Projects > Pennsylvania State University > Goals & Activities

1. Building a replicable model for university/community collaboration through interventions that promote school readiness in communities serving at-risk students;
2. Developing collaborative working models that fully integrate the major Penn State outreach delivery systems (Cooperative Extension, Public Broadcasting, World Campus, and Continuing Education); and
3. Mainstreaming community engagement into faculty scholarly activities.

The FOCUS research project will blend lessons learned from prevention research and the experiences of Head Start, which revealed that although well-controlled trials brought major positive effects, the challenges of implementation often led to lower quality interventions with fewer total hours and less qualified instructors, resulting in diminished effects.

To ensure that the FOCUS intervention is tailored to the specific context in each of the three communities, community teams will participate in intervention design and implementation. The teams will be led by individuals hired by FOCUS and include 8-10 members representing the school district, child care providers, continuing education, parents, and other community representatives. The school readiness intervention will also serve as a point of entry into longer-term University-community partnerships in the three communities.