Professional Development Assets and Needs Assessment Online Survey Results
Client: Northwest Suburban Integration School District
2008
Contact: Jennifer Valorose
Focus Groups on City Performance Reporting
Client: City of Minneapolis
2007
Contact: Barry Cohen
Assessment of Needs and Experiences of Unbanked and
Underbanked North Minneapolis Residents
Client: Greater Twin Cities United Way
2007
Contact: Mia Robillos
Developing a Framework to Assess the Development,
Implementation and Impact of the “Family Healing and
Restoration Network”
Client: Hennepin
County Human Services and Public Health Department / Stairstep
Initiative Foundation
Contact: Barry Cohen
Program Evaluation of Communities on the Move
Client: Blue
Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota Center for Prevention
2006–present
Contact: Jennifer
Valorose
Evaluation of the Youth Action Crew
Client: University
of Minnesota Extension Center for 4-H Youth Development
2006–present
Contact: Barry Cohen
Influences on Taft-Hartley Fund Administrators’ and
Trustees’ Decisions Regarding the Provision and Promotion
of Tobacco Cessation Benefits – Focus Groups with Union
Workers
Client: William
Mitchell College of Law Tobacco Law Center
2006–present
Contact: Jennifer
Valorose
Formative Evaluation of Achieve!Minneapolis Career
and College Initiative
Client: Achieve!Minneapolis
2006–present
Contact: Mia Robillos
Retrospective Evaluation
of the Great Northern Corridor Collaborative
Sparc
2007
Contact: Jennifer
Valorose
Evaluation of the Graduate Fellowship in Philanthropy
and Human Rights
Higher Education Consortium for Urban Affairs
2006–2007
Contact: Mia Robillos
American Indian Medical School
Graduates Survey
University of Minnesota Medical School—Center for American
Indian and Minority Health
2007
Contact: Jennifer Valorose
Rainbow Research worked with the Center for American Indian and Minority Health (CAIMH) at the University of Minnesota – Duluth – Medical School to survey American Indians who had graduated from the medical school. The survey had two stages: a written and online survey for all American Indian graduates, followed by a telephone interview with a select sample of graduates. The purpose of the survey and interviews was to find out what factors contributed to their success and how the Center can further assist and support American Indians in overcoming the difficulties they may face in medical school.
Formative Evaluation of Learning Dreams
Northwest Area Foundation
2006–2007
Contact: Barry Cohen
Learning Dreams seeks to engage parents and household members in identifying and pursuing their learning dreams and then identifying and linking them with community partners, opportunities and resources through which their learning dreams can be realized. Rainbow conducted a formative evaluation of the Learning Dreams project at sites in North Minneapolis and Worthington, MN. The evaluation strengthened and improved the development and delivery of the Learning Dreams model and measured the assessment of its impact.
Housing as Health: An Examination
of Housing Stability and Services for Changes in Health
and Quality of Life.
Clare Housing
2005 – 2007
Contact: Barry Cohen
In September 2005, Clare Housing opened Clare Apartments, an ADA accessible, thirty-two-unit building that provides housing to persons with HIV/AIDS. Rainbow Research has been engaged to conduct a comprehensive series of interviews with Clare Apartment tenants to examine tenant adjustment to living at Clare and to explore the contributions that housing stability and on-site services make to tenant health and perceptions of quality of life.
Navigation of Minnesota’s Health Care System: A Retrospective
Analysis of Grantmaking to Serve People’s Unique Cultural
Needs
Blue
Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota Foundation
2005-06
Contact: Barry Cohen
Rainbow completed a retrospective evaluation of 45 projects funded between 1998 and 2004 designed to remove barriers and facilitate access to health care for communities of color and new immigrant communities. This evaluation included a review of records and reports and qualitative interviews with grantees to identify, if any, culturally specific best practices contributing to improved access, contextual and circumstantial factors that may have affected outcomes and, important lessons learned applicable to grantmaking under its new focus on social and economic determinants of health. Of particular interest to The Blue Cross Foundation, were the documentation of “lessons learned” and the development of a synthesis report that will serve as a guide to future Blue Cross Foundation grantmaking.
Evaluation of the “Transition Services for Men and
Women Recovering from Chemical Issues” program
Resource Recovery Center
2004–2006
Contact: Mia Robillos
Rainbow conducted process and outcome evaluations of the “Transition Services for Men and Women Recovering from Chemical Issues” program, in Minneapolis, Minn.
