Future Touch Intervention Program:
An Interim Report prepared for Hemingway Foundation

	The Future Touch Intervention program, supported by the Hemingway Foundation grant, was designed to ameliorate the problems facing children in Ogden City’s inner city, which place them at risk for mental health difficulties, school failure, and delinquency. The year-long project targeted second-graders during the Fall 2001 semester at Gramercy Elementary School.  (Spring semester 2002 we are targeting the first-graders.) 

Procedure
	There were three components to the intervention: Mathematics Skills promotion, Social Skills promotion, and Parental Tutoring Skills promotion. After identifying the second grade at Gramercy Elementary School as the targeted population, a 10-week Mathematics and Social Skills intervention program was designed in conjunction with the second grade teachers.  In small tutoring groups, pairs of Weber State University students engaged 4 to 6 second-grade Gramercy students in a series of activities and exercises for a 20-minute period twice a week.  These tutoring groups shifted focus between activities designed to support and augment Mathematics and Social Skills. The Mathematics Skills activities involved assessments and games designed to promote targeted mathematical concepts or skills (i.e., place value, money, adding/ subtracting money, time, adding/subtracting time).  The Social Skills activities (based on McGinnis and Goldstein, 1997) involved Gramercy students learning prosocial skills and inhibiting antisocial behavior through the use of modeling, role playing, performance feedback, and transfer (homework).  In addition to these sessions, The Parental Tutoring Skills program involved the WSU student-tutors and supervising faculty interacting with parents and their children in activities designed to promote parents’ tutoring skills. Parents and children were invited to a series of 6 weekly 90-minute visits to the school (with special visits to the Weber County Library and Treehouse Children’s Museum), with each session involving parental discussions, skills training (based on the BUENO Center Family Empowerment program), and parent-child activities. 

Assessments and Outcomes
	A total of 47 children were involved in the program, representing a majority of all Gramercy second-grade students.  Each targeted mathematics skill or concept was assessed with a pre- and a post-test.  Summing over weekly sessions in which data were available for each child, there was evidence of 21% improvement in Math post-test (Mean=17.51) performance from the pre-test (Mean=13.85), which is significant (p<.001).  A total of 75% of the children demonstrated improvement from pre-test to post-test performance on the math tests. Social skills were assessed by teacher ratings on a standardized checklist of children’s prosocial and antisocial behavior.  Teacher ratings indicated a statistically significant (p = .003) increase in children’s (N = 32) prosocial behavior, from average on the pre-test (standard score = 100.16) to just above average (105.34) at post-test. Similarly, there was a statistically significant (p = .023) decrease in teacher ratings of children’s antisocial behavior, from average on the pre-test (standard score = 99.97) to just below average (96.37) at post-test. Families of a total of 18 of the 47 children in the intervention came to some of the parenting activities, most coming multiple times. The children and their parents were asked to complete a brief questionnaire addressing what they liked and disliked about the parenting program.  A majority of parents especially liked the presentations and the opportunity to have one-on-one time with their children. They also reported learning a great deal about developing skills in terms of helping their kids with homework and listening.  The children reported that they learned about appropriate communication with parents and teachers, as well as skills related to math.  They indicated that they liked the time with parents, the food provided, and the opportunity to be with other children.