 |
Research, Evaluation, and
Quality Improvement
 VVDB
believes that effective systems of care and wraparound process are based on empirical
research, assessment, and continuous quality improvement. Although many communities may
not be involved directly in controlled research projects the information from these
projects should be used as a guide for determining and thus selecting strategies for
supporting children and families. VVDB
supports and conducts research with communities to identify and assess the impact
of many of the variables that impact services and supports. In addition,
VVDB believes that all
communities should base the development, implementation, and refinement of their systems
of care on assessment of the outcomes for children and families within their communities.
VVDB supports the development of
assessment, evaluation, and continuous quality improvement within communities through the
facilitation of a common vision within the community on the values and uses of assessment
and data, development of local community evaluation teams, training and mentoring for
staff and community teams on evaluation issues, and external assessment.
|
|
|
Values for Evaluation and Quality Improvement.
VVDB
believes that evaluation and quality improvement can be very helpful to the development of
systems of care and individualized supports for children ands families but that it can
also be a hindrance. VVDB
believes in utilization focused evaluation that gathers information that can and will be
used to guide the development of local services and the field as a whole. Program
evaluation is the systematic collection of information about activities, characteristics,
and outcomes of programs to make judgments about the program, improve program
effectiveness, and or inform decisions about future programming. Utilization-focused
program evaluation is evaluation done for and with specific, intended primary users for
specific, intended uses. The primary values we hold for evaluation and quality improvement
are:
- All information gathered should be utilization focused
- Information systems should be integrated and useful for child
and family teams
- Information gathering systems should be parsimonious
- Information gathered should be based on the community system
of care and wraparound value
Community
Assessment
At one level, these are: a community assessment and planning process helps a
community to answer several basic questions. What are our problems? What are our strengths
and resources? How can we use our strengths as allies to address our problems? How can we
generate funding to meet the needs of our children and families? The problems facing
communities are complex and the strengths and resources of communities are unique. The
visions and pathways to improve the status of the most important resource of each
community (its children) will also be unique. To develop community visions and plans that
will work for a community and to address these in effective and cost efficient ways, it is
important to integrate the efforts of families, community leaders, service providers,
informal and protective supports, and financiers in ways that work best for each unique
community. Complex problems require well thought out solutions. These are best designed by
a planning team who truly represent all segments of the community and who have quality and
complete information. Well-informed planners and communities will not only be able to make
better plans for their communities but will be positioned to obtain larger shares of
resources available from outside the community. VVDB staff assist community teams in all aspects of community
assessments.
Building community evaluation teams and
capacity
VVDB believes
that assessment and evaluation efforts at the local level need to be a collaborative
effort between the different agencies and organizations involved and the adolescents and
families who receive services and supports. VVDB supports the development of local resources through
community evaluation teams.
- Role of the Community Evaluation Team
- Identify and engage potential users of the evaluation
- Inform potential users of the available data and opportunity
- Facilitate the development of applications for the users
- Develop information displays of the useful information
- Review and analyze the information
- Interpret and share information with users
- Identify additional information to meet the needs of users
|
|
| |
Quality Improvement
VVDB
has been working with local communities to develop ongoing quality improvement
systems that measure the outcomes and process of services for children and families.
VVDB works with local communities
to define the values and goals for the local system and to identify performance indicators
for these values and goals. These performance indicators have then been used to develop
integrated systems to measure the outcomes of services as an ongoing part of the service
delivery process and to measure process through supervisory and quality improvement
activities. The process measures include ratings of the overall performance of the
community against the standards developed by the community, individual personnel measures
(from which personnel development plans can be developed), consumer satisfaction and
empowerment, services access, utilization ,and cost, and measures of
adherence to the
standards for systems of care by individual staff and agencies.
VVDB works with communities to use these measures to plan,
fine-tune, and sustain their work.
Number of Children
Served
Psychiatric
Hospitalization
Usage
School
Performance
Wraparound
Survey
Overall Ratings of Values
Supervisory
Evaluation
Values Scale
|
|
