Extension Children, Youth and Family Consortium (CYFC) conducts its own, and partners with, a variety of programs, focused primarily on the integration of research, practice and policy. Centered around five primary objectives, our work is set in the context of multidisciplinary networks and community-university collaborations. CYFC also participates in work on the University of Minnesota campus and nationally aimed at creating cultural shifts and systems change on university campuses that promote public engagement and the development, support, and recognition of faculty, staff, students and community partners who conduct their research, teaching, programmatic and policy endeavors through respectful collaboration.

Design, implement and evaluate evidence-based educational programs to enhance community practices and inform policies relevant to children, youth and families

Maxfield Center for Culture, Families and Learning, and the Asthma Project is a collaborative project (Maxfield Elementary, Cultural Wellness Center, Sustainable Resources Center, CYFC) in which the homes of students with asthma are assessed for asthma triggers and risk mediation conducted by Sustainable Resources Center. Families receive asthma trigger reduction education and asthma symptom management education. The children also receive asthma symptom management education. Families are supported in their efforts to prevent asthma symptoms through a kinship network approach conducted by the Cultural Wellness Center.  The program seeks to improve educational outcomes and improve health (decrease asthma) through connecting kids and parents to cultural understanding of the importance of education and prevention.

Children and Nature Connection is an alliance of professionals, lead by CYFC, in ecology, parks and rec, interpretive services, retail (REI), government (MDE, MDH, US Fish and Wildlife), MN Zoo, landscape architecture and early childhood education. Strategy is to educate professionals who work with children and families and to inform policies at various levels that impact kids’ time outdoors and in play. The program aims to increase the amount of time young children spend in free play in nature to reap the cognitive and health benefit of nature.

Parent Involvement Resource Sharing Network. CYFC facilitates and coordinates this alliance of professionals. The group met monthly and now bimonthly to share resources, learn from each other and learn from trainings and speakers arranged by CYFC. The program works to increase parent involvement in children’s education, and to a lesser degree, health.

Center for Neurobehavioral Development UConnects Program. CYFC brokered and continues to coordinate a relationship between the University of Minnesota’s Center for Neurobehavioral Development (CNBD) and the Southwest Research and Outreach Center in Lamberton, MN. Twice per year, CNBD faculty and other University faculty and staff provide a one day training for professionals in southwest Minnesota. Topics have included, for example, autism, Fetal Alcohol Effect, and the impact of nutrition on learning and behavior. The training includes basic science information in accessible and digestible form and applied information about implications for professional practice with children.  This partnership infuses research into practice.

Generate and faciliate research relevant to practice and policy

CYFC Scholars. Through the Scholars Program, CYFC aims to generate new knowledge in the emerging area of study of the intersection of educational and health disparities, create opportunities to apply that knowledge to the work of practitioners and policy makers, and provide a professional development experience enriching the participants’ work and the work of CYFC. CYFC engages a cohort of Scholars for four years and Fellows for one year providing financial support, technical assistance, promotional and dissemination services, and professional development.  The program strives to generate research related to the intersection of education and health disparities and enhance the capacity of faculty to conduct community-engaged research.

Wonder Years is an 1,800 square foot Science Museum of MN exhibit on the science of early childhood development is used to communicate concepts about early child development to students, public, and policymaker audiences. CYFC is conducting a research project to understand how a museum exhibit or citizen dialogue may be used to communicate research-based information to policymakers, and to ascertain whether that mechanism may impact policymakers’ decision making on early childhood issues.  In addtion CYFC uses the exhibit to provide educational experiences for UMN students and faculty from various backgrounds to increase knowledge about early childhood that students and faculty can apply in their own disciplines.  In doing so, the program increases the understanding of the public, policymakers and UMN faculty and students of early childhood development and the reasons for investing in young children.

Evidence Translation for Childhood Obesity Prevention in MN is funded by a small seed grant from the UMN’s Healthy Foods, Healthy Lives Institute (March 2011- March 2012).  This project examines the types and sources of research evidence and other persuasive information (e.g., anecdotes, values, norms, public opinion polls) Minnesota policymakers and advocates have used to frame the policy problem of childhood obesity over a 5-year period. The program conducts interviews with a sample of Minnesota political actors to examine the barriers and facilitators to use of research evidence and the types, sources, and formats of research evidence that political actors wish to use in the policymaking process.  It creates a model system for communicating research evidence to an existing intermediary community-based policy center and then to relevant advocates, media contacts, and state policymakers.[Partners include the University of Minnesota's School of Public Health,  Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, CYFC, and the American Heart Association, and Public Health Law Center, William Mitchell College of Law. The project aims to understand how policy makers and advocates use evidence in making decisions concerning obesity,  and promote evidence in decision making concerning obesity.

