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Session Title: Developing Evaluation Capacity Among Partners and Grantees: Innovative Tools and Approaches - Examples From the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
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Panel Session 889 to be held in the Granite Room Section B on Saturday, Nov 8, 1:20 PM to 2:50 PM
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Sponsored by the Health Evaluation TIG
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| Chair(s): |
| Thomas Chapel,
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
tchapel@cdc.gov
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| Abstract:
To achieve the distal outcomes with which public health agencies have been charged requires coordinated efforts among different sectors and participants. The implications for evaluation are that interventions and their evaluation are complex, multilayered, and difficult to achieve. Evaluation challenges can exceed the skills of our partners, who fortunately, are eager for technical assistance and tools to aid at all stages of evaluation. This presentation discusses strategies of different CDC programs to develop tools for providing technical assistance for their partners and grantees. Program representatives will describe their situations briefly and how they selected specific tools. Development and implementation of the tools will be discussed, as will information regarding how the tools are perceived by the grantees and how the tools have changed evaluation practice at the partner or grantee level. Lessons from the CDC experience will also be drawn.
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Providing Technical Assistance: One Model of a Collaborative Approach
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| Karen Debrot,
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
kdebrot@cdc.gov
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| Sonal Doshi,
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
sdoshi@cdc.gov
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Provision of evaluation technical assistance (TA) to grantees often does not take into account the knowledge and skill level of the grantee. Further, it often focuses on the needs of the funder rather than on the capacity of grantees to conduct meaningful and useful evaluation for their own programs. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC's) Division of Adolescent and School Health (DASH) uses a collaborative approach to provide TA to its grantees, which addresses both their knowledge and skill level as well as enhancing their capacity to evaluate their program beyond the level required by DASH. This presentation will cover DASH's protocol for evaluation TA, including the processes for initiating contact with grantees by a team of DASH staff who assist with programmatic and administrative issues.
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How the Division of STD Prevention Uses Program Improvement Plans to Redesign Programs
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| Betty Apt,
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
bapt@cdc.gov
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| Sonal Doshi,
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
sdoshi@cdc.gov
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CDC's Division of STD Prevention (DSTDP) requires that all of their 65 funded project areas submit morbidity data. This data is to be used by CDC and the project areas for program planning and monitoring. However, it became evident that many project areas were not using this data to design and monitor their programs and activities. Therefore, their efforts often were ineffective, were not suitable for, or directed to, the appropriate at-risk populations, nor were limited resources being used efficiently. To address this problem, DSTDP has made the use of data for program improvement a Division priority. To help accomplish this goal, DSTDP implemented requirements for evidence-based planning and program improvement plans. In this presentation, we will describe the evidence-based planning and program improvement plan tools that DSTDP developed to assist project areas in using their data to design, monitor, and revise their STD prevention programs.
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Interactive Web-Based Tutorials: Development and Implementation
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| Sonal Doshi,
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
sdoshi@cdc.gov
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| Karen Debrot,
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
kdebrot@cdc.gov
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Many health and education agencies find completing basic program planning activities challenging; however, program planning is fundamental to performing credible program evaluation. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Division of Adolescent and School Health (DASH) provides technical assistance on basic program planning activities as a primary way to increase the evaluation capacity of state and local health and education agencies. Because DASH serves education and health agencies across the United States that have different levels of capacity to plan programs, DASH offers web-based, interactive, program planning tutorials. DASH designed, developed, and implemented three tutorials: 1) Goals and SMART Objectives; 2) Logic Model Basics; and 3) Developing Your Own Logic Model. In this session the presenters will discuss the process and challenges for developing and implementing the tutorials, including deciding on topic-areas; developing specific content and exercises; designing visually appealing and navigatable tutorials; conducting pilot testing; and lessons learned.
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