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2010-02-01
Feeding America (formerly America's Second Harvest);
This report presents information on the clients and agencies served by the Community Food Bank. The information is drawn from a national study, Hunger in America 2006, conducted for America's Second Harvest (A2H), the nation's largest organization of emergency food providers. The national study is based on completed in-person interviews with more than 52,000 clients served by the A2H food bank network, as well as on completed questionnaires from more than 30,000 A2H agencies. The study summarized below focuses mainly on emergency food providers and their clients who are supplied with food by food banks in the A2H network.Key Findings: The A2H system served by the Community Food Bank provides food for an estimated 169,400 different people annually.38% of the members of client households served by the Community Food Bank are children under 18 years old (Table 5.3.2).44% of client households include at least one employed adult (Table 5.7.1).Among client households with children, 91% are food insecure and 40% are experiencing hunger (Table 6.1.1).47% of clients served by the Community Food Bank report having to choose between paying for food and paying for utilities or heating fuel (Table 6.5.1).26% had to choose between paying for food and paying for medicine or medical care (Table 6.5.1).38% of households served by the Community Food Bank report having at least one household member in poor health (Table 8.1.1)The Community Food Bank included approximately 163 agencies at the administration of this survey, of which 69 have responded to the agency survey. Of the responding agencies, 59 had at least one food pantry, soup kitchen, or shelter.65% of pantries, 76% of kitchens, and 36% of shelters are run by faith-based agencies affiliated with churches, mosques, synagogues, and other religious organizations (Table 10.6.1).67% of pantries, 63% of kitchens, and 50% of shelters of the Community Food Bank reported that there had been an increase since 2001 in the number of clients who come to their emergency food program sites (Table 10.8.1).Food banks are by far the single most important source of food for the agencies, accounting for 81% of the food used by pantries, 6% of kitchens' food, and 28% of shelters' food (Table 13.1.1).For the Community Food Bank, 98% of pantries, 81% of kitchens, and 100% of shelters use volunteers (Table 13.2.1).
2012-12-01
California HealthCare Foundation;
CHCF is updating a series of market studies in six areas: Fresno, Los Angeles, Riverside/San Bernardino, Sacramento, San Diego, and the San Francisco Bay Area. These regional market reports highlight variations in health care affordability, access, and quality of care across the state. The reports are published as part of the CHCF California Health Care Almanac, an online clearinghouse for key data and analysis examining California's medical system.Key findings from the Fresno issue brief include:Five providers give the majority of hospital care across the region, with one playing a pivotal safety-net role. Health maintenance organizations (HMOs) continue to have a weak presence, with preferred provider organizations (PPOs) as the dominant model. Fresno trails other areas in preparing for coverage expansions under health reform.Most of the region's hospitals survived the poor economy, maintaining or improving operating margins. Still, they face mounting financial pressures from rising Medi-Cal enrollment and high rates of uninsured, which have strained provider capacity. Hospitals are increasing capacity of inpatient beds and services to compete aggressively for commercially insured patients.Fresno hospitals face strong competition with federally qualified health centers (FQHCs) and hospital-operated rural health clinics (RHCs) for physicians, who remain rooted in independent practices and show little interest in alignment.
2019-07-29
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation;
Integrated Planning and Advising for Student Success (iPASS) is an initiative funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to support colleges that seek to incorporate technology into their advising and student services. In iPASS, such technology is intended to increase advising's emphasis on a student's entire college experience, enabling advisers to more easily (1) intervene when students show early warning signs of academic and nonacademic challenges, (2) regularly follow up as students progress through college, (3) refer students to tutoring and other support services when needed, and (4) provide personalized guidance that reflects students' unique needs.To study how technology can support advising redesign, MDRC and the Community College Research Center partnered with three institutions already implementing iPASS: California State University, Fresno; Montgomery County Community College; and the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. The three institutions increased the emphasis on providing timely support, boosted their use of advising technologies, and used administrative and communication strategies to increase student contact with advisers. The enhancements at all three institutions are being evaluated using a randomized controlled trial research design.This report shows that the enhancements generally produced only a modestly different experience for students in the program group compared with students in the control group, although at one college, the enhancements did substantially increase the number of students who had contact with an adviser. Consequently, it is not surprising that the enhancements have so far had no discernible positive effects on students' academic performance. The findings also highlight the potential for unintended consequences. Before the study, each of the institutions had required that certain groups of students see an adviser before registering for classes in the next semester. Each institution expanded this preregistration requirement to include all students in the study's program groups, but at one institution, the requirement appears to have contributed to a small reduction in earned credits.
