The Center for Urban Research and Learning partnered with University of Michigan's Program for Youth and Community to provide participatory evaluation research workshops to youth in the community. The two-day workshop prepared young people to employ practical participatory tools for gathering information at the community level. Through the workshop, young people developed specific skills and practical tools for program evaluation, assessments of community needs and assets, policy issue analysis, and other studies.
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This was an evaluation of the Christian Community Health Centers’ Footprints Women in Prostitution Project. "Footprints" is a program that facilitates substance abuse and HIV prevention for women arrested for prostitution in Cook County. The program focuses on providing outreach and services to reduce the rate of infectious disease, drug use, especially injection drug use, relapse and recidivism.
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Loyola University Chicago's Center for Urban Research and Learning and Catholic Charities worked together to develop and implement a process and outcome evaluation of the St. Leo Campus for veterans, a unique partnership between a private organization, Catholic Charities, and a public one, the Veterans Administration. The purpose of this evaluation was to both assess the implementation process of this project for Catholic Charities, the Veteran's Administration and St. Leo's Veteran Campus various stakeholders and to provide a blueprint for the national reproduction of the model.
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Growing Home is a social enterprise that provides transitional jobs and job training to participants by employing them in organic agriculture at their two urban and one rural farm sites. This project assisted Growing Home in setting up a tracking database by collecting contact and other baseline data from past graduates and following recent graduates for three months post-program to determine outcomes.
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CURL worked with Catholic Charities to provide a needs assessment of their Street Interventions (SI) program. SI identifies teens and young adults in need of alternative education, working primarily out of the Back of the Yards neighborhood. SI improves the lives of at-risk-youth by providing positive environments of structure and support.
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This report describes the process of creating and implementing a wireless network in four unique community settings and the impact of the wireless network upon the anchor/partner organization and community residents (end-users). In addition, the research data was used to help create a business model for sustaining the wireless network.
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Roseland Christian Health Ministries (RCHM) is a faith-based organization that runs Christian Community Health Center (CCHC), which provides primary health care services to the residents of the Greater Roseland community on Chicago's far south side. In 2004, RCHM created a new community health center in the Village of Dolton (a south suburb of Chicago), an area designated by the Bureau of Primary Health Care as a "Health Professional Shortage Area.” This new health center created 64 new jobs within five years.
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The Illinois Community Technology Fund was created to provide funds for community-based technology initiatives that address the issue of the digital divide that exists in many minority and low-income communities. CURL evaluated this state-wide effort.
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