Ciara Lewis, who earned a doctorate from UIndy’s School of Psychological Sciences, is the author of Collision: A Novel, available in paperback and also readable online at her website.

By day, Lewis is the training director for the Counseling and Psychological Services office at IUPUI. Collision, a tale of two women whose paths cross with surprising repercussions, is her first novel.

Katie Jordan, who earned a bachelor of health sciences degree from UIndy, is the author of We Carried the Mat, observations on caregiving based on journal entries made during her husband’s battle with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis. The book is available in various formats, and more information is available at her website.

Jordan is a physical therapist, living in Troy, Ohio.

Inmates who live with their newborn infants in a special nursery wing at the Indiana Women’s Prison are more likely to retain custody of their children after release and less likely to be arrested again, according to a new study from the University of Indianapolis’ Community Research Center.

Whiteacre

Center Director Kevin Whiteacre studies the corrections field and has seen many promising innovations that ultimately show no impact under greater scrutiny. This case, however, was different.

“The differences were not large, but they were there,” said Whiteacre, an assistant professor of criminal justice and sociology at UIndy. “We expect so much from corrections. It’s always exciting when something seems to be working.”

With space for 10 women and their babies, the Wee Ones Nursery at the Indiana Women’s Prison is among approximately 10 such facilities in the nation for inmates who are pregnant on arrival. Those who meet eligibility requirements can live there and receive childcare assistance and parenting education for as long as 18 months while serving their sentences, though the typical stay is much shorter. The prison on Indianapolis’ west side maintains the nursery using grants and donated supplies.

Whiteacre and his graduate assistants analyzed data on 90 women who participated in the Wee Ones Nursery program and a comparison group of 98 women who gave birth at the prison before the nursery was established in 2008. CRC research assistant Stephanie Fritz also interviewed women from both groups to assess their attachment to their children and their opinions of themselves as parents.

The study, commissioned by the Indiana Women’s Prison and the Indiana Department of Correction, found mild to strong support for all four hypotheses posed at the outset. The findings include:

• Nursery program participants had a lower rate of new arrests within one year of release than the control group – 26 percent vs. 31 percent.
• Participants had a significantly lower rate of new admissions to the Department of Correction within one year of release – 10 percent vs. 18 percent.
• After release, participants were more likely to have legal custody of the child delivered in prison (86 percent vs. 58 percent) and more likely to have caregiver responsibilities for the child (92 percent vs. 75 percent).
• Participants reported a significantly greater sense of parenting efficacy than the control group.

Prison Superintendent Steve McCauley said the findings support the nursery’s mission of helping inmates build healthy relationships with their children during the critical early months of life and create a structure for the children’s continued development.

“This study provides us an empirical indication that the WON program is beginning to fulfill our goal of success for the mothers and the babies,” he said.

The full report is published here.

Fruth

The initial version was a humble classroom packet of just 38 pages explaining a few basic physical therapy tests and measures. Dr. Fruth began assembling the guide shortly after joining the faculty in 2005, when she began teaching the six-hour Clinical Skills I course to first-semester students in the Doctor of Physical Therapy program. Gradually it grew into a spiral-bound booklet with card-stock covers in her favorite color, purple.

“I teach students when they’re just getting their feet wet,” the associate professor says. “There was no book out there that covered the material I taught.”

There is now. Fruth’s 324-page Fundamentals of the Physical Therapy Examination: Patient Interview and Tests & Measures was published earlier this year by Jones & Bartlett Learning.

The book focuses on the ground-level realities practitioners face when presented with a new patient: How to listen, observe, build rapport and assess a person’s needs step by step, regardless of age, sex, background or which body systems are involved. How does one question lead to the next? What physical tests are in the toolbox, and when do you use each one?

“It runs the gamut of every basic test and measure that we do,” Fruth says. “We want to teach you how to conduct a fundamental examination on anyone who walks in the door.”

During her work on the book – which included a wintry month holed up in a Michigan cabin while on sabbatical – the publisher grew increasingly enthusiastic about the project, upgrading it to full color with professional photography, video and an accompanying website. Rather than using professional models, however, Fruth insisted on a more realistic approach, putting actual patients, students and her faculty colleagues in front of the cameras.

More than three days of shooting on campus produced 20 videos, which are available on an accompanying website. They include instructions for various tests and measures, examples of clients with commonly seen symptoms, and two full-length patient examinations, one musculoskeletal and one neurological.  The visual aids are invaluable to students, especially when learning how to recognize various disorders.

“Unless the students can see it, they often don’t get it,” says Fruth, who also manages physical therapy services at UIndy’s Sutphin Center for Clinical Care in Fountain Square, where students serve uninsured patients.

The icing on the cake is that Fruth persuaded the publisher to make purple the dominant color in the book’s design.

“That was a deal breaker,” she says. “They thought I was kidding.”

It was a busy week for UIndy’s Dr. Krista Latham and four graduate students who volunteered their time and talents in archeology and forensic anthropology to assist in a difficult job: Reclaiming the remains of undocumented immigrants who have died in the south Texas countryside while trying to enter the United States.

The group exhumed 63 graves, some of which contained remains of more than one individual, Latham said. During their stay, local authorities recovered several more bodies from the surrounding ranch lands, as well as an 11-year-old girl, still alive, who apparently had been left behind by the group paid to smuggle her into the country.

“It’s heartbreaking work,” Latham said.

The UIndy team — which included students Jessica Campbell of LaFarge, Wis.; Erica Christensen of Indianapolis; Justin Maiers of Lapeer, Mich.; and Ryan Strand of Irving, Texas — was called to assist Associate Professor Lori Baker of Baylor University, director of a nonprofit program that coordinates with authorities on both sides of the border to identify and repatriate the remains of the missing.

Their work generated significant news coverage:

Corpus Christi Caller-Times photo gallery

Corpus Christi Caller-Times video

Brownsville Herald story

Telemundo video (Spanish)

Getty Images photo gallery

Read more about the project here.

The UIndy team members receive certificates of appreciation from Brooks County Judge Raul Ramirez. From left are Maiers, Christensen, Campbell, Latham, Ramirez and Strand.