Jennifer Battis, M.Res

Jennifer Battis, M.Res.

Research Assistant

Jennifer Battis joined Hornby Zeller Associates in 2010 as Research Assistant with a focus on data collection and analysis. For one of Maine’s drug court evaluations she developed an SPSS database to track survey responses. For another she has gathered information at face-to-face interviews and focus groups of both staff and client participants. For Maine’s statewide substance abuse prevention projects, SPF-SIG she has conducted site visits of Coalition partners. For HZA’s evaluation of the Nebraska Family Helpline Ms. Battis has listened to Helpline calls and completed a structured protocol to evaluate the quality of the counselor’s responses. In addition, Ms. Battis provides data management support for Moving Forward; this program is designed to address the needs of transition-aged youth and young adults with emotional disturbances, placing emphasis on youth-directed planning and the development of practical skills leading to independence.

Prior to joining HZA, Ms. Battis worked for AmeriCorps VISTA (Volunteers in Service To America), a federal public service program. Her position, with the HealthReach Community Health Centers in Waterville, Maine, involved a variety of tasks, including data analysis, research, public health information tracking and reporting. She developed tutorials and other materials for use in health centers and public health websites, and trained health care staff on proper use and tracking of the Prescription Assistance Program. In addition she was also involved in the grant-writing process, and served as HRCHC’s point person for their annual United Way campaign. Ms. Battis is also well versed in information security procedures, having worked in an administrative support role involving security clearances for the Lockheed Martin Corporation at Hanscom Air Force Base in Massachusetts.

Ms. Battis holds a Master’s degree in Social Research (with Commendation) from the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, a competitive, international graduate program focusing on social research methodologies and statistical software tools (including SPSS, DataNet and NextGen). She received a B.A. from Elon University in North Carolina.

CFSR/PIP/QSR Support

From Pennsylvania Data Gathering, Analysis, and Reporting; Technical Assistance and Training Proposal – October 2012

Jennifer Battis, M.Res.

Analyst

Most of Jennifer Battis’ work with HZA involves data analysis using SPSS. For one of Maine’s drug court evaluations she developed an SPSS database to track survey responses. For another she has gathered information at face-to-face interviews and focus groups of both staff and client participants. In addition, Ms. Battis provides data management support for Moving Forward, a program designed to address the needs of transition-aged youth and young adults with emotional disturbances, placing emphasis on youth-directed planning and the development of practical skills leading to independence.

Prior to joining HZA, Ms. Battis worked for AmeriCorps VISTA (Volunteers in Service To America), a federal public service program. She was assigned to the HealthReach Community Health Centers (HRCHC) in Waterville, Maine, conducting data analysis, research, public health information tracking and reporting. She developed tutorials and other materials for use in health centers and public health websites, and trained health care staff on proper use and tracking of the Prescription Assistance Program. In addition she was also involved in the grant-writing process, and served as HRCHC’s point person for their annual United Way campaign. Ms. Battis is well versed in information security procedures, having worked in an administrative support role involving security clearances for the Lockheed Martin Corporation at Hanscom Air Force Base in Massachusetts.

Ms. Battis holds a Master’s degree in Social Research (with Commendation) from the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, a competitive, international graduate program focusing on social research methodologies and statistical software tools, including SPSS in which she has three years experience, DataNet and NextGen. She received a B.A. from Elon University in North Carolina.

From PA OCYF Data Analysis Re-Bid – May 2012

Jennifer Battis, M.Res.

Research Assistant

Ms. Battis holds a Master’s degree in Social Research (with Commendation) from the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, a competitive, international graduate program focusing on social research methodologies and statistical software tools, including SPSS in which she has three years experience, DataNet and NextGen. She received a B.A. from Elon University in North Carolina.
Court Involvement

From New York Drug Court Evaluation Proposals (Cayuga, Kings and Westchester Counties) – July 2017

Jennifer Battis, M.Res., Subject Matter Expert

Percent of Time for this Project:6%

Jennifer Battis brings extensive experience with drug courts to this project. She has served as the lead evaluator for several drug court evaluations. As the project director for the Maine Statewide Adult Drug Court evaluation, Ms. Battis led and conducted structured court observations, key stakeholder interviews and drug court participant focus groups. She analyzed case management and court data to measure outcomes and to develop specific questions to ask in the cross-site evaluation component of Maine’s six adult drug treatment court programs. Ms. Battis also served as the project director for the Bangor Family Drug Treatment Court evaluation. She updated a literature review of federal drug courts, conducted structured court observations and constructed a database for standardized assessments of the participants. Ms. Battis was also responsible for the qualitative and quantitative analyses as well as report writing. She developed an SPSS database to track survey responses for the evaluation of the Cumberland County drug court, and performed similar work for the Kennebec County Co-occurring Disorders Court evaluation and an Family Court evaluation in Anchorage, Alaska.