UMN/MN Association for Children's Mental Health Special Training Series is an annual day-long professional training series within the spring conference of the Minnesota Association for Children’s Mental Health. The goal of the pgraom is to provide advanced, in-depth training about applied research, best practices, and translation of research to practice and policy by University of Minnesota faculty experts.

Lessons From the Field is a theme-based educational seminar series that engages and informs practitioners and researchers who work in children’s mental health-related fields. Our current multi-year theme is: Traumatic stress and its impact on children and youth - prevention and health promotion. Generally four yearly events are planned with the input from a combined group of community and University representatives. The seminars are held at the University and broadcast live to 25-30 sites throughout Minnesota. The formats are varied and generally include both expert researchers and practitioners. Future plans include identifying policy makers who will also participate as presenters and participants.  The goals of the program are 1) to promote the use of relevant and culturally informed research in practice and policy in order to improve mental health services for children and youth; and 2) to close the research-practice gap by developing a strong circular pattern of communication where theory and research inform practice that in turn informs theory and research.

Children's Mental Health Researcher/Practioner groups center around 10-15 invited novice and expert clinical practitioners in children’s mental health and rotating U of MN researchers whose work is specifically related to some aspect of children’s mental health.  The program promotes the use of relevant and culturally informed research in practice and policy in order to improve mental health services for children and youth. In addition it works to close the research-practice gap by developing a strong circular pattern of communication where theory and research inform practice that in turn informs theory and research.

Engage communities in respectful, reciprocal partnerships to promote positive educational and health outcomes for children, youth and families

Minnesota Center for Cancer Collaborations is a large center grant in the Family Medicine Dept (Program in Health Disparities Research). CYFC’s director Cathy Jordan directs the training core. It has 3 parts – design and co-teach a semester long Community Based Participatory Research course with community partner, administer a mentoring program, coordinate grantsmanship training with the core co-director.  The training core aims at using CBPR to better understand cancer health disparities, outreach to enhance screening, and training to prepare academics and communities to engage in CBPR and to have funding success.

Cultural Providers Network is a coalition of providers for children and families of color, institutions of higher learning and Minnesota policy makers. Current membership includes professionals from approximately twenty agencies.  The network focuses on dialogue and communication methods that honor cultural differences; collaborative research about effective therapeutic relationships between client and clinician; how cultural providers define and determine clinical success; cultural intelligence and psychotherapy process and outcome, and practice-based evidence; and building partnerships that promote the health of children. CYFC co-leads this group with a community member. The parnership builds and sustains a network of diverse communities and organizations with a special interest in culture and ethnicity in order to promote policies, practices, standards and research that improve the health of children and their families and communities with a focus on behavioral health.

Infuse principles of engagement, research and an ecological perspective to enhance our partners' work to promote positive educational and health outcomes for children, youth and families

Children's Museum Consulting.  CYFC facilitates a partnership between units at the University of Minnesota (Institute of Child Development, Center for Early Education and Development, College Readiness Consortium) and the Children’s Museum.  This involves providing connections with students and faculty that can help in consultation about research on the importance of play in early development. Additionally it involves participation in a Research Advisory Council at the Museum that will provide information to Children’s Museum Staff about research relevant to their exhibits. The program will likely involve interested graduate students completing internships at the museum where they will use their content knowledge about early childhood and learn about exhibit and program development.  CYFC aims for increased use of scientific research by the Children’s Museum of Minnesota.

Create a supportive academic culture for community engaged scholarship

CES4Health.info (Community Engaged Scholarship for Health) is a web-based mechanism for the peer review, publication and dissemination of scholarly products resulting from service-learning, community-based participatory research and other community-academic partnership work in the health professions. This service will increase the likelihood that products developed in collaborations between academics and communities will “count” in the promotion and tenure process and have greater impact in communities. CYFC Director, Cathy Jordan, is the editor of CES4Health.info.

Clinical and Translational Science Institute CBPR Project Development Team Leader. CYFC Director, Cathy Jordan, oversees a system for trianing project needs and connecting investigators with resources through the Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI). Investigators with needs related to building community partnerships and developing skills in CBPR are referred to the team leader.  The program facilitates successful community-engaged research projects by providing academic and community investigators access to services and expertise through the CTSI to strengthen project design, ease implementation strategies, deepen respectful community engagement, and increase the impact of study findings.

Careers Interest Group, University-Based Children & Family Policy Consortium (CFPC) is a national forum. CYFC is one of over 25 center members and has a leadership role in the Careers Interest Group. The Careers Interest Group (1) connects young scholars with seasoned researchers in their interest areas and (2) helps young researchers consider the academic and non-academic careers available to them. CFPC fosters scientific collaboration around child and family policy issues, cross-disciplinary undergraduate and graduate training and effective translation between research, practice, and policy issues.