2020-08-01
WestEd;
Educators and policymakers across the United States recognize a growing urgency to improve the nation's systems of teacher preparation. Ensuring that teachers stay and thrive in the profession depends largely on having system-wide policies and practices in place that address teacher shortages, promote equity and excellence, and cultivate expertise, diversity, and more.The California State University (CSU) system partnered with the S.D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation to launch the New Generation of Educators Initiative (NGEI), in an effort to transform the nature and quality of teacher preparation at both individual CSU campuses and across the CSU system as a whole. To answer the question, "What does it take to transform teacher education?" WestEd and SRI International conducted an evaluation to examine and share learnings about the CSU-led effort to implement large-scale clinically oriented teacher preparation reform.As part of a series of new evaluation reports that explore key transformational elements of effective teacher preparation programs, this paper reviews the evolution of a system of support for NGEI campuses that included targeted grant requirements, coaching and technical assistance, and a learning community to help partnerships share problems of practice. The following levers supported NGEI campuses to undergo rapid transformation, while implementing reforms in systematic, sustainable, and context-specific ways:Lever 1: Balance grant requirements with flexibility and responsive supportLever 2: Customize technical assistance support to meet partnership needsLever 3: Embed opportunities for cross-networked learning and collaboration
2020-04-01
California State University System;
The focus of the New Generation of Educators Initiative (NGEI) was to answer the question "What would it take to transform teacher education?" From 2016 to 2019, with support from the S. D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation, teacher education programs at 10 California State University (CSU) campuses partnered with local school districts to design and demonstrate innovative practices that could transform teacher preparation. This report documents the learnings from multiple participants in this transformative work, including Foundation program staff and representatives from partnerships between universities and school districts.
2020-08-01
WestEd;
Educators and policymakers across the United States recognize a growing urgency to improve the nation's systems of teacher preparation. Ensuring that teachers stay and thrive in the profession depends largely on having system-wide policies and practices in place that address teacher shortages, promote equity and excellence, and cultivate expertise, diversity, and more.The California State University (CSU) system partnered with the S.D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation to launch the New Generation of Educators Initiative (NGEI), in an effort to transform the nature and quality of teacher preparation at both individual CSU campuses and across the CSU system as a whole. To answer the question, "What does it take to transform teacher education?" WestEd and SRI International conducted an evaluation to examine and share learnings about the CSU-led effort to implement large-scale clinically oriented teacher preparation reform.As part of a series of new evaluation reports that explore key transformational elements of effective teacher preparation programs, this paper addresses how programs can expand their capacity to use data for continuous improvement through the following levers:Lever 1: Develop data sources that can inform improvement effortsLever 2: Delineate clear roles to support continuous improvementLever 3: Build an infrastructure for efficient data entry and analysisLever 4: Establish a culture of improvement through routines for data review and use
2020-08-01
WestEd;
Educators and policymakers across the United States recognize a growing urgency to improve the nation's systems of teacher preparation. Ensuring that teachers stay and thrive in the profession depends largely on having system-wide policies and practices in place that address teacher shortages, promote equity and excellence, and cultivate expertise, diversity, and more.The California State University (CSU) system partnered with the S.D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation to launch the New Generation of Educators Initiative (NGEI), in an effort to transform the nature and quality of teacher preparation at both individual CSU campuses and across the CSU system as a whole. To answer the question, "What does it take to transform teacher education?" WestEd and SRI International conducted an evaluation to examine and share learnings about the CSU-led effort to implement large-scale clinically oriented teacher preparation reform.As part of a series of new evaluation reports that explore key transformational elements of effective teacher preparation programs, this paper identifies key levers to put high-quality clinical experience - that is, the opportunity to practice the work of teaching in classrooms - at the center of teacher preparation. Findings in this report explore the following high-leverage strategies to strengthen the clinical orientation of teacher preparation programs:Lever 1: Identify prioritized skillsLever 2: Select or create a rubric to assess candidate proficiency with prioritized skillsLever 3: Integrate and expand opportunities to practice prioritized skillsLever 4: Re-conceptualize clinical roles, selection, and supportLever 5: Define and implement processes to provide formative feedback to candidates on prioritized skills