Ms. Battis recently managed a needs assessment of Rhode Island’s crime victims. She developed the data collection tools, including the interview and focus group protocols. She also served as a researcher for Maine’s Human Trafficking Needs Assessment which described what human trafficking looks like in Maine, the impact trafficking and exploitation has on state systems and citizens, strengths and gaps in the capacity of Maine's services and law enforcement to respond to trafficking and exploitation, and an estimation of prevalence. She has worked on the evaluation of Maine’s Domestic Violence Judicial Monitoring Projects, conducting court observations, interviews, data analysis, and researching best practices.

Ms. Battis is also HZA’s expert on GPRA, having used the relevant measures for three different SAMHSA-funded projects. One is the current State Youth Treatment-Implementation (SYT-I) project which is designed to improve Maine’s ability to increase access to evidence based practices, to provide treatment and recovery supports for youth with substance use disorders and co-occurring disorders; to improve the quality of evidence-based treatment and recovery supports for adolescents (ages 12-18) and youth in transition (ages 16-25); and to improve access to services for families and primary caregivers. A second one, which was conducted between 2012 and 2015, was the SAT ED Maine Youth Treatment Enhancement and Recovery Project, to build a statewide infrastructure to support evidence-based substance abuse treatment services for 12 to 18 year olds that would result in improved biopsychosocial outcomes for youth with a substance use disorder or a co-occurring substance use and mental health disorder. HZA’s study included evaluating outcomes at two treatment agencies and conducting a process evaluation on SAMHS’ workforce development initiative. The third was a 2015-2016 evaluation of the Moving Forward “Now Is the Time” Healthy Transitions (NITT-IT) initiative, which operated at two levels: first, at the state level to affect policy changes that will decrease systemic barriers to successful transition; and second, at the local level to provide evidence-supported services to youth and young adults residing in three counties through the Transition to Independence Process (TIP) model of case management and the Portland Early Identification and Referral (PIER) program.

Ms. Battis holds a Master’s degree in Social Research (with Commendation) from the University of Aberdeen, Scotland. Prior to joining HZA, Ms. Battis was employed by AmeriCorps VISTA where she was responsible for training healthcare staff in the use of a database tracking system.

From Michigan 17-Year-OldAdult Court and Correctional Systems Cost Study Proposal – February 2017

Jennifer Battis, M.Res., Research Associate

Office Location: South Portland, Maine

Dedicated Hours: 240

Jennifer Battis has served as the lead evaluator for several court evaluations, encompassing drug courts, juvenile justice and adult corrections. As the project director for the Maine Statewide Adult Drug Court evaluation, Ms. Battis led and conducted structured court observations, key stakeholder interviews and drug court participant focus groups. She analyzed case management and court data to measure outcomes and to develop specific questions to ask in the cross-site evaluation component of Maine’s six adult drug treatment court programs. Ms. Battis also served as the project director for the Bangor Family Drug Treatment Court evaluation. She updated a literature review of federal drug courts, conducted structured court observations and constructed a database for standardized assessments of the participants. Ms. Battis was also responsible for the qualitative and quantitative analyses as well as report writing. She developed an SPSS database to track survey responses for the evaluation of the Cumberland County drug court, and performed similar work for the Kennebec County Co-occurring Disorders Court evaluation and the Anchorage Family Court evaluation.

For Maine’s Strategic Prevention Framework State Incentive Grant she helped organize the statewide survey and conducted the final round of stakeholder interviews, including rating grantee responses to the Community Infrastructure Assessment. Additionally, she assisted in analyzing data for the Community Epidemiology Surveillance Network. The reports monitored trends in substance use and were often cited by local and national media.

