Evaluating a Strengthening Families Initiative

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Evaluating a Strengthening Families Initiative

• Leadership Team Tool

2
What is Being Evaluated?

• Impact on Program Practice
• Practice changes in response to self-assessment
• Increased parent participation and leadership in
  programs

• Policy/Systems
• Integration into
• Child care licensing
• State ECCS plan
• Quality rating systems
• SFI enabling legislation

• Impact on Parents and Children
• Increase in protective factors for participating
  families
• Enhanced parent resilience
• Increased social networks
• Improved access to resources and support
• Increased knowledge of parenting and child
  development
• Enhanced social and emotional development in
  children

• EC/CW Linkages
• ECE placements for foster kids
• Inclusion of ECE in case planning
• Enhanced collaboration between ECE and CW

CAN Prevention
Normative Shift

• Impact on Teacher Practice
• Knowledge of protective factors
• Enhanced relationships with parents
• Increased competence/ confidence in CAN prevention

• Professional Development
• Integration into pre-service training system in
  states
• Integration into in-service training system in
  states

3
Current Evaluation Tools in SFI States

• Impact on Program Practice
• Self-assessment
• Tracking tools being developed in pilot sites

• Policy/Systems
• Implementation and tracking tool

• Impact on Parents and Children
• Parent questionnaire
• Family Support Outcome Survey
• Family Assessment Matrix

• EC/CW Linkages
• Implementation and tracking tool

CAN Prevention
Normative Shift

• Impact on Teacher Practice
• Staff questionnaire

• Professional Development
• Implementation and tracking tool
• Explore using ECE registries to track SFI
  professional development

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Strengthening Families Program Self-assessment

• Developed by CSSP
• Keyed to SFI strategies that build protective
  factors
• Helps programs identify strengths and
  developprogram improvement plans
• Can be used as a pre- and post-test of how well a
  program is implementing SFI

5
On-line Strengthening Families Program
Self-Assessment

• Compiles data for an individual program from all
  people completing the self-assessment
• Can show data for all programs completing the
  self-assessment
• Number of children and families participating
• Ratings of items across programs
• Items for which action plans were developed
• Average cost of programmatic changes made
• Data can be displayed by geographic region,
  program type and size, etc.

6
Implementation Tracking Survey

• Developed by CSSP to capture implementation of
  the Strengthening Families Initiative in pilot
  states
• An adapted version now available on-line for all
  states to use
• Using the survey on-line allows national tracking
  of implementation progress

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Parent Questionnaire

• Developed by Strengthening Families Illinois
• Retrospective survey to measure impact of parent
  participation in ECE program on protective
  factors
• Items keyed to protective factors
• On-line version available soon

8
Staff Questionnaire

• Being developed collaboratively by several
  Strengthening Families states
• Tracks changes in staff members knowledge,
  behavior, values and competencies
• Keyed to the program strategies in the SFI
  Program Self-Assessment

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Family Support Outcome Survey

• Developed by the FRIENDS National Resource
  Center
• Elicits quantitative and qualitative responses on
  prevention factors such as access to formal and
  informal support systems, parenting skills,
  advocacy and ability to meet basic needs
• Asks questions related to four of the five SFI
  protective factors
• Used by SFI New Hampshire to assess Strengthening
  Families pilot programs

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Family Development Matrix

• Customizable tool that measures progress of
  families participating in an ongoing relationship
  
• Sheltering Arms, a 17-center network in Atlanta,
  contracted to develop the matrix to support SFI
  implementation
• Family workers conduct assessment, identify
  strengths and needs, develop individual family
  plan, then conduct post-assessments to determine
  change and progress
• Process facilitated and documented in individual
  center and across all centers
• Produces family assessment data, charts and
  tables from an on-line database

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What to Measure Desired Impacts

• Impact on program practice

• Policy/Systems

• Impact on parents and children

• EC/CW linkages

CAN Prevention
Normative Shift

• Impact on teacher practice

• Professional development

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What Tools Will We Use?

• Impact on program practice

• Policy/Systems

• Impact on parents and children

• EC/CW linkages

CAN Prevention
Normative Shift

• Impact on teacher practice

• Professional development