2020-08-01
WestEd;
Educators and policymakers across the United States recognize a growing urgency to improve the nation's systems of teacher preparation. Ensuring that teachers stay and thrive in the profession depends largely on having system-wide policies and practices in place that address teacher shortages, promote equity and excellence, and cultivate expertise, diversity, and more.The California State University (CSU) system partnered with the S.D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation to launch the New Generation of Educators Initiative (NGEI), in an effort to transform the nature and quality of teacher preparation at both individual CSU campuses and across the CSU system as a whole. To answer the question, "What does it take to transform teacher education?" WestEd and SRI International conducted an evaluation to examine and share learnings about the CSU-led effort to implement large-scale clinically oriented teacher preparation reform.As part of a series of new evaluation reports that explore key transformational elements of effective teacher preparation programs, this paper describes how participating CSU campuses and their partner school districts strengthened their relationships and developed strategic partnerships to establish the necessary foundations for high-quality, clinically oriented programming.This paper identifies four levers that can be operationalized in order to sustain strong partnerships between stakeholders:Lever 1: Create and operationalize a shared visionLever 2: Identify key rolesLever 3: Ensure space and time to collaborateLever 4: Share data to identify needs and monitor progress
2018-07-01
FSG;
Among Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries, the United States ranks near the bottom in infant mortality rates. This is particularly perilous for black babies in the U.S., who are more than twice as likely to die before their first birthday as a white baby. In addition to the medical care and access a woman and baby receive, these poor outcomes are also driven by social determinants of health—non-clinical factors such as social, educational, environmental, and economic opportunities that affect a woman's overall health and wellbeing. This multi-faceted challenge requires a multi-faceted approach.Cross-sector collaborations offer a way forward in their ability to direct multiple actors and interventions toward the same goal. In this report, we highlight lessons learned from two of our birth outcomes projects in Fresno County, California, and Staten Island, New York, to offer others insights into paths to success and challenges to be aware of when seeking to address birth outcomes through such collaborations.
2020-01-01
S. D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation;
Through the New Generation of Educators Initiative, the S. D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation invested more than $20 million across six years, 2014 to 2019, to support high-quality preparation for new teachers in California. This preparation included a focus on instruction aligned to the state's new academic standards for math and science.The Foundation directed its investment to the California State University (CSU). The CSU system comprises 23 campuses that collectively prepare more than 50 percent of the state's teacher workforce for K-12 education -- and about 10 percent of the nation's teachers.The overarching goal was to demonstrate improved practices that prepare new teachers for success on their first day in the classroom, to scale and sustain these improvements across the CSU system, and to inform and influence the approaches used by other teacher preparation program providers as well as funders and policymakers supporting their efforts.
2017-11-02
Woodstock Institute;
The report examines the state of traditional bank small business lending in Fresno County, CA, and Minneapolis - St. Paul, MN. It offers policy and practice recommendations concerning the noted disparities in lending to businesses in low- and moderate-income neighborhoods and in communities of color. It is the fourth, and final, in a series of research reports examining small business owners' access to capital in eight major metropolitan areas.
1999-12-31
James Irvine Foundation;
Examines how Irvine's initiative to strengthen the management and organizational capacities of youth-serving nonprofits in Fresno and Los Angeles changed budgets, staff, numbers served, funding sources, and practices. Discusses the role of intermediaries.
