AK - Media
State: AK

Skill Area: Program Evaluation

Internship summary
The Section of Women’s Children’s and Family Health (WCFH) is housed within the Division of Public Health, State of Alaska Department of Health and Social Services. The Mission of WCFH is to promote optimum health outcomes for all Alaskan women, children, teens and their families, through leadership, coordination with the primary and public entities within the health care system to improve access to and organization of services in support of families, delivery of preventive, rehabilitative and educational services that are family-centered and culturally appropriate targeting women, all children and teens, and their families and through the provision of reliable data on maternal and child health issues for use in planning and evaluating programs, preventing poor health outcomes, and guiding public health policy.
The graduate intern will work specifically with the Adolescent Health Program Manager and the School Health Nurse Consultant, and will receive specific technical assistance from the secondary supervisor, an epidemiologist in the MCH Epidemiology Unit.
WCFH is housed in Anchorage, Alaska, a diverse city of approximately 270,000 people. Summer temperatures average 60 degrees, with up to 20 hours of daylight, and residents enjoy a high quality of life. Biking and hiking trails and outdoor adventure opportunities abound within the city and its surroundings.

Purpose
The main purpose of this internship is to provide exposure to the concepts of a program evaluation and needs assessment. The graduate intern will be able to grow their skills and develop new ones as they discover the specific health challenges that Alaska faces, including health disparities and unique diversity.
During the summer of 2009, the Adolescent Health Program, in collaboration with the Alaska Network on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault (ANDVSA) began a social norms multi media campaign. The goal of the campaign is for Alaskan men and youth to understand how they can work towards changing the social norms of sexual and teen dating violence. The target audience for this campaign is men and youth who are leaders in their communities. In public health, we want to ensure that the outreach work that we do is effective in reaching its target audience. The main purpose of the graduate internship will be to evaluate this social norms campaign to ensure its effectiveness.
Another component of the internship will be to create a needs assessment to collect information regarding school health and school nursing roles and practice challenges. The School Health Program is new as of April 2009 and is currently under development. The program provides clinical consultation, technical assistance, policy development and analysis, professional education in the areas of school nursing practice and school health. Other functions include review of research and evaluation of best practices in the provision of school health services in schools across the state. Development, administration and analysis of a needs assessment survey to determine current practices and identify gaps and needs in the provision of school health statewide is a program goal.

Both the Adolescent Health and the School Health Programs promote and utilize the comprehensive model of the CDC’s Coordinated School Health Program. (http://www.cdc.gov/HealthyYouth/CSHP/ )

Goals
1) To evaluate the effectiveness of the men and youth sexual and dating violence social norms campaign

2) To develop and, if time allows, administer an initial school health needs assessment to be distributed to 54 school districts statewide to assess the delivery of school health services. The content of this tool may help to support the comprehensive evaluation tool below. If time allows, develop a comprehensive evaluation collection tool to be utilized on a yearly basis that reflects the goals and objectives of the Health and Safety component of the State Education Plan.

Objectives
Evaluation Project:
1) Conduct a literature review looking at effective ways to evaluate a media campaign
2) Develop a data collection tool that will adequately assess the effectiveness of the social norms campaign- involving stakeholders in the process
3) Collect, collate, and analyze data. Data collection will include paid travel to several rural parts of Alaska. Methods for the campaign evaluation will include working with already formed youth and men’s groups who have seen the campaign materials- evaluation will focus on effectiveness of materials produced. The graduate intern will have flexibility to use their knowledge as they design their evaluation plan
4) Write a report of the evaluation and present the findings to interested parties

Needs Assessment Project:
5) Review existing school health needs assessments from other states or other departments
6) Determine school health data elements for an initial school district survey tool and compile a list of comprehensive data elements as time allows
7) Develop a school health survey tool using Survey Monkey or similar survey design tool.
8) Pilot the survey instrument
9) Develop school health comprehensive data evaluation system for ongoing assessment- if time allows
10) Prepare for administration of initial school health survey (or administer, depending on timeline)- Fall 2010

Data or analytic tasks and activities involved
The graduate intern will design surveys, evaluate a media campaign, collect, collate and analyze qualitative and quantitative data. In addition, they will plan and if time allows, conduct a needs assessment.

Required data or analytic skills
The project will involve two primary components: the evaluation of a social norms campaign and the design of a needs assessment. For the evaluation component, the graduate intern will need to have a documented intermediate knowledge of survey design, logic models, conducting qualitative interviews, collating and analyzing data. For the needs assessment component, the graduate intern will need to have had exposure to survey design and Survey Monkey or a similar tool. Experts in the Maternal and Child Health Epidemiology Unit, part of WCFH, will serve as collaborators and help the graduate intern with skill development, data analysis and survey design. In addition, WCFH maintains a close relationship with the University of Alaska Institute on Social and Economic Research and professional evaluators will be available for consultation.

Begin date
06/07/2010

Housing assistance available?
The supervisors will help the graduate intern locate and secure housing

Public transportation available?
The internship location (3601 C Street, Anchorage, AK 99503) is accessible via the public bus system. The bus fare is $1.75 per ride or $50 for a monthly pass. Anchorage is well connected with bike and pedestrian trails that may be accessible to the worksite depending on housing location