Human Services Research Institute (HSRI), a not-for-profit organization that employs research and evaluation to guide policy and practice in the field of child welfare, contracted with the Oregon Commission on Children and Families (OCCF) to conduct a process and outcome evaluation of eight Family Resource Centers (FRC) located throughout Oregon. FRCs provide services, resources and outreach to communities to help families raise children in a healthy and safe manner. The process evaluation focused on FRC implementation and current operations to provide a "baseline" portrait of Oregon FRCs, identifying overall strengths and challenges. The outcomes evaluation, the topic of this presentation, focused on developing methods to identify and track outcomes overtime to help the centers and OCCF measure FRC accomplishments, in terms of family well being, community connections and other similar dimensions, in improving the quality of life in Oregon. Based on previous FRC evaluations in other states and site visits to three Oregon FRCs, HSRI developed a list of outputs and intermediate outcomes for each of the 12 most relevant high-level outcomes or the desired changes in child and family outcomes, which are tied to the Oregon Benchmarks. Through meetings with FRC Directors and County Commission counterparts a logic model linking program characteristics and activities to the desired changes was developed. HSRI helped FRCs to build capacity to conduct ongoing outcome evaluation by providing assistance in data collection, analysis and reporting on these outcomes.
Learning Objectives: 1. Recognize the impact of community-based programs 2. Identify several outputs linking community-based program characteristics and activites to desired state-level outcomes
Keywords: Community Programs, Outcomes Research
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: Human Services Research Institute
Oregon Family Resource Centers
Oregon Commission on Children and Families
I have a significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.
Relationship: Employment, grant with OCCF