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Evaluation Proposal for Family Service Team by Howard University School of Social Work, Essays (university) of Social Work

The proposal for evaluating the Family Service Team (FST) in the ECE Division of Howard University School of Social Work. The FST provides families with preventative and supportive services, collaborates with school staff and community members, and helps increase parents' knowledge of child health and nutrition, among other goals. The evaluation aims to assess the impact of the FST on various aspects of family life and school readiness.

Typology: Essays (university)

2019/2020

Uploaded on 09/14/2021

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Running head: PROGRAM EVALUATION PROPOSAL FOR FAMILY SERVICE TEAM, ECE DIVISION 1
Program Evaluation Proposal for the Family Service Team, ECE Division
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Practice Evaluation
Howard University
School of Social Work
XXXX, 2018
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Running head: PROGRAM EVALUATION PROPOSAL FOR FAMILY SERVICE TEAM, ECE DIVISION 1 Program Evaluation Proposal for the Family Service Team, ECE Division XXXXXXXX Practice Evaluation Howard University School of Social Work XXXX, 2018

2 Summary of Proposal Every school year, the Family Service Program likes to conduct a program evaluation to make improvement for a better service delivery to the Early Childhood Education, ECE, families within the District of Columbia. This year will not be different. The following is an evaluation proposal for the SY 2018-2019 created by Mr. Omar Reyes from the Reyes Consulting Evaluation Company, RCEC, who is proposing to utilize a Non- Experimental, NE, performance outcome evaluation to look at the knowledge, skills and behavior change of the consumers_._ Both, qualitative and quantitative data will be collected as part of the evaluation method. According to Grinnell, the quantitative data “measure a quantity or amount; observations that are numerical,” and the qualitative refers to the study of subjects that are hard to quantify”, (Grinnell, Gabor, Unrau, 2016, p. 499). The latter one is based on observations. The proposal includes both quantitative and qualitative. Mr. Reyes is also recommending to utilize “the monitoring approach” which is a program level evaluation designed to contribute in the ongoing development of the program (Grinnell, Gabor, Unrau, 2016, p. 29). In other words findings will be used to better the service delivery to consumers. Mr. Reyes is would like the collaboration of the Family Service Team in the process of the evaluation and he would like to meet with them a couple of time prior to the evaluation to avoid any resistance in the process. Also, Mr. Reyes have already familiarized himself with all the components of the program and he has good knowledge and understanding of the agency. The cost of the evaluation will be $100,000. Agency Overview (2 pages) The Family Service Program is under the umbrella of the District of Columbia Public Schools, DCPS, Early Childhood Education Division, ECED, or Head Start Program. Family

4 Also, during the interview with Mr. Lopez he stated that “the FST primary role is to collaborate with school based staff and community members to promote family partnerships to meet DCPS’s school readiness goals which is done through the following provision: Community outreach and engagement, development of an annual school-based parent development plan, weekly parenting support and education groups, information and referral, clinical case management interventions, attendance and health status follow-up, supporting community engagement activities, developing parent leaders and advocates, forming and supporting monthly ECE parent committee meetings, recruitment the school’s nomination to the Head Start Policy Council and recruitment and assistance for families to apply for the annual lottery” (J. Lopez, personal communication, February 1, 2018). Agency/Program Mission, Goals, & Objectives: In the effort obtain more information about the agency RCEC, searched for the Office of the state super Superintended of Education where he got some information. “The mission of the Division of Early Learning (DEL) is to provide leadership and coordination to ensure that all District of Columbia children, from birth to kindergarten entrance, have access to high quality early childhood development programs and are well prepared for school” (Office of the State Superintendent of Education, 2018). “The Office of Early Childhood Education strives to build and broaden authentic relationship with families, teachers and principals to support the social and academic success of the District’s youngest learners. FSTD has the following goals for the year 2017 through 2018: “1. Increase parental participation and engagement in Early Childhood Education 2. Increase time parents spend reading or telling stories with their child. 3. Increase the number of fathers who participate in workshops and volunteer activities. 4. Expand families understanding of early child development and access to resources thru electronic media and

