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Staff Spotlight
 Anna Malsch, Research Associate at NPC Research, is an applied social psychologist with 15 years of hands-on experience in all components of the research process, including literature review, design, instrument and measurement development, data collection, data management, statistical analysis, qualitative data analysis, and dissemination of results. She has significant experience partnering with communities in research, evaluation, and program design efforts. Among other current roles, Anna serves as Project Director for NPC's evaluation of the Lucas County Pathways to Success Initiative in Ohio.
Learn more about Anna.
 Megan Redfield is a Project Assistant 2 at NPC Research. Her duties have included gathering and entering data, coordinating data collection and entry, conducting participant and key stakeholder interviews, and assisting with report writing and editing. Her experience in research involves topics in early childhood education and development, alcohol and substance abuse prevention and alternative sentencing programs. Megan recently played a key role in gathering data for She has played a key role in gathering data for Oregon's
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Promising Results for Early Literacy in Oregon
 This past fall, NPC completed a 4-year evaluation for Reading for Healthy Families (RFHF), a partnership of the Oregon State Library and the Oregon Commission on Children and Families (now the Early Learning Council) supported by collaborative grants from the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation and The Oregon Community Foundation. The goal of the RFHF project was to train Healthy Start/Healthy Families Oregon home visitors and children's library staff to implement the Every Child Ready to Read @ your LibraryŽ early literacy curriculum in their work with parents. Learn more.
During the course of the project, 294 local librarians and home visitors received training and delivered 8,348 training sessions to 3,933 families representing every county in the state. Participating families received a total of 4,116 developmentally appropriate books for their children, and were significantly more likely than comparison families to engage in such activities as: telling stories and talking about activities with their child; reading or looking at books together with their child; having a library card for their child; and having a child participate in reading by asking questions, turning pages, or acting out parts of a book.
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Featured Top 10 Drug Court Best Practice: A Law Enforcement Representative on the Drug Court Team Helps Reduce Recidivism
In this ongoing article we present the Top 10 drug court best practices, one practice at a time with a brief discussion of each practice. In this issue, we present the #9 practice in the Top 10 best practices for reducing recidivism. (See the full publication on best practices.)
Best Practice #9. Drug courts that had a law enforcement representative on the drug court team had 88% greater reductions in recidivism than programs that did not.
Programs that include a law enforcement representative on the team describe that role as crucial for two main reasons:
Law enforcement often has more frequent contact with drug court participants on the street and in home settings than drug court personnel and therefore provide good insight into what is happening to participants in their lives outside of court and treatment. Law enforcement is also trained to notice things that indicate criminal or dangerous activities that other team members may not notice and therefore brings a particularly valuable perspective to team staffings.
Including law enforcement creates a two-way process where law enforcement representatives not only contribute an important perspective to the drug court, but also return information to law enforcement organizations, which promotes a better understanding of the value of drug court. When police officers are trained in the drug court model and make home visits in a way that is positive, including complimenting participants when they are home before curfew and when their homes look well cared for, can help participants see law enforcement in a new and more positive light as well.
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NPC and the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde Partner to Reduce Teen Pregnancy
 Over the past 10 years, NPC has collaborated with the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde on many prevention-related projects for youth. The most recent collaboration involves the Teen Personal Responsibility and Education Program (TPREP). Funded by the Administration for Children and Families, TPREP provides prevention programming for Grand Ronde teens in the areas of pregnancy, HIV/AIDS, and sexually transmitted diseases, with additional content on parent-child communication, healthy relationships and financial literacy. Because a large proportion of Grand Ronde Tribal youth attend a local public school, Tribal Youth Prevention staff were able to use information collected as a part of the TPREP needs assessment process to gain local school board approval to provide training and staff support for implementation of the It's Your Game sexual health curriculum in the Willamina Middle School. NPC staff provides evaluation support for Grand Ronde's TPREP activities, from needs assessment to pre- and post-survey implementation and required performance measurement to final evaluation reporting.
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Award for Excellence in Workplace Effectiveness and Flexibility Presented to NPC
 For the second year in a row, NPC Research has been honored with the Alfred P. Sloan Award for Business Excellence in Workplace Flexibility for its use of flexibility as an effective workplace strategy to increase business and employee success. The award, part of the national When Work Works project, recognizes employers of all sizes and types in Oregon and across the country. Examples of flexibility at NPC include telecommuting, flexible hours to allow for family and other obligations, part-time hours, volunteer activities, space allowance for on-site yoga and child care, paid family leave, and the opportunity for extended personal leave. Workplace flexibility-such as flextime, part-time work and compressed workweeks-has been demonstrated to help businesses remain competitive while also benefiting employees as well. "Our research consistently finds that employees in effective and flexible workplaces have greater engagement on the job and greater desire to stay with their organization. In addition, they report lower stress levels and better overall health," stated Ellen Galinsky, president of Families and Work Institute. Learn more.
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NPC Staff Donate to Hurricane Sandy and Local Nonprofits
After Hurricane Sandy struck New York and New Jersey in late October, causing death, destruction and displacement, NPC employees contributed financially to organizations that included the American Red Cross and the Food Bank for New York City. The company matched those donations. In December the company focused its annual holiday giving on a Portland nonprofit called p:ear that builds positive relationships with homeless and transitional youth through education, art and recreation to affirm personal worth and create more meaningful and healthier lives. Its programs annually serve almost 900 homeless and transitional young people ages 15 to 24; learn more about p:ear. Throughout 2012 NPC employees gave food and monetary donations to help reduce hunger in the Portland area. Staff added food donations to a bin in the office, and volunteers delivered the food periodically to the Oregon Food Bank.
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