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Our Approach
OVERVIEW Foundations of QTurn Coaching and Evaluation Measuring the quality and impact of out-of-school time programs presents complex challenges. What is quality, exactly? How can we ensure that the tools we use truly capture the environmental conditions that support skill growth, emotional regulation, and equitable development—especially for children affected by stress or adversity? How do … Continue reading Our Approach
May 21, 2024
Our Team
Home > About > Our Team OUR CORE TEAM Sally Rae Smith (she/her) – Managing Consultant & Business Manager Sally joined QTurn in October 2019 as a Principal Consultant, bringing over 7 years of hands-on experience in after-school program quality—as both a data collector and quality coach. With a degree focused in methodology & curriculum, … Continue reading Our Team
July 9, 2025
Palm Beach Quality Improvement System Pilot: Final Report
This report on the Palm Beach County Quality Improvement System (QIS) pilot provides evaluative findings from a four-year effort to imagine and implement a powerful quality accountability and improvement policy in a countywide network of after-school programs. The Palm Beach QIS is an assessment-driven, multi-level intervention designed to raise quality in after-school programs, and thereby … Continue reading Palm Beach Quality Improvement System Pilot: Final Report
Tags: Theory and Evidence for QIS
January 1, 2008
Parent Practice Quality
QTurn’s Multilevel Person-in-Context ~neuroperson (MPCn) model was used to select PACT items corresponding to four different kinds of parenting practices that promote children’s SEL skill growth. As described in the document in more detail, we use the terms Warmth, Responsivity, Scaffolding, and Attention because they reflect the core aspects of parenting practice necessary for calibrating … Continue reading Parent Practice Quality
Tags: adult modeling, MPCn model, parenting, pattern-centered analysis, SEL skills
August 20, 2020
Place-Based Ecological Stewardship
The Southeastern Michigan Stewardship Coalition (SEMIS) is a high impact and low-cost school reform for adults and students to build their repertoire of ecological stewardship skills – SEL, STEM and civic – and experience agency from the practice of ecological stewardship in their place. This white paper was developed to (1) describe how SEMIS promotes … Continue reading Place-Based Ecological Stewardship
Tags: ecological stewardship, ecology, SEL, SEMIS, STEM
May 16, 2024
Preparing Youth to Thrive: Methodology and Findings from the SEL Challenge
The Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) Challenge was undertaken in pursuit of two ambitious goals: To identify promising practices for building SEL skills with vulnerable adolescents, and to develop technical supports for use of these SEL practices at scale in thousands of out-of-school time (OST) settings. The study design included a qualitative methodology, expert practitioners, … Continue reading Preparing Youth to Thrive: Methodology and Findings from the SEL Challenge
January 25, 2016
Preparing Youth to Thrive: Promising Practices for Social Emotional Learning
Executive Summary The Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) Challenge was designed to identify promising practices for building skills in six areas: emotion management, empathy, teamwork, initiative, responsibility, and problem-solving. The Challenge was a partnership between expert practitioners (youth workers, social workers, teachers) delivering exemplary programs in eight unique communities, a team of researchers, and a … Continue reading Preparing Youth to Thrive: Promising Practices for Social Emotional Learning
January 1, 2016
Promoting Healthy Development of Young People: Outcomes Framework 2.0
In the summer of 2018, the Local Government Association (LGA) in England commissioned the Centre for Youth Impact to produce an outcomes framework to help partners across the English youth sector to develop and agree on mutual aims to support young people in their local areas. The work was in response to LGA’s consultations that … Continue reading Promoting Healthy Development of Young People: Outcomes Framework 2.0
October 23, 2019