk amoungst themselves about their concerns.

Please take a moment to examine the recent publication: Blueprint for Change: Bringing Famlies into Connecticut's Adolescent Substance Abuse Treatment System.

Community Foundation of Greater New Haven - Child Outcomes Tracking Initiative - COTI

A three-year project that focuses on gathering and sharing important information with 250 families with children between the ages of 6 months to 3 years with the purpose of ensuring that children are ready for school. The COTI is based on an ecological model of child learning and development, embracing the concept of the parent as the child's first teacher. The goal of COTI is to empower parents with knowledge and information through the use of Family Partners (community residents trained to assist parents) so that they have the necessary tools to prepare their children for kindergarten.

SAMHSA Drug Free Communities Support Program

MATRIX serves as the local evaluator for multiple DFC projects seeking to reduce youth substance use and abuse. In this capacity we work with funded organizations to develop data tracking and monitoring tools, provide technical assistance on evidence-based prevention practices, conduct focus groups and surveys to determine the prevalence of substance use and related risk factors, and provide guidance as to next steps.

Positive Youth Development – Research to Practice

The Department of Children and Families in the state of Connecticut is funding several evidence-based youth prevention practices across the state. MATRIX is serving as the evaluator of this longitudinal initiative, conducting both process and outcome evaluation activities.

Community Foundation for Greater New Haven - Parents and Communities for Kids (PACK)

Parents and Communities for Kids is a unique out-of-school learning project involving arts and cultural institutions. The three year evaluation project involves working with an Advisory Board, Consortium of PACK affiliated organizations, social marketing team, and a family cohort. The theory of change predicts that if families are provided with engaging, enriching, out of school learning opportunities, that over time children's learning in school will improve.

Casa Blanca Health Study

A community-wide health assessment was conducted in Casa Blanca, a largely Hispanic community within the City of Riverside California, with the purpose of determining whether environmental exposures were leading to ill health effects among residents. Community residents participated in the study by helping design the health survey and by assisting residents in completing the survey.

HUD Bridgeport Lead Free Families

The City of Bridgeport was awarded a federal Housing and Urban Development (HUD) project to reduce household lead. MATRIX serves as the local evaluator on this lead hazard control project targeting low-income families in Bridgeport.

Leever Foundation Seniors Project

In partnership with the Community Foundation of Waterbury and the Leever Foundation, MATRIX conducted a needs assessment project examining services for seniors in Bethlehem CT, comparing it to services in other towns within the area.

 

 

Intern Spotlights....

Frances Silva graduated from Quinnipiac College and interned with MATRIX during 2006. Frances was one of many MATRIX interns who was interested in a career in public health and is currently in an MPH program at Columbia University. Frances was instrumental in translating surveys and conducting interviews in Spanish, as well as working on the Child Outcomes Tracking Initiative, Parents and Communities for Kids, and the Rockefeller Foundation funded V Day Stop the Violence in NYC projects. She became our resident expert in SNAP survey software, and created a training toolkit for incoming interns.

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Kumba Hinds interned with us for over a year while a senior at Yale where she focused on a degree in History of Science, History of Medicine and International Studies. She is currently an MPH student at the Yale School of Public Health. She began her internship with MATRIX in October 2005. and worked on several projects including Parents and Communities for Kids, Child Outcomes Tracking Initiative, and the Rockefeller Foundation funded V Day Stop the Violence in NYC projects. Kumba has worked closely with African Advocates Against AIDS developing proposals and planning community events.