Evaluation of three ATOD prevention programs for Southeast
Asian Immigrants
Lao Family Community of Minnesota
2004–2006
Contact: Mia Robillos
Rainbow worked with Lao Family to evaluation three programs. 1) The Southeast Asian Prevention Intervention Network (SEAPIN) program provides culturally sensitive alcohol, tobacco, and other drug (ATOD) prevention services, information, and materials to the Hmong, Vietnamese, Laotian, and Cambodian communities. The evaluation assessed the extent to which the program helped increase awareness and decrease use of ATOD within the four Southeast Asian communities and reduce problems associated with ATOD use/abuse such as legal, financial, family violence, physical health, mental health, and family stress. 2) The Hmong Change Direction Program is a three-hour drug awareness program that is culturally- and language-specific for Hmong youth or adults who have been ordered or directed by courts, probation, social services, schools, employers, and others to obtain alcohol, tobacco and other drug (ATOD) education. The evaluation determined changes in ATOD knowledge of participants, changes in ATOD use of participants and the Hmong community in general, and the extent to which the program met the requirements and expectations of referring agencies. And 3) The Learning to Live Again program is an intensive chemical addiction aftercare program in St. Paul targeting chemically dependent Hmong adults, the majority of whom are recovering from addiction to opium and other drugs. Rainbow’s evaluation determined the extent to which the program aided chemically-dependent Hmong adults to maintain their sobriety and continue their recovery.
Evaluation of the Strengthening Southeast Asian Parents
and Families Program
Association for the Advancement of Hmong Women in Minnesota
2005–2006
Contact: Mia Robillos
The Strengthening Southeast Asian Parents and Families Program is an alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs (ATOD) prevention program implemented by a four-agency collaborative that serves ethnic-specific Southeast Asian populations. The evaluation determined the extent to which the program has increased parents’ knowledge of the impact of ATOD use and improved their parenting skills in order to decrease the risk of ATOD use by Southeast Asian youth.
Youth Peer Education Program Needs Assessment and
Evaluation
Indigenous People’s Task Force
2004–2006
Contact: Barry Cohen
Rainbow conducted a needs assessment and program evaluation for this innovative culture-based HIV/substance abuse prevention program for Native American youth ages 12 through 18. The study tracked the program’s impact on substance use and sexual behaviors of participants.
Assessing Effective Intervention to Improving Nutrition
and Physical Activity of Multicultural Community in Minneapolis
— Focus Groups in the Native American Community
Minneapolis Department of Health and Family Support
- STEPS to a Healthier Minneapolis Initiative
2005
Contact: Barry Cohen
Rainbow Research planned and coordinated a series of focus groups with residents of the Minneapolis Phillip’s and Near North neighborhoods regarding physical activity and nutrition. The goal of the focus groups (6 per cultural community) was to gather information for developing effective interventions to improve nutrition and increase physical activity in Asian, Latino, African, African American and American Indian Communities.
Smoking Cessation Strategies — Focus Groups with Blue
Collar Workers
Dakota County
Public Health Department
2005
Contact: Barry Cohen
In 2001 Dakota County piloted a two-year project to independently assess the effectiveness of youth tobacco cessation programs offered within Dakota County to junior high school aged children. Rainbow, working with Dakota County Public Health staff, developed an evaluation process to cessation outcome differences between two research-based youth tobacco cessation programs. Data was collected on an on-going basis from nine Dakota county sites (eight schools and one community-based organization) as well at six-month follow-up periods utilizing existing forms created for each curriculum and tools specifically designed for this evaluation.
Rainbow assessed key measures, such as the cigarettes smoked per day and a self-assessment of the youth’s stage of behavior change based upon the Trans theoretical Model of Change. In addition to the tobacco cessation outcomes, the study’s report reviewed recruitment and retention strategies employed by the sites as well as benefits gained from the program for participants (e.g., stress management skills, enhanced self-esteem, etc.). The resulting findings were published in the January 2007 issues of Nicotine & Tobacco Research.
Frogtown Kroc Center Needs Assessment
Salvation Army, Northern Division
2005
Contact: Barry Cohen
The Salvation Army Northern Division, St. Paul, MN, engaged Rainbow Research to conduct a needs assessment of the Thomas-Dale (Frogtown) neighborhood to help determine potential programming and a site for the St. Paul Kroc Community Center. Rainbow’s assessment focused on identifying issues affecting the residents of Frogtown and gaps in services for addressing these issues, and gave special attention to including the views of Frogtown’s varied cultural communities, low-income residents, teens and other groups whose needs may be unrecognized, not addressed or underserved.