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The Children's Trust strives to achieve significant outcomes for children and continuous quality improvement for service providers, which is why significant resources are committed to evidence-based programming and tools to measure the effects programs are having on children and families. The Children’s Trust partners with providers to offer the highest quality services to improve the lives of children and families in our community, and is also accountable to the public by demonstrating effective program results and benefits to participants.
The Trust’s approach to evaluation is based on building a program’s capacity to link a program’s mission and resources to high quality program activities, documented through specified outputs, that will ultimately accomplish a measurable benefit for participants. A participatory approach to program evaluation actively engages providers in identifying progress and areas for program improvement and applying lessons learned to benefit other organizations. In partnership, providers and The Children’s Trust work to develop realistic and meaningful program outcomes to be achieved, based on best practices and national standards for each service strategy.
Program evaluation costs are included in each service contract, and may include the purchase of measurement tools, as well as staff time for data collection, entry, management, analysis and reporting. Such costs will typically comprise 5 to 10 percent of a program's budget, depending on the sophistication of the program evaluation design and methods. Contracting with an external evaluator is neither required nor prohibited. However, if engaged, such an evaluator should be versed in working within a collaborative and participatory framework that involves programs in the evaluation process. Additionally, consultant agreement letters must specify the expected evaluation consultant roles and responsibilities, time commitment (total hours and over what duration), deliverables and costs. If funded, a detailed program evaluation plan is required prior to subcontract approval for any external evaluation.
Provider overview training on program logic models and outcome measurement
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Highlights of program evaluation results:
2006-07 FY Evaluation Report (pdf) NEW!
2005-06 FY Evaluation Report (pdf)
2004-05 FY Annual Report of Results (pdf)
2004-05 FY Program Evaluation Detail Report (pdf)
2003-04 FY Annual Report of Results (pdf)
Participant Outcomes Measures Toolbox
The following is a partial list of measures that may be used to evaluate program impact. The list is not intended to be exhaustive, and a measure’s inclusion on the list does not imply endorsement by The Children’s Trust.
PARENTING
Parenting is an umbrella term that covers a variety of concepts, including parental knowledge, attitudes and behaviors. Therefore, providers should select measures that address the specific outcome they want to evaluate. In addition, providers should consider a measure’s applicability to their target population (i.e., age of target children, reading level, language, psychometric properties and validity with specific populations) and program constraints (i.e., time to administer and ease of scoring).
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The Children’s Trust plans to update the list of parenting measures on a quarterly basis. To nominate a measure for inclusion on the list, send an email to johana@thechildrestrust.org.
BIRTH TO FIVE
Early childhood development includes a variety of domains, including communication, cognition, social-emotional competence, and physical health/motor skills (Institute of Medicine, From Neurons to Neighborhoods, 2000). Therefore, providers should select measures that focus on the specific domain(s) or outcome area(s) they wish to evaluate. In addition to the different domains, there is a distinction between screening and assessment instruments. Providers should consider a measure’s applicability to their target population (i.e., reading level, language, psychometric properties and validity with specific populations) and program constraints (i.e., time to administer and ease of scoring).
Download(.pdf)
The Children’s Trust plans to update the list of Early Childhood Development measures on a quarterly basis. To nominate a measure for inclusion on the list, send an email to johana@thechildrestrust.org.
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