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Special educators make countless decisions regarding services for students with disabilities. The evidence-based practice movement in education encourages those decisions be informed by the best available evidence, professional judgment, and client values and context. In this chapter we argue that while evidence is the best basis for making decisions it is imperfect and uncertainty about the evidence-base for decisions will always exist. We outline three classes of evidence and the sources of uncertainty for each. Finally, we describe a framework for integrating these different sources of evidence as a means for increasing confidence in evidence-based decisions.

Global evidence indicates that multiple structural, biological, and behavioural mechanisms link gender-based violence (GBV), HIV/HCV, and substance misuse among women and adolescent girls. The aim of this chapter is to briefly summarise and synthesise recent literature that examines the complex and bi-directional relationships among these epidemics in different populations of adolescent girls and women around the world. To inform this chapter, a selective search strategy was conducted, prioritising use of meta-analytic epidemiological studies and research on interventions and policies that address different aspects of the syndemic among women and girls who use drugs worldwide. The search targeted publications from 2015 to 2019 using PubMed, MEDLINE, and Google Scholar. The chapter highlights methodological and geographic gaps in existing policy, intervention, and implementation research and makes recommendations for strategies to tackle these gaps. It also identifies a continuum of multilevel evidence-based interventions that target the risk environments and key syndemic mechanisms linking these intersecting epidemics that have been found to be effective in reducing intimate partner violence and other forms of GBV, substance use, and HIV/HCV risks. This chapter also assesses inclusiveness of existing research and interventions for underserved and disproportionately affected populations, affecting adolescent girls, sexual minority women, and racial/ethnic minority women and identifies strategies to target gaps or disparities for these key affected populations. Finally, this chapter describes the gaps and opportunities that harm reduction programmes, medical settings, and other community organisations experience in implementing gender-responsive programmes and policies to redress these intersecting epidemics.

The negative effects of gender disparities on nutrition outcomes for women and children are well documented. Gender analyses are often used at the start of projects to capture contextual factors contributing to persisting inequalities and malnutrition but there is a dearth of information about processes for applying findings to program designs and activities at the implementation level. The authors describe a three-phase process used by Helen Keller International (HKI) in 2015–2016 for a nutrition-sensitive program called Family Farms for the Future in rural Cambodia that included: (1) a community-based gender assessment; (2) a workshop to interpret findings from the assessment; and (3) a strategy to incorporate gender-relevant findings into program activities. The gender analysis used qualitative methods involving 32 participatory group activities and 20 individual interviews with men, women, and elders in the program communities. Findings and insights gained from this analysis revealed persistent and different gender disparities and perceptions from each respondent group regarding the reasons for the inequalities. A workshop organized to share the gender analysis findings with program implementers generated ideas and strategies for incorporating and translating findings into program activities. This three-phase process was crucial not only to reveal and understand barriers to socio-economic empowerment of women, but also to obtain buy-in from program implementers and to encourage use of their insights to translate findings into practical strategies and activities to address gender disparities that may influence nutrition and health outcomes of women and children.

Ethnography is a qualitative, naturalistic research method derived from the anthropological tradition. Ethnography uses participant observation supplemented by other research methods to gain holistic understandings of cultural groups’ beliefs and behaviors. Ethnography contributes to bioethics by: (1) locating bioethical dilemmas in their social, political, economic, and ideological contexts; (2) explicating the beliefs and behaviors of involved individuals; (3) making tacit knowledge explicit; (4) highlighting differences between ideal norms and actual behaviors; (5) identifying previously unrecognized phenomena; and (6) generating new questions for research. More comparative and longitudinal ethnographic research can contribute to better understanding of and responses to bioethical dilemmas.

School violence can cause or exacerbate individual and collective trauma. Trauma-informed school approaches offer schools and educators guidance for how to respond. In this chapter, we provide an overview of trauma-informed school approaches and their contributions to healing individual and collective trauma. We begin this chapter by addressing the complex intersection of disability and trauma, and the unique implications of school-based violence for students with disabilities and their teachers. We then define trauma-informed care, describe current short- and long-term trauma-informed school approaches, and explain the aims of these approaches at individual and collective levels. Next, we locate trauma-informed responses to school violence in a context of systemic trauma and share considerations for disrupting the systemic conditions that perpetuate trauma and school violence. We discuss critiques of the trauma-informed care movement and conclude with recommendations for scholars pursuing research in this area.