Promoting Civic Engagement in Areas Relevant to Supporting Children and Families

Consistent with priorities for Boise State University, the Family Studies Initiative seeks not just to promote research productivity but also to use family studies to guide the civic engagement of both faculty and students in the surrounding community. BSU President, Bob Kustra, speaks of his "vision for Boise State University as a metropolitan research university of distinction. A Metropolitan university is one that contributes to the life of the community in which it is embedded. Boise State has been, and must continue to be, a university engaged with its community. We must continue to embrace the role that universities play in teaching and practicing civic engagement, that is, engagement in our community, in all areas of our campus life."

The Family Studies Initiative strives to maintain a clear link between family studies and civic engagement, to promote the use of research findings in guiding work in the community.  Cynthia Clark (Department of Nursing) as well as Kara Brascia (Service Learning Program) serve as members of the Advisory Board for the Family Studies Initiative as well as being members of the University Civic Engagement Committee.  In their dual roles, they seek to facilitate connections, working toward initiatives that are mutually beneficial to the two groups.    

Clearly, the more we know about families, the more we understand the importance of working to meet the needs of families in our communities. In addition, family researchers at Boise State University often model civic engagement in their scholarly activity. Also, the Family Studies Initiative seeks to promote civic engagement among Boise State students through specific research and writing programs and through different types of volunteer opportunities in the community (service-learning, internships).

Researchers Modeling Civic Engagement in their Scholarly Activity

In many cases, family-oriented research has important implications or provides guidance for others. For example, research findings with homeless children and families reinforce the importance of focusing on social rejection and aggression problems for anyone involved in developing support programs for children. In other cases, researchers addressing families and family issues at Boise State University conduct research - targeted at a specific group or community -- that is designed to discover specific remedies or provide clear direction for how to improve the lives of children and families. These cases provide compelling examples of how researchers promote civic engagement by modeling it themselves. Examples (with links to research reports) include the following:

  • Dr. Linda Anooshian (Department of Psychology) conducted a needs assessment for HeadStart focused on identifying specific ways in which HeadStart children and their families were affected by economic stresses. The report was used for in-service training for HeadStart staff addressing ways to meet child and family needs related to their economic situations.
     
  • Dr. Linda Anooshian (Department of Psychology) worked with Big Brothers Big Sisters of Southwest Idaho to develop a school mentoring program for homeless and imminently homeless children. She then conducted a study of the effectiveness of that program that, in turn, proved helpful in obtaining additional funding needed for continuation of the program.
     

  • In her work with the Department of Nursing, Cynthia Clark has been involved in a number of programs that promote civic engagement on the Boise State campus.  In addition, she models civic engagement in her teaching (see following section on Service and Learning Opportunities in the Community) and research efforts.  Her research efforts focus on issues which can be major threats to family health – violence and substance abuse.

    In 2001, our Nursing Leadership faculty team demonstrated commitment to Service-Learning and Civic Engagement philosophies by being the first nursing course in our baccalaureate program to incorporate Service-Learning pedagogy into the curriculum. Since then, we have continued to embrace these concepts by promoting service and by encouraging students to become civically engaged to make a difference in our Idaho communities. One example is a project conducted by Dr. Clark and her nursing leadership students in Spring 2006. Senior nursing students (Nancy Hunt, Jayne Josephson, Jodi Oliver, and Becky Swainston) collaborated with school nurse, Betsy Howard RN, BSN to lead a Childhood Wellness and Nutrition Project at Chaparral Elementary School in Meridian, Idaho. The project included compiling health data and teaching healthy life skills and sound nutrition to elementary school children. The project also included acquiring two grants for fitness equipment and a fitness trail for the school. A $20,000 grant funded by Laura Moore Cunningham Foundation will pay for new playground equipment and a new fitness trail-- ground-breaking for these initiatives occurred winter 2007. in Las Vegas.    

    Dr. Tedd McDonald (Community and Environmental Health) regularly involves students in projects designed to improve specific aspects of family health in Idaho’s communities.  For example, projects have focused on neighborhood health and life quality, barriers to escaping poverty, and quality of life for homebound seniors

Resident perceptions as a function of neighborhood socioeconomic status.   

Factors influencing neighborhood quality of life in a city-wide sample.

Barriers to escaping poverty:  A qualitative analysis.

Seniors’ life perceptions: active and homebound seniors.

Research and Writing Programs within the Family Studies Initiative

In programs focused on the classroom, the Family Studies Initiative maintains two programs focused on encouraging students to think and write about the practical significance of specific research findings - including their value for community programs -- for children and families:

Service and Learning Opportunities in the Community

In the classroom: Using Service Learning to facilitate students' understanding of research findings through hands-on experiences in the community.

Numerous members of the Advisory Board for the Family Studies Initiative (Robin Allen, Linda Anooshian, Cynthia Clark, Lisa McClain, Mary Pritchard) have been actively involved in incorporating service learning into their courses. For example, Cynthia Clark has designed a number of service-learning options for the Nursing Leadership & Management class.  Two of those options are directly relevant to supporting families with children (with projects focused on preventing substance abuse and suicide).

The Family Studies Initiative provides a forum for discussions about how connections between teaching (for example, about family research) and community service can improve both academic learning and civic engagement.

The following summary from the Boise State University web site for Service Learning captures the connections among research, teaching, and civic engagement:

  • "Service-Learning is practiced at over 700 universities and by over two million college students nationwide. Service-learning enhances learning and fosters civic responsibility through active involvement in academically-based community service. ... Faculty often find that Service-Learning refuels and invigorates their teaching, their community connections, and their research agenda."

Many of the approved sites for Service Learning involve work with children and/or families.

Linking with the community with internships

Like community sites for Service Learning, many of the sites for student internships provide opportunities to improve the lives of children and families.

Internships in Civic Engagement

The Department of Psychology has developed Internships in Civic Engagement. Interns in this program are involved in provided advising support for faculty and students, including advising about opportunities to become engaged in the campus and community. Interns also work in the community to develop and/or monitor service learning, community-based internships, and other volunteer activities of BSU students. With the active involvement of psychology faculty in the Family Studies Initiative, a significant component of the activities of Interns in Civic Engagement will focus on families (e.g., in developing volunteer sites for students).

 

Awards in Civic Engagement

The Family Studies Initiative has begun a program of Awards in Civic Engagement that recognizes students who have played significant leadership roles in the classroom in ways that promote civic engagement among BSU students, have participated in specific programs at BSU with a primary goal of expanding civic engagement, and have contributed to specific programs associated with civic engagement within the Family Studies Initiative (e.g., student writing programs).  Recent recipients include BSU students shown in the photograph above:  Carrie Carmody (second from left), David McLenna (right), Taryn Nenow (left), and Keri Smith (second from right).

 

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