Researcher: Lindsey Weiler (Family Social Science, College of Education and Human Development)

Representing one of the highest rates in the country, one in every 42 children in Minnesota is identified with autism spectrum disorder. Without intervention, adolescents risk a sharp decline in social support, stalled neurological progress, and a marked increase in depression and anxiety. Often shut off from educational and social supports that were available in childhood, adolescents experience significant roadblocks as they strive for independence. Similarly, young adults with autism can feel isolated and undervalued as members of our community. This project seeks to…

The Center for Urban and Regional Affairs (CURA) invites proposals for our Faculty Interactive Research Program (FIRP). University of Minnesota faculty are critical resources in exploring issues and concerns important to Minnesota, such as the criminal justice system, demography, state or local economic development, education, employment, energy, the environment, health, housing, state and local government, welfare and poverty, human and social services, transportation, or land use and development.

The FIRP encourages University faculty to carry out research projects that answer questions about these important regional issues, in partnership with community groups…

It’s no coincidence that both the Shoreland Management Act and the Center of Urban and Regional Affairs (CURA) are celebrating their 50th anniversaries this year. Minnesota’s shoreland management program was one of the first major statewide initiatives to come out of CURA. This milestone year offers a unique opportunity to look back on the history and purpose behind the shoreland program, its beginnings with CURA, trends in shoreland development, and what we can do to improve shoreland…

It is with great sadness that we report that Esther Wattenberg passed away on July 19, just shy of her 100th birthday.

A professor of social work at the University of Minnesota, she was a fierce advocate for underserved women and children. Esther was a critical part of CURA's work for several decades and a treasured part of the CURA family. May her memory be an inspiration.

• Minnesota child welfare pioneer Esther Wattenberg dies at age 99 from the Star Tribune
• …

Surviving the Freeway will be a forward-looking examination of the past. It will provide a multi-vocal historical perspective to ground public discussions about the legacies of the freeway as we understand them today. In doing so, it will create a base of engagement that will help communities organize and prepare to participate in planning for the future of the freeway and its adjacent neighborhoods. This is a necessary step toward any publically-accountable re-envisioning of the freeway intended to redress the communities it has harmed and continues to harm.

The topic has critical policy implications and is ripe for investigation. Minneapolis is in the midst of a long-overdue…

Minnesota ranks third in the United States for crop production totaling $14.6 billion with nearly half of all lands dedicated to crops. Improving data availability for farmers, government agencies, and researchers will inform decisions in improving conservation practices and crop yields. This project will create and disseminate the first open map of Minnesota farm fields, and produce several examples to demonstrate to policy makers and stakeholders how the farm field data can be used to improve conservation practices and crop yields. We will use satellite imagery and rigorous, reproducible, and robust geocomputational methods running on supercomputers to delineate and map each field. The…

School based mental health programs (SMHP) provide critical services to students in order to mitigate the myriad of negative outcomes associated with mental health problems. However, limited applied, evaluative research has been conducted examining the effects of such programs on student outcomes. In particular, problems exist regarding the measurement of student mental health (needs in school settings. The purpose of this project is to improve measurement of SMH needs by engaging in two related studies. The first study will investigate the psychometric properties of the Minneapolis Public Schools (Behavior Screener Checklist 3 (BSC), which holds promise as a critical indicator of SMH…

Tracking the Trust Building Process in the Minnesota Two Generation Policy Network

How can human service agencies and nonprofits work together for better results? A promising model is the collaborative governance model, which enables state/local/nonprofit organizations to engage in shared decision making. This project is situated in the Minnesota Two Generational Policy Network, a system level service integration and innovation project led by the MN Department of Human Services and its partner organizations to support children and families. Taking a mixed methods longitudinal study approach, this research aims to study how the shift from the contracting model to the collaborative…

UMN Community Fund Drive

For the 2018 University of Minnesota Community Fund Drive, the University collectively raised $1.35 million for local charities. CURA did several fundraisers over the course of the drive and raised just under $3,000 through those sales and individual donations by staff with 85% participation.

Neighborhoods Now!

The Neighborhoods Now! Fall 2018 session wrapped up in early December. Each participant attended four extensive day-long classes designed to…

This project will rigorously evaluate the effects of Minnesota's School-Linked Mental Health program on academic outcomes, mental health services outcomes, and juvenile justice outcomes, for children and adolescents. This program has expanded progressively across Minneapolis, Hennepin County, and more recently the state, as a way to reduce barriers to identifying and treating mental health problems in school-age youth. We will take advantage of the staggered implementation of school-linked mental health services across schools between 2004-2016 to estimate difference-in-differences models that will isolate the causal effect of the program on the outcomes we have identified. We will use…