A persistent and seemingly intractable problem is the systemic failure to successfully scale evidence-informed social services to a level that achieves population-level improvements in well-being. There is a growing call for governments to enter the scaling environment as primary coordinators, trainers, and funders. Prior scholarship has identified four strategies governments may employ to enact these roles: convene and support high-level leadership teams, assess organizational readiness, provide technical assistance, and align funding. But it is unclear whether use of any or all of these government scaling strategies is sufficient to achieve desired outcomes. Moreover, prior scholarship largely focused on state and federal government roles, largely ignoring how these factors might operate in local government environments. Yet counties may hold the greatest scaling leverage because they often have well-established relationships with service providers through shared clients, contracts, and advocacy. The current study, thus, aimed to provide much needed insight into the relationship between these strategies and scaling outcomes in a local governmental context. Drawing data from a single county with a stated goal of scaling evidence-informed practices across human service organizations, it used public government records and crowd-sourced and computational data-extraction methods to create measures of these four alternative strategies. It assessed the relative effects of these strategies on scaling progress using time-to-event analysis. It found that county governments are well positioned to implement scaling strategies and that the proportion of social service providers adopting evidence-informed services can increase, as can the proportion of county funding directed to these organizations. It also found some empirical support for a link between three of the strategies and scaled evidence-informed services—convening a leadership team, assessing readiness, and aligning funding. Moreover, it identified a new and potentially desirable county strategy—establishing a shared local measure of evidence-informed service. This study design is highly replicable and as such provides a general model to apply to other local environments to identify common county levers that effectively promote the scaling of evidence-informed social services.

A growing body of evidence links demographic characteristics such as socio-economic status with exposure to stressful circumstances and physical and mental health outcomes (Adler, Boyce, Chesney, Cohen, Folkman, Kahn & Syme, 1994; Aldwin, 2007; Cohen, Doyle & Baum, 2006). This study applies a stress and coping framework to the relationship between stressful life experience and secondary and post-secondary schooling outcomes among students. This research investigates how parental level of education relates to exposure to stressful circumstances (life events, school stressors, and role strain) and whether these relationships influence four educational outcomes: high school math and reading achievement, college matriculation, and college degree attainment. This study is a secondary analysis of the National Education Longitudinal Study (NELS:88/2000), using a subsample of 7,989 high school students followed between 1988 and 2000. Results showed that students without college-educated parents are exposed to more stressful circumstances. This difference in exposure did not account for group differences in learning outcomes. Still, overall, exposure to certain stressors affects student high school achievement over the entire sample, and total life event stress exposure in high school relates to students' overall ability to finish a college degree. The unique contribution of this work is that it 1) employs a stress and coping conceptual framework applied to high school achievement and post-secondary opportunity; and 2) constitutes a rigorous study with robust statistical controls. This research informs interventions aimed at improved achievement and opportunity among high school students with high stressor exposure, in which low income and students of color are disproportionately represented (Organista, 2007).

Prior research indicates that human service care providers experience especially high levels of chronic workplace stress and burnout compared to workers in other professions. Chronic workplace stress is linked to a variety of poor physical and mental health outcomes. There has been significantly more research to assess and support human service care providers in education, social welfare, and health care than providers working in law enforcement such as the population considered in this case study: juvenile justice officers, JJOs. In particular, there has been little prior research on juvenile justice officers (JJOs), who have the difficult job of working closely with incarcerated youth populations.

The intended contributions of this study are: (1) developing a descriptive baseline understanding of stress among an important and understudied population of human service care providers, (2) exploring human service care provider workplace stress through a new lens of empathy and meaning and (3) piloting a training to reduce stress with a focus on facilitating empathy and meaning. This research is carried out over three phases.

The promising insights from the case study and pilot analysis include strategies to support JJOs finding meaning in their workplace. These strategies are achieved through creating opportunities for building relationships and empathy with youth and coworkers, improving the system for communication and positive feedback with management and teaching emotion regulation, mindfulness and empathic communication to improve individual coping skills.

Given persistent racial disparities in access to health and social services, scholars and advocates have long argued that intensive school-based support programs are a critical condition for the success of disadvantaged students of color. Yet surprisingly little is known about the actual dynamics of service use across by race in educational settings. Data from school health programs in a large and diverse urban school district (n= 6,696 students served across 15 sites) indicate that the provision of services in schools improves access for many historically underserved groups of youth. However, racial disproportionalities observed in students' use of psychosocial interventions warranted further investigation. Drawing on institutional theory and research from special education, this study used archival, administrative, and survey data to examine racial group differences in service utilization and their relationship to school staff members' referral practices. Using multilevel modeling techniques, analyses of racial group differences in service use (n=8,466 students, 15 schools) remained significant after controlling for students' risk taking behaviors and demographic covariates. Black, Latino, Pacific Islander and Multiracial youth were all more likely to access their school health program than White or Asian youth. Referrals by teachers, administrators and school counselors were significantly associated with service use for Black and Pacific Islander youth only. Multinomial regression analyses of referral data (n= 690 referrals, 3 schools) revealed that school staff members were also more likely to refer Black and Pacific Islander students for emotional concerns. In contrast, they were more likely to refer Asian and White youth for social or relational issues, and Latino youth for substance abuse. This study is the first of its kind to examine the role of referrals in students' use of school health programs.

Drawing on an integrative framework of emotions, my dissertation grapples with the social and emotional development–specifically well-being–of Black children amid anti-Black violence within educational spaces (e.g., playgrounds, classrooms, wellness centers). To do so, this dissertation explores the affective dimensions or social function of emotions among Black students ages 4 to 10 within educational spaces– that is, how emotions shape their social interactions and how social interactions shape their emotions. There is limited scholarship on the everyday and multifaceted relationship between emotions and social interactions among Black students in educational spaces (Camangian & Cariaga, 2022; Dumas & Nelson, 2016; Legette, Rogers, & Warren, 2022). A vital component of this study includes deep and rich descriptions of Black students’ emotional well-being, which has implications for their mental health by capturing the social function of emotions across educational spaces. By bringing together insights from emotion science with Black placemaking, this dissertation (a) How do emotions shape social interactions, and how do social interactions shape emotions? (b) in what ways are Black students exploring and processing the relationship between their emotions and social interactions, (c) how are emotions moving through and sticking to the everydayness of Black student’s social environments (objects, spaces/places, language, tone, memory, body movements, cultures, environments, identity, and events) and construct the ways they build relationships (Ahmed, 2004, 2015; Gregg & Seigworth, 2010), and (d) considers how Black children’s emotions can provide crucial insight into promoting and protecting their emotional well-being in educational spaces. This dissertation leverages insights from, responds to limitations of, and builds upon research in psychology, sociology, Black studies, child studies, and education on the topic of emotions. This dissertation utilized three qualitative methods—participant observations, semi-structured, in-depth, and open-ended interviews, and sociological video analysis. Findings shed new light on how emotions play a central role in the processes and factors that (re)produce and reduce inequality in the emotional everyday lives of Black students in educational settings, ultimately shaping their emotional well-being and mental health. Findings also articulate the multidimensionality of emotions, which contribute to the crucial and urgent work to improve the mental health and well-being of Black students. The study results have critical implications for understanding and supporting Black students’ healthy social and emotional development in education spaces.