Dr. Ashurst became a Federal Coach for USDA's Children, Youth and Families at Risk (CYFAR) Professional Development and Technical Assistance (PDTA) Center as of January 2019. This is a multi-state subcontract with the University of Minnesota and Pennsylvania State University as the national leads. She was assigned to oversee 6 grants - New York 1, New York 2, Vermont, West Virginia, Michigan, and New Jersey. Since that time, Ashurst has had monthly Zoom meetings with every state; has completed a required Year 3 site visit with one state; co-presented at an annual grantees event with one state; and held face-to-face meetings with grant team members from every state during the June 2019 grantees event in Washington, DC. In June 2019, Ashurst was assigned to 3 more states - a new Vermont grant; a Tennessee grant and a Virgin Islands grant. She has 2 states that are coming off funding soon - one of the 2 New York grants and the New Jersey grant. Deliverables as a federal coach include active participation on Vulnerable Populations national subcommittees; helping to implement, facilitate and evaluate online trainings based on identified needs; track best practices through Extension nationally; develop materials on underrepresented/underserved audiences; promote Extension enrollment; present at annual national professional development events; attend twice per year face-to-face meetings of PDTA personnel; attend twice per month virtual meetings of national coaches; attend once per month virtual meetings with the coach coordinator; consult with and provide oversight to 5-7 grants in other states through: new grantee orientation; monthly contacts; 2 site visits during 5-year grant cycles; monthly newsletter distribution; resource and innovative idea sharing; grant networking; support for hiring and retention and community partner involvement; sustainability toolkit; common measures use and refinement; support with logic model refinement, Return on Investment data, short and long-term outcome data, and sustainability data; core competencies for working with vulnerable audiences; annual executive summaries to USDA/NIFA.

Through this federal role, Dr. Ashurst works with Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and USDA to:

Goal 1 - Build upon established systems to further identify, incorporate, and leverage internet technology to facilitate communication and sharing of promising and evidence-based practices among Land Grant University (LGU) institutions, Extension, and Sustainable Community Projects (SCPs).

Goal 2 - Support efforts to engage and improve outcomes for vulnerable populations and educating on inclusion, diversity, equity, and access for underserved and underrepresented populations.

Goal 3 - Advance a comprehensive training plan that uses strategic outreach, professional development, technology and collaboration to support the adoption of promising CYFAR practices across the greater LGU and Extension communities.

Goal 4 - Use a continuous quality improvement process to review and strengthen program evaluation, data collection, and reporting practices across all aspects of the Center’s work. In particular, systems will be created to address grantees’ and stakeholders’ needs for comprehensive collection/reporting of quality data.

Goal 5 - Capture how CYFAR grants are leveraging federal funding to report on Return-on-Investment (ROI) and success in sustaining post CYFAR funding.