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Session Title: Evaluating Programs in Times of Complexity and Chaos
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Panel Session 537 to be held in Room 106 in the Convention Center on Friday, Nov 7, 9:15 AM to 10:45 AM
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Sponsored by the Systems in Evaluation TIG
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| Chair(s): |
| Daniel Folkman,
University of Wisconsin Milwaukee,
folkman@uwm.edu
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| Abstract:
How do we evaluate programs that operate in complex, rapidly changing, and indeterminate environments? Join our panel presentation to learn how this one evaluation strategy incorporates principles from complexity theory along with more traditional approaches. The utility of our evaluation strategy is demonstrated through a case study of the Healthier Wisconsin Partnership Program. This program brings together a group of community partners including an urban middle school, a school based health clinic, a community based agency, and a family leadership development program. The goal is to address the academic, health, safety and wellness issues facing low-income, high-risk, middle school girls. The challenge is that each partner operates within highly complex environments where implementing strategies are continuously changing and outcomes emerge that were not anticipated by the program model. Learn how the evaluation design documents the emerging outcomes and facilitates stakeholder decision making while operating in complexity and near chaos.
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Evaluating Programs That Operate in Complex and Chaotic Environments
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| Daniel Folkman,
University of Wisconsin Milwaukee,
folkman@uwm.edu
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My presentation is an overview of the evaluation design and its implementation. A central component involves creating a learning community among the partners, which meets monthly to review the progress and challenges encountered as the program unfolds. One tool that is used to document the implementation process is called 'Headlines.' Here each partner records the major accomplishments, challenges, and critical learning that has occurred over the previous month. These headlines provide the basis for constructing a narrative on how the program is evolving as it is happening. A second tool involves creating an outcome database called 'good stuff' This is literally a database of unique accomplishments that the girls are producing as they participate in the program but could never be anticipated. This tool is highly sensitive to the emergent patterns and outcomes that the girls are producing. These introductory comments set the stage for the next two presentations.
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Creating Partnership in the Face of Complexity
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| Devarati Syam,
University of Wisconsin Milwaukee,
devasyam@uwm.edu
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Creating a community-based partnership model for addressing the health, safety and wellness issues facing high-risk, African American middle school girls is a central goal of this project. Therefore, the collaborative endeavor requires multiple partners to coordinate their services. The partners belong to different complex systems (both institutional and situational) and are attempting to develop a program by managing different expectations, values, roles and responsibilities that are part of their institutional commitments.
My presentation will report the progress we have made in this partnership building attempt and how the partners have experienced their participation in this process so far - their learning as well as their struggles and challenges. The partners meet once a month to problem solve around the different issues that crop up in the implementation. This presentation will provide the highlights from these conversations and draw implications of evaluating the partnership building project in this context.
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Facilitating Teen Support Groups Where Complexity is the Norm and Chaos is Just Around The Corner
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| Yvette Dobson,
PEARLS for Teen Girls Inc,
yvette@pearlsforteengirls.com
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This presentation is focused on implementing the PEARLS program. The school serves some of the most 'high-risk' youth in the district making the environment highly charged and ready to erupt at any moment. Therefore, my programming context is characterized by a high degree of uncertainty and unpredictability. My primary responsibility is to work closely with the teen girls and develop a relationship with them. But it also entails working with teachers, nursing staff, parents, and community residents.
The discussion will include critical incidents that demonstrate the complexity of working with teen girls within a middle school setting. The incidents will also show the connections with other partners including school nurses, parents, and community influences. The school principal captures my challenge nicely when she described by role as being like the cartoon character Plastic Man. To be successful I must bend and shape to the changing conditions within my environment.
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