Practicum Summer 2016/ Cooking Matters, 4 openings
BUSPH Summer 2016 Cooking Matters Practicum at the Blackstone Community Center
$1500 STIPEND AVAILABLE
IF INTERESTED, PLEASE APPLY ASAP TO PROF. DAN MERRIGAN (Merrigan@bu.edu)
Background:
The Blackstone Community Center (BCC) is part of the Boston Center for Youth & Families (BCYF) network whose mission is to enhance the quality of life of Boston’s residents by partnering with various organizations, including Boston University, to offer a wide range of comprehensive programs and activities according to neighborhoods needs and interests. Boston University has partnered with the BCC, has made a financial investment and is committed to providing excellent health and wellness programs to the South End. The Boston University Fitness and Wellness Center at BCYF Blackstone is staffed exclusively by Boston University fitness personnel. The Cooking Matters health promotion initiative, directed by BU faculty, complements the BU Fitness and Wellness Center.
The Blackstone Committee identified three broad questions related to the larger BU/BCC partnership:
1. How to expand the program to engage more BU students?
2. How to sustain the program/partnership over time?
3. How to package and disseminate the program to more venues (E.g. other BCYF settings, etc.)?
With these questions as context, the Blackstone Committee agreed that a practicum opportunity associated with Cooking Matters be created that would enable students to:
A. Develop skills in program implementation
B. Demonstrate formative and process evaluation skills
C. Identify factors and make recommendations that will contribute to the sustainability of Cooking Matters with potential relevance to other BU/BCC programmatic activities.
Practicum Description:
This practicum will provide qualified students*(must have completed SB822, Evaluation Research) a collaborative community-based learning experience at the Blackstone Community Center (BCC) in Boston’s South End neighborhood. Working as a team (#4), BUSPH students will partially fulfill their practicum requirements by participating in an exciting practicum that will include the following components:
1) Train-the-trainer instruction that will provide the knowledge and skills required to conduct 5 one-hour cooking instructions with a group of adolescents youth members of the BCC;
2) Opportunity to conduct a program formative and process evaluation that will inform effective future and on-going Cooking Matters program implementation;
3) Instruction (both face-to-face augmented with on-line resources) regarding strategies to ascertain Cooking Matters and broader BU/BCC partnership sustainability;
4) Opportunity to conduct a sustainability assessment and to formulate recommendations to BU/BCC leadership.
In addition, this practicum will increase the following practice competencies:
• Inter-disciplinary and organization collaboration
• Cross-disciplinary teamwork for results
• Community-based engagement with diverse stakeholders
• Capacity to work with and incorporate perspectives of diverse groups
• Program formative, process evaluation and sustainability capacity assessment data collection
o Focus group development and implementation
o Key informant protocol development and implementation
o Implementation of an existing web-based sustainability assessment instrument
• Interpretation and formulation of recommendations from data
• Oral communication and presentation skills to community stakeholders
Practicum Deliverables:
The team will generate a written report and deliver an oral debrief/ report to the BU/BCC partnership leadership that includes a summary of methods, findings and recommendations that will contribute to improved program implementation, partnership sustainability and positive community impact.
IF INTERESTED, PLEASE APPLY ASAP TO PROF. DAN MERRIGAN (Merrigan@bu.edu)
