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Session Title: Technical Assistance in Action: How Does the Practice Look?
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Panel Session 699 to be held in REPUBLIC C on Friday, Nov 12, 4:30 PM to 6:00 PM
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Sponsored by the Collaborative, Participatory & Empowerment Evaluation TIG
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| Chair(s): |
| Pamela Imm, University of South Carolina, pamimm@windstream.net
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| Abstract:
The current research about the necessary types of levels of intensity of technical assistance to influence program and community outcomes is limited. In fact, technical assistance efforts remain mostly intuitive rather than data driven (Florin, Mitchell, Stevenson, & Klein 2000). Interestingly, the investment in technical assistance continues to grow with many federal agencies contracting with technical assistance providers to work closely with their grantees to promote high level planning, implementation and outcomes. This session will provide an opportunity for technical assistance providers to discuss their work and to offer ideas for how to conceptualize and measure technical assistance in a variety of settings. This will include ideas for qualitative and quantitative measurement.
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Literature Review on Proactive Technical Assistance Systems in Community Settings
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| Jason Katz, University of South Carolina, jakatz@mailbox.sc.edu
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| Abraham Wandersman, University of South Carolina, wandersman@sc.edu
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Although the benefits of technical assistance (TA) have been demonstrated in community-based settings, more research is needed to better understand which aspects of TA are most effective for communities. One aspect of TA, proactive design, has been broadly conceptualized in the literature as TA that it is catalyzed by the TA provider. A modified grounded theory (Kloos, Gross, Meese, Meade, et al., 2005) approach was used to gather information from communities participating in a federal mental health systems transformation initiative about how to operationalize proactive technical assistance. Results suggested that communities regard four domains as important within a proactive TA strategy: (1) TA provider orientation to a community; (2) TA provider immersion in a community’s practices and perspectives; (3) a context-informed assessment; and (4) the delivery of community-specific TA support. Areas for future research and implications for the practice of proactive TA will be discussed.
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Notes From the Field: Lessons Learned From Using a Participatory Approach to Evaluation
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| Jessica Waggett, Institute for Community Health, jwaggett@challiance.org
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| Emily Chiasson, Institute for Community Health, echiasson@challiance.org
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| Elisa Friedman, Institute for Community Health, efriedman@challiance.org
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| Karen Hacker, Institute for Community Health, khacker@challiance.org
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The Institute for Community Health (ICH) is a community-based evaluation and research institute. A cornerstone of our mission is the promotion of capacity-building amongst our partner communities through participatory approaches. ICH has worked for 10 years with community partners to 1) provide evaluation capacity-building technical assistance and education, and 2) develop and implement evaluations that encourage data driven decisions. While projects are often small in scope, ICH implements a continuum of effective evaluation approaches that match available resources- tailoring capacity-building efforts to the needs of our partners.
Drawing from our experience working on a variety of small project evaluations, we will share how our approach increases both partners’ understanding and motivation for evaluation, and utilization of data for community health improvement. In particular we will look at a case study of a local opioid overdose prevention project, examining lessons learned from our participatory approach to evaluation.
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Helping Practitioners Use Data for Planning and Evaluation
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| Jane Powers, Cornell University, jlp5@cornell.edu
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For the past ten years, we have been working on an initiative called Assets Coming Together for Youth, helping communities and youth serving programs across New York State promote the health and well being of adolescents through strategies of positive youth development. We operate an academic Center of Excellence that connects leading edge youth development research to practice, and provides training and technical support, evaluation assistance, and resources to front line providers as well as policy makers.
In this presentation, we will share lessons learned in helping programs, organizations, and coalitions evaluate their youth development efforts. We will report on a technical assistance approach that leads practitioners through a reflection process that involves gathering self-assessment data which are then used for planning and evaluation purposes. Data interpretation sessions engage participants and foster discussion about how to enhance program quality, improve practice, and create change that optimizes positive youth development.
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Training and Technical Assistance to Build Capacity of Mental Health in Laos
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| Paul Florin, University of Rhode Island, pflorin@mailbox.uri.edu
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Lao PDR, is a low-income nation of 5.5 million people in Southeast Asia. Currently 2 psychiatrists in the capital city serve the entire population and there are no mental health services in the countryside, made up of 17 Provinces. This paper will describe the work of an international team who has been conducting a feasibility study on how to approach building mental health capacity in Laos. The paper will 1) describe the initial reconnaissance project conducted in March 2009; 2) overview a concept paper that describes a two level (national and provincial) approach to capacity building); 3) review a follow-on visit in March 2010 and 4) describe how initial training and technical assistance will be used to assess and treat perinatal depression in one province by integrating it within the existing primary health care. Implications for training and technical assistance design in low-income countries will be discussed.
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Measuring Technical Assistance Influence Using Project Activity Networks
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| Peter Kreiner, Brandeis University, pkreiner@brandeis.edu
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This study developed a new approach to measuring the influence of technical assistance on project progress in eight communities funded to address youth substance abuse. We developed a citation network of project activities, capturing, for each project activity, which prior activities gave rise to it, including technical assistance activities. We then applied the quantitative tools of network analysis to derive a measure of each activity’s influence on downstream activities, yielding measures for each project of the relative influence of technical assistance activities. Using these measures, we explored the relative influence of technical assistance over time, across projects, and across project activity categories. Through key informant interviews in each community, we also assessed changes in community and coalition capacity to address youth substance abuse. Comparisons of changes in capacity with relative influence of technical assistance yielded insights into where technical assistance was most effective, and how its influence could be improved.
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Effectiveness of the Getting to Outcomes (GTO) Technical Assistance Model to Reduce Underage Drinking
| Pamela Imm, University of South Carolina, pamimm@windstream.net
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| Annie Wright, University of South Carolina, patriciaannewright@yahoo.com
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| Matthew Chinman, RAND Corporation, chinman@rand.org
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This presentation will focus on the provision of training and technical assistance on the Getting to Outcomes (GTO)tm accountability system and the effectiveness of that strategy for demonstrating usage of the GTOtm system. Training and TA on GTOtm has been provided to three coalitions in order to help them implement key environmental strategies to prevent underage drinking. The work and outcomes of these three intervention coalitions are being compared to the underage drinking outcomes of three comparison coalitions. The intervention period was initiated with an extensive training on GTO and followed by 18 months of technical assistance on GTO. Logs of TA for each of the intervention coalitions have been maintained and TA activities have specifically focused on alcohol compliance checks, responsible beverage service, and media advocacy. Researchers will present their model for how technical assistance is conceptualized and quantified.
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