A Program Evaluation Strategy in a Community-Based Behavioral Health and Education Services Agency for Children and Families

Abstract

Evaluation research and outcomes measurement in the arena of behavioral health services for children must be adapted for the community agency setting. Through evaluation research, it is possible to address service goals as well as more traditional academic research goals. This article examines a variety of activities that have been implemented to evaluate children’s behavioral and educational services in a Northern California non-profit community agency. It is noted that there are multiple formats for collecting information from and providing comments to children’s parents, their clinicians, and program administration staff, all of which can be used to effectively address service-focused evaluation research goals. Challenges to doing scientifically rigorous research in a community setting require additional considerations regarding organizational culture and structure. Based on the experiences of the authors and the experiences of others, the article describes general principles that can guide evaluation research and outcomes measurement with children and their families in the community health agency setting.

Learning Culture and Outcomes Measurement Practices in Community Agencies

“…Respondents were asked to characterize the consistency of their data collection on a 5-point Likert scale for which 1 is "sporadic" and 5 is "systematic." The consistency of data collection score was central in our study, as an agency's capacity to collect data in a systematic and routine way appears critical for research-based evaluation (Huffman et al, 2002). "Assessing Learning Culture Scale" (Botcheva, White, & Huffman, 2001).…”

“…To meet these needs, practitioners and evaluation researchers must design models and evaluation strategies integrating the utility orientation and context relevance of evaluation practices (Cousins & Earl, 1992) with the rigorousness of research approaches (Huffman et al, 2002). The ultimate goal is to build organizations' internal capacity for evaluation, in which evaluation research and the use of evaluation results are seen not as adjacent to the services provided, but as integral parts of the ongoing work.…”

Practitioners’ Attitudes Toward the Use of Treatment Progress and Outcomes Data in Child Mental Health Services

“…The second goal was to use outcomes data to make detailed evaluations of how clinical programs make a measurable difference in the lives of the children and families served. The third goal was to use outcomes data in the support of specific clinical research projects (Huffman et al, 2002).…”