SAMHSA, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration -- a division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services -- has developed National Outcomes Measures for all of its grantees. They are laid out in a clear grid by domain, similar to what a logic model might look like if you tried to model all prevention and treatment programs in one document.
October 16, 2007 - 2:16pm
On a more personal note....
Like everyone we know, disappointment is something we at the Improve Group occasionally face. These disappointments can vary from wishing the results of an evaluation had more positive findings to wishing we were selected for a project.
August 30, 2007 - 2:44pm
Evaluation deals with public information and involves the engagement of many different communities. When our work requires we access these communities , we have the responsibility to be professional, use valid methods and share current information. To assist in this effort the American Evaluation Association developed the Guiding Principles for Evaluators to provide an ethical framework within which evaluators should provide services to the public.
August 29, 2007 - 3:14pm

July 19, 2007 - 9:44am

July 2, 2007 - 11:33am
Improve Group staff are devoted to using evaluation to improve outcomes, so conducting a test presentation of our new workshop series seemed natural. On June 14th, 2007 we gave a pilot run of How Do I Know That: Creating tools to understand program outcomes and Inside Knowledge, Outside Perspective: Evaluating your organization form within.
June 22, 2007 - 11:56am
While participating in a recent training on human subject protection in research, I was struck by one topic that I would not have normally thought of as a thorny ethical dilemma. In our experience, incentives are usually determined by a balance of the resources an organization can give with what we (the researcher and the organization together) believe will encourage people to participate.