5 social-medi a. 5. Expand professional development and training for staff that is aligned to ECE, school readiness and DCPS goals. 6. Expand partnerships and collaboration with the community and families. 7. Provide more intense MH Support to our families” [PowerPoint Slide]. The objectives of the FST are to helps resolve issues related to home environment, parental capabilities, family interactions, family safety, child well-being, attendance, social and community life, family health, self -sufficiency and other family needs, provides school-support by participating in school meetings, IEPs, classroom observations, SST meetings, etc. FST Serves as a liaison between schools and families. FST members develop cooperative agreements with local agencies and community services to assist families in accessing needed services, and resources [PowerPoint Slide]. Descriptive Statement Since we are approaching the end of SY 2017-2018, RCEC is proposing to evaluate the outcomes of the FST program. With this evaluation we will be looking at what did the parents learned and what behavior did they adopted as the result of the program’s interventions to benefit their children and their families. In this evaluation we will be looking at the short term results, medium term results and long term results. In the short term results we will look at what the parents learn as a result of the service delivery. In the outcome for learning we want to know if the parents increase their knowledge of a child health and nutrition, knowledge of the ECE scoring system, GOLD, the important bringing the child to school every day, child growth and development. We also will be evaluating the behavior change due to what the parents learned throughout the year. Very often we hear people saying “knowledge is power”. We at the company totally agree with this statement as long the knowledge is being put in practice, so therefore; we will be evaluating the parents’ behavior and student’s progress in his/her education

7 recommend a process evaluation (Grinnell, Gabor, Unrau, 2016, p. 260). The findings will be descriptive and numerical. According to Grinnell, outcome evaluation is to better a program service or interventions that are being used for clients’ service delivery. So, this outcome evaluation will serve direct services or the micro level. Kirst-Ashman in the book Human Behavior in the Macro Social Environment states that a micro system is a person who has a set of orderly elements, interrelated, and works as a whole. The individual has his/her emotions, set of beliefs, behavior, interest, goals, strengths, weaknesses. Even though we will target the micro system level, the results can influence change in communities and organizations’ policies and activities (Kirst-Ashman, P. 24 & 26). Relevant Literature In a study call “Parental Involvement: Rhetoric of Inclusion in an Environment of Exclusion”, 20 parents and 20 school personal were interviewed. The questions were related to the school policies and practices that serve as barriers for parents to participate in school activities including: the issue of colorblind or racism, the white privilege and the disadvantage of some minority groups. Parents were perceived as “lazy”, the perception of the parents in regards to parental involvement was not considered, the color blind approach in school settings ignored the issues of racism causing parents not to have an authentic relationship with the teachers and other school personal (Person, A. Walsemann, K. Jones, S. Knopf, H. & Bake C., 2018). In order to move on the school personal have to consider the above issues and create policies that will address them. There are other issues of concern when it comes to parent involvement.

8 In my current field placement many families have asked if the school system offers for school transportation for their children and for them to come to the meetings. In the District of Columbia the school buses are only offered to student with special needs not to all the students. This transportation issue is causing the student to be tardy for school. Some of the parents complain that they have more than one child and the other ones are going to different schools making it difficult for the child to be at school on time. Beside the issue of transportation there is the problem related to immigrants families specially Latinos families feeling unwelcome in the school. The latter one and the lack of transportation cause family not get involved in school activities including the meetings with Parent Teacher Association (PTA) and other school related activities. One study call “Is All Parental “Noninvolvement” Equal? Barriers to Involvement and Their Relationship to Latino Academic Achievement” “that the relationship between parental involvement in school and student performance is more complex than might be thought” suggest that it is important for school personal to hear and understand the student’s perception in regards to the parents lack of involvement to have a better picture of the problem (Alexander, J. Cox Jr. R. Behnke, A. & Larzelere R., 2017). The latter study discussed the issue of transportation and parent feeling unwelcome at the school. Not everything is black and white. There are different factors why parents do not participate which we have to take in consideration. Evaluation Plan As previously mention this proposal is for an non-experimental outcome evaluation with a single group pre and posttest. Also we will utilized a statistically matched intervention and comparison. We will compare the group who received the interventions such as workshops, case management, and referrals to community resources versus the one who did not to evaluate knowledge, skills and behavior.

