Graduate Student Internship Program

This internship has been filled.

Minnesota: St. Paul - Ramsey County

Research Analyst
St.Paul - Ramsey County Department of Public Health, Family Health, St. Paul, MN
Skill Areas: Data Analysis and Monitoring, Program Evaluation

Agency Information

The Minnesota Early Learning Foundation (MELF) offers a scholarship and parent mentoring (home visiting) program called the St. Paul Early Childhood Scholarship Program, to low-income families, with preschool aged children, living in the Frogtown and North End neighborhoods of St. Paul.The program is a pilot, funded thru 2011, designed by Art Rolnick and Rob Grunewald of the Federal Reserve and is receiving national attention. Qualifying families in these neighborhoods are given the information and resources they need to get their children into affordable, high-quality child care settings. Each family is given a mentor who visits their home and coaches them on parenting skills, health and nutrition, and how to pick out the best quality child care and education programs for their child/children. The City of St. Paul Mayor's Office coordinates all aspects of the pilot program with St. Paul - Ramsey County Department of Public Health (SPRCDPH) coordinating and administering the parent mentor/home visiting piece and Resources for Child Caring administering the scholarship payment piece.

The intern will work within the Program Planning and Evaluation unit of SPRCDPH to assist in a formative evaluation of the home visiting component of the program.

Purpose, goals, and objectives of internship

The goal of this internship is to expose the student to experiences that would help to further develop his or her skills and knowledge of public health, social science research and program evaluation. This experience will occur within a large county public health setting.The intern will have the opportunity to focus on and develop a range of research and evaluation skills while working in a close relationship with an experienced professional.This professional will also provide mentoring to help facilitate the student’s growth in professional knowledge and skills.

Data or analytic tasks and activities

The intern will be working primarily with quantitative datasets. Tasks will include data cleaning, coding, descriptive analyses, literature review, and assisting with report writing.

**The formative evaluation is in its initial stages, although data collection has begun with implementation of the program.To date, initial assessments have been completed with over 500 participating families. These initial data include: (a) family assessment, (b) child developmental review, (c) child socio-emotional assessment, and (d) parent mentoring visit activity forms.The first three data collection processes are completed by a Public Health Nurse (PHN) during the initial family intake into the program.The latter Parent Mentoring visit form are completed by the PHN Parent Mentor during each visit.The formative evaluation will include entering data from all data sources into SPSS. Data will be analyzed for initial means, standard deviations, frequency and percentages of variables.The intern, depending on his or her skills and knowledge, will assist in the data entry, coding, analyses, participant profiling, and creation of short evaluation briefs highlighting particular profiles and findings.In addition, qualitative narratives may be developed as illustrative examples of families' experiences within the program.

Data or analytic skills required

Training can be provided, but it would be preferable if the intern had prior experience using SPSS and 2007 MS Office Suite, as well as a knowledge of Public Health.

Supervisors

Primary: Dr. Khanh Nguyen, Senior Program Evaluator.
Secondary: Sue Mitchell, supervisor of the Family Health Planning and Evaluation team.

Internship begins

Open

Housing

There are many nearby apartments and housing choices in St. Paul. Minimal assistance could be provided to the intern for their housing search.

Transportation

The worksite is accessible via public transportation.

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