Ms. Battis is currently conducting the needs assessment of Rhode Island’s crime victims. She developed the array of data collection tools, including the interview and focus group protocols. She also served as a researcher for Maine’s Human Trafficking Needs Assessment which described what human trafficking looks like in Maine, the impact trafficking and exploitation has on state systems and citizens, strengths and gaps in the capacity of Maine's services and law enforcement to respond to trafficking and exploitation, and an estimation of prevalence. She has also been working on the evaluation of Maine’s Domestic Violence Judicial Monitoring Projects, conducting court observations, interviews, data analysis, and researching best practices.

From Connecticut Public Research Project Proposal – October 2014

Jennifer Battis, M. Res., Research Analyst

Ms. Battis will serve as the lead research analyst, assisting Mr. Rubin with the start-up activities, sample selection, follow-up calls where needed, data analysis of survey responses and report writing. Ms. Battis holds a Master’s degree in Social Research (with Commendation) from the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, a competitive, international graduate program focusing on social research methodologies and statistical software tools (including SPSS, DataNet and NextGen). Prior to joining HZA, Ms. Battis worked for AmeriCorps VISTA (Volunteers in Service To America), a federal public service program. Her position, with the HealthReach Community Health Centers in Waterville, Maine, involved a variety of tasks, including data analysis, research, and public health information tracking and reporting.

She currently serves as the lead evaluator for many of Maine’s court-involved evaluations. As the project director for the Statewide Adult Drug Court evaluation, Ms. Battis led the conduct of structured court observations, key stakeholder interviews and drug court participant focus groups. She analyzed case management and court data to measure outcomes and to help develop specific questions to ask in the cross-site evaluation component of Maine’s six adult drug treatment court programs. Ms. Battis also served as the project director for the Bangor Family Drug Treatment Court evaluation. She updated a literature review of federal drug courts, conducted structured court observations and constructed a database for standardized assessments of the participants. Ms. Battis was also responsible for the qualitative and quantitative analyses as well as report writing. She developed an SPSS database to track survey responses for the evaluation of the Cumberland County drug court, and performed similar work for the Kennebec County Co- occurring Disorders Court evaluation and the Anchorage Family Court evaluation.

Ms. Battis has also been a part of the team assembled for the statewide assessment of disproportionate minority contact of juveniles in Louisiana’s juvenile justice system. She conducts site visits to parishes, interviewing District Attorneys, Assistant District Attorneys, Clerks of Court and local law enforcement, while gathering both quantitative and qualitative data to assess the extent to which disproportionality exists and hypothesize the potential reasons for its existence.

From Florida Adult Drug Court Statewide Evaluation Proposal – July 2010

Jennifer Battis, M.Res., Research Assistant: Prior to joining HZA earlier this year, Ms. Battis earned a Master’s degree in Social Research (with Commendation) from the University of Aberdeen, Scotland. This competitive, international graduate program gave her a solid grounding in a variety of social research methodologies and statistical software tools (including SPSS, DataNet and NextGen). She also served as an AmeriCorps VISTA at the HealthReach Community Health Centers in Maine. Ms. Battis has served as a researcher on five special purpose court evaluations, some of which are ongoing. For the Statewide Adult Drug Court evaluation in Maine she conducted structured court observations; she also assisted with key stakeholder interviews and drug court participant focus groups and was involved in extracting data from MIS files and preparing them for analysis. She analyzed data to help determine specific questions to ask in the cross-site evaluation component of the Maine’s six adult drug treatment court programs. For the Bangor Family Drug Treatment Court, she updated the literature review on federal drug courts; she also conducted structured court observations (completing an HZA observation sheet on participant roles and timeframes), constructed a database for standardized assessments, and performed data cleaning and QC functions for this project. Ms. Battis is developing an SPSS database to track survey responses for the evaluation of the Cumberland County (Maine) drug court; she has performed similar work for the Kennebec County (Maine) Co-occurring Disorders Court evaluation and the Anchorage Family Court evaluation.

Grant Writing

From Healthy Maine Partnerships: Request for Information and Request for Proposals Development Proposal – October 2014

Research Associate: Jen Battis, M.Res.:Ms. Battis has experience using NVivo and implemented it with the Maine Families Home Visiting evaluation where she conducted focus groups and key informant interviews with local community agency staff and agency executive directors. She currently serves as the lead evaluator for many of Maine’s court-involved evaluations, leading structured court observations, key stakeholder interviews and drug court participant focus groups. Ms. Battis has experience conducting literature reviews, doing qualitative and quantitative analysis, and report writing. Ms. Battis holds a Master’s degree in Social Research (with Commendation) from the University of Aberdeen, Scotland.