10 Did the ECE families supported their children on areas they needed support? Did the program provide with translation services to the families who needed translation during the parents/teacher conference?’ By the end of the first school semester 70% of the parents have submitted the dental and health forms to school Did the Family Service Team program provided with dental home & medical home for the families? Did the Family Service Program impacted the family on the importance to have the child check by a pediatrician and dentist annually? Did 70% of the family submitted their health forms? By the second semester of the school year all case managers social workers, teachers and school staff, 95%, would have received the following trainings: Mandatory reporting, sexual harassment, cultural sensitivity, trauma inform training. Did the family support team or staff took the mandatory trainings to serve the families better? Did the family service delivered improved after the trainings were taking? By the end of the school year 30% of parents have received trainings on attendance, health and nutrition, GOLD, child development and kindergarten readiness. Did the Family Service Team program help the ECE’s families’ increase their knowledge on health and nutrition, GOLD, attendance, and kindergarten readiness? Did the health, nutrition and attendance trainings had an impact on the families eating habits & student attendance? By the end of the school year 45% of the families were referred to a mental health and social service with the sister agencies. Did the Family Service Team referred 45% of the families to mental health and

11 social services? Did this families improved their quality of life? By the end of the year the ECE families will increase their engagement in their child’s education. Did parents increase their parental engagement in the child education due to the Family Service Team program intervention? Did the program increased the knowledge of and behavior on regards to kindergarten readiness? By the end of the first school semester 45% of students with attendance concern or truancy will increase their attendance at school Did the 45% of the students with attendance concern increased their attendance at school as a result of the program? Evaluation Plan (Continued) Some of the areas that will be evaluated by the company will be the number of families who participated in the different workshops, the pre evaluations and post evaluations of each sessions including the knowledge prior to the workshop and the knowledge after the workshops. We will evaluate the number of students who improve their attendance due to the interventions of the program, number of families who received case manager and mental health services; number of families who were referred to community resources; number of families who participated in the parents/teacher conference; number of families who submitted the health forms to school; number of families who were connected to medical and dental home; number of families who participated in the parent/teacher conference; number of parents who increase their parent engagement throughout the school year as well as their eating habits, and better their conditions.

13 Did the Family Service Team program help the ECE’s families’ increase their knowledge on health and nutrition, GOLD, attendance, and kindergarten readiness? By the end of the school year 30% of parents have received trainings on attendance, health and nutrition, GOLD, child development and kindergarten readiness.

of parents trained

and on attendance, health and nutrition, GOLD, child development and kindergarten readiness Did the Family Service Team referred 45% of the families to mental health and social services? By the end of the school year 45% of the families will received case management, mental health and refer to community resources

families received

CM service & referred to mental health and social services. Did the 50% of the students with attendance concern increase their attendance at school as a result of the program? By the end of the first school semester 50% of students with attendance concern or truancy will increase their attendance at school

students who better

their attendance at the end of the first semester of school. Project Activities with SMART Objectives. Project Activities (^) SMART Objectives Time Frame Provide educational workshops to parents By the end of the school year 30% of parents have received trainings on attendance, health and nutrition, GOLD, child development and kindergarten readiness. Attendance: September 29 & Jan 30 GOLD: October 31, January

Health and Nutrition: December 20 & January 28 Mental Health: December 28 Child Development: February 28 Kindergarten Readiness: March 30 Train the school staff on different topics including cultural sensitivity By the second semester of the school year all case managers social workers, teachers and school staff, 95%, would have received the following trainings: Mandatory reporting, sexual harassment, cultural sensitivity, trauma inform training. By December 28 Provide families with individual case By the end of the school year 45% of the families will Ongoing until the end on SY

