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Prop. 10 Special Report: |
This special report originally appeared in the September-October 2001 issue of the Children's Advocate, published by Action Alliance for Children. Prop. 10: Weaving a web of support for young children and familiesIs it working?Every Prop. 10 commission is required to build evaluation into its strategic plan. "The bottom line," says Gary Thompson, Director of Alameda County Interagency Children's Policy Council, "is, are kids better off? Are we really investing our dollars wisely and getting the outcomes we want?" Why evaluate? Accountability: Taxpayers want to know whether their investments are improving the lives of young children. Program improvement: "This is a dynamic process and if something isn't working, then we're going to change it!" says Deborah Bremond, director of family services for Alameda Prop. 10. Community involvement: "We want agencies to include their participants in their evaluations," says Kathy Tabor, Contra Costa Prop. 10 Commission chair. Public support: "Human service programs are politically vulnerable," says Marcy Whitebook, a researcher at the Institute of Industrial Relations at UC Berkeley. "To make programs viable over time, you need to be sure that you are getting the information the stakeholders want." How is progress measured?Many counties are helping the programs they fund develop evaluation plans. In Santa Cruz, says Jeff Almquist, Prop. 10 commissioner and county supervisor, "We set aside money to teach people how to self-evaluate. We provided technical assistance to help programs design measurable objectives, and then later we'll give them consulting assistance to evaluate whether they're hitting their targets." Programs use a variety of strategies to measure progress. Children's programs often use statistics such as the number of sick visits, percentage of kids immunized, or school grades and test scores. In Monterey's Dads in Action program, says its director Hector Castro, "Fathers keep track of their activities with their kids in a journal. We're doing assessments before and after the program and we're going to do a comparative study with children whose dads weren't involved in the program, to see if Dads in Action made difference in the life of the child." Challenges of evaluationWhile numbers and statistics tend to be taken more seriously, stories from people who received the services often provide the best information about a program's value. It can be very difficult to measure human service outcomes, such as "are our clients better parents as a result of our program?" And who decides what it means to be a "good parent"? If changes are seen, how do we know that they are the result of the program being evaluated? It can be hard for people with different perspectives to agree on what needs to be measured. Any results yet?Most Prop. 10 programs are too new to have done formal evaluations. Some early reports: Alameda County's home-visiting program served about 1,500 families since last October. Of the families invited to participate, more than 95 percent accepted. Napa County's Healthy Moms and Babies, which received funds for a full-time translator, reports that they have seen a 56 percent increase in the number of Spanish-speaking parents receiving services from the breastfeeding consultant, dietitian, and parent educator. -Jessica Mihaly |
| Introduction | ||
| Common themes | ||
| Ask the parents | ||
| Creating a network of support |
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| All parts of the community | ||
| Is it working? | ||
| It hasn't been easy | ||
| Looking ahead | ||
| Not enough money! | ||
| State Prop. 10 | ||
| Bay Area Children &
Families County Commissions |
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| Prop. 10-Funded Programs in the Counties |
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