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Session Title: Evaluating Systems Change Efforts
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Panel Session 715 to be held in Room 105 in the Convention Center on Friday, Nov 7, 4:30 PM to 6:00 PM
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Sponsored by the Non-profit and Foundations Evaluation TIG
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| Chair(s): |
| Julia Coffman,
Harvard Family Research Project,
jcoffman@evaluationexchange.org
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| Abstract:
Efforts to improve health, education, or human service systems are complex and notoriously hard to evaluate. They involve multiple programs and players and feature outcomes at multiple levels. Additionally, they are long-term efforts that evolve over time in response to the political and economic contexts around them. These complexities and others place systems change efforts directly outside of the more familiar program evaluation comfort zone. Consequently, less consensus exists about how to evaluate them. Advancing the conversation about systems change evaluation is critical, however, as nonprofits and foundations increasingly see systems change as essential for achieving large-scale results for individuals and communities. This session will introduce a new framework that attempts to clarify ideas, approaches, and language about evaluating systems change efforts. It also will feature presentations on the evaluations of two systems change efforts (to improve early childhood development systems) to demonstrate how the framework can be applied.
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A Framework for Evaluating Systems Change Efforts
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| Julia Coffman,
Harvard Family Research Project,
jcoffman@evaluationexchange.org
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The presentation will introduce a new framework for evaluating efforts to build or reform health, education, or human service systems. The framework helps evaluators, funders, and individuals implementing systems change efforts break down the complex and often overwhelming task of evaluating systems change efforts into more manageable parts and is designed to support both theory of change development and evaluation planning. It clarifies the kinds of activities or functions that complex systems change efforts perform and the types of outcomes and impacts they aim to accomplish. The framework also presents a menu of methodological options for evaluating systems change efforts. A full paper explaining the framework will be available for session participants.
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Evaluating The Build Initiative
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| Michelle Stover-Wright,
Child and Family Policy Center,
michellesw@cfpciowa.org
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This presentation will demonstrate how the framework can be applied to an actual systems change effort, with The Build Initiative and its evaluation serving as the example. The Build Initiative is a foundation-funded multi-state effort to ensure that children from birth through age five are safe, healthy, eager to learn, and ready to succeed in school. Build supports states' efforts to build comprehensive and coordinated early childhood systems of programs, policies, and services that work together to achieve positive outcomes for young children and their families. This presentation will show how the framework can be applied to The Build Initiative in three ways. It shows how the framework can be used to: 1) map Build's focus areas (at an overall initiative level, across Build states), 2) define Build's relevant theory of change elements, and 3) identify Build's existing and potential evaluation options.
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Evaluating Kids Matter in Washington State
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| Kasey Langley,
Organizational Research Services,
klangley@organizationalresearch.com
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This presentation will offer a second example of how the framework can be applied to a foundation-funded systems change effort, using Kids Matter in Washington State as the example. Kids Matter is a collaborative and comprehensive plan for building the early childhood system in Washington State to improve outcomes for children. Kids Matter supports the efforts of local and state stakeholders to coordinate, collaborate, and integrate efforts that will lead to children being healthy and ready for school. The presentation will use the framework as a lens for discussing the longitudinal evaluation of efforts to achieve Kids Matter goals.
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