14 management, mental health services and referrals to community resources. Also conduct home visits. received case management, mental heal service and referred to community resources Monitor student attendance and follow up with the families with those students with truancy concern; Attendance celebration to student with great attendance; Attendance report/Attendance follow School parents celebration activities. By the end of the second school semester 45% of students with attendance concern or truancy will increase their attendance at school February 28 & ongoing Collect health forms for those students who are missing health and dental forms By the end of the first school semester 70% of the parents have submitted the dental and health forms to school December 28 Ongoing activity Instruments That Will be Utilized and Data Collection In regards to the workshops, the parents who attend the workshops will complete a pre- test and a post-test evaluation to measure what they learn in each workshop. Also, at each workshop we will have a sign-in sheet to keep track of the numbers of parents who participated in each sessions. All the workshop information such as flyers, sign-in sheets, pre and post- test will be documented in octo.quickbase.com for record keeping and evaluation. As the old saying in social work “if it is not documented, it didn’t happened”. Family Service Team members will

16 GOLD workshop- documented Health and Nutrition: Mental Health: Child Development: Kindergarten Readiness: Generate report on families who have participated in school activities Family survey about reading time with the child Contact families to collect health forms, connect them W/dental home, medical home and review records Staffs training Parent teacher conference data collection about parent/teacher conference First one by 10/31/ Second one by 01/20/ First one: 12/20/2018 & 01/28/ 12/28/ 02/28/ 03/30/ 02/30/ 2/20/ Form 8/24/ through 02/28/ 02/28/ 06/8/

FES

FES

FES

FES

FES

Supervisor Teachers FES Family Service Team members Teachers Program service delivery and support of the evaluation Program service delivery and support of the evaluation Program service delivery and support of the evaluation Program service delivery and support of the evaluation Program service delivery and support of the evaluation Will support the evaluation Data collector Program service delivery and support of the evaluation Program service delivery and support of the evaluation Data collector, support team

17 Parent end of the year survey Run a general report for analysis with includes # of referral, # of parents who received Mental health services, case management

Teachers Team Manager Data collector, support team Will support the evaluation Gantt Chart and Time Period Early Childhood Education, ECE, SY 2018- Timing of Activities DCPS First day of school: 8/20/ Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May June Initial Family survey analysis X Family Assessment analysis X Attendance Report analysis from Aspen ( times a year) X X X Health Forms Collection analysis X X X Mandatory staff Training analysis X X

19 of the year. This information will be presented charts and narratives describing the meaning of the numbers presented. Some of the charts will have percentage numbers and others will have raw numbers. In the qualitative method the company will work with the teachers for them to make direct observations on the families and child to observe and analyze the pattern of behavior. In this area we will look at child education engagement behavior patterns. Also, the company is proposing to have interview with families. Those who participated in the various interventions activities such as the various workshops and other school activities and those who did not participated in the intervention activities to make a comparison in behaviors. The result of the evaluation will be presented in hard copies, PowerPoint presentations and handouts. Dissemination Plan & Implications to Social Work Practice Once the data is analyzed, RCEC will first shared the final evaluation or the results of the evaluation with the Program Director. The program Director will let Mr. Reyes know about a day and time for a group presentation to the team managers, there are five of them. The later group will later share the final findings with the Family Engagement Specialist team to celebrate if the results are positives or brainstorm about possible solutions to issues that serve as a barrier to achieve to goals and objectives of the program. Also, the team managers will share the information with the schools’ principals who will later share the results with the teachers and other stake holders such as the parents, volunteers, administrators staffs and ECE school support team. Describe how the research you proposed will affect your social work practice area. The research proposed by Mr. Reyes Company is not an invasive one. He is proposing the “monitoring approach” where the company will evaluates the short term results and medium term results as the program is running. This approach will serve as a tool for the program to

20 tackle areas of weakness or areas where it needs immediate attention for an interventions and in the long run to achieve the long term results. For example, when the company evaluates the attendance report in the first SY quarter and if there are a group of students with chronic attendance FES can assist the family by identify the barriers that are not allowing to bring their kids to school and work with them to better their situation. The same goes with the health forms, and so forth. From the social work perspective when providing services to clients is essential to work from a frame work of system theory and the person-in-environment perspective as well as the social justice and empowerment (Walsh, 20014., P.4). This evaluation will identify barriers to make improvement in the program level as well as clients’ level. Very often people say that the social worker wears different hats and one of them is being a researcher. Social workers need to engage in their own research and disseminate information for the good of the communities and society in general (Walsh, 20014., P.4).