Suchergebnisse

AbstractMaintaining a discovery capacity in evaluation promotes better fit between the evaluation and the dynamic, complex contexts of community‐based programs. A continuing discovery capacity also fits well with the long‐term, systemic changes to which these programs aspire.

In this article, the authors present a mechanism for client tracking linked to a management information system (MIS). The MIS can serve several evaluation functions: assistance to program management in enhancing services, evaluation of the dynamics of client flow through the system, and measurement of interagency coordination for the service population. The authors' aim is to demonstrate the role that such an MIS can play whenever clients must be tracked over time in open systems that depend on coordination of services. Features of the MIS are illustrated by its use in a project for pregnant and postpartum chemically dependent women.

Outreach is a term frequently used to describe active recruitment of program participants and is a common element of many social service and disease prevention programs. Outreach as a project element has received renewed attention with the advent of new federal demonstration projects to serve groups that are difficult to locate, difficult to recruit into services, or difficult to retain within a system of services. The goals of this article are to (a) define outreach, (b) describe the history of outreach as a project element within federal social programs, (c) outline what we perceive as central sources of variation in this element, (d) describe measures of effectiveness and cost-effectiveness, and (e) prepare the evaluator for some recurring implemen tation issues.