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Session Title: Strengthening Value Through Evaluation Capacity Building
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Panel Session 552 to be held in Avalon B on Friday, Nov 4, 8:00 AM to 9:30 AM
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Sponsored by the Organizational Learning and Evaluation Capacity Building
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| Chair(s): |
| Karen Debrot, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, kdebrot@cdc.gov
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| Discussant(s):
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| Karen Debrot, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, kdebrot@cdc.gov
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| Abstract:
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) awards a large proportion of its budget to state and local agencies and non-governmental organizations to accomplish its mission of promoting health. Evaluation of CDC-funded activities is an important part of demonstrating accountability for taxpayer dollars. However, funded partners vary in their capacities to evaluate their programs. To address this challenge, CDC has developed different systems to build funded partners' evaluation capacities to help improve program planning, monitor progress, improve implementation, and document outcomes. The presentations in this panel will describe three CDC systems that target evaluation capacity building to increase outcome-level evaluation, measure and track skills and competencies, and to coordinate evaluation across multiple skill levels. These systems demonstrate standardized, coordinated efforts to build skills to support evaluation practice of funded partners. In this way, CDC ensures that stakeholders benefit from well-implemented programs, and the value of evaluation increases among partners.
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Using Evaluation Technical Assistance to Enhance State Oral Health
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| Cassandra Martin, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, cmfrazier@cdc.gov
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| Victoria M Beltran, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, vbeltran@cdc.gov
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Evaluation capacity building (ECB) at the State level is an important process for strengthening evaluation efforts. CDC's Division of Oral Health (DOH) has prioritized ECB through a proactive technical assistance (TA) plan to ensure that state oral health infrastructure programs are evaluated effectively. An integral part of ECB is helping state evaluators achieve a foundational set of competencies. Using data from the DOH Evaluation Self-Assessment Tool, the DOH TA plan focuses on moving evaluators along a competency continuum adapted from competencies from AEA, CDC, and the Joint Commission on Standards for Educational Evaluation. With the use of the DOH Evaluation TA toolkit, evaluators build evaluation skills, thereby strengthening state evaluation practice so that it becomes a valuable asset to all state oral health programs. This session will focus on the development of the core competencies, measurement to track progress through competencies, and future use of ECB to enhance evaluation TA.
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Guiding Asthma Partners in Learning and Growing Through Evaluation
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| Robin Shrestha-Kuwahara, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, rbk5@cdc.gov
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| Amanda Savage Brown, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, abrown2@cdc.gov
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| Sarah Gill, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, sgill@cdc.gov
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| Paul Garbe, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, plg2@cdc.gov
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The National Asthma Control Program is undertaking a collaborative and comprehensive process to build evaluation capacity with its funded state grantee partners. Since evaluation experience among the state asthma programs varied widely, a flexible system needed to be established. To support state efforts in carrying out this new evaluation vision, a team of Evaluation Technical Advisors (ETAs) was established to provide direct technical assistance. The presenter will share how guidance materials, including Learning and Growing through Evaluation, were developed to assure that the ETAs provided coordinated assistance in developing strategic plans and implementing evaluation activities across state programs. The presenter will discuss the evolving role of the ETAs in providing direct support to states and how Learning and Growing is used to ensure a programmatically-sound, data-driven approach to evaluation. Complementary strategies for providing technical assistance including conference calls, webinars, listserv postings, and site visits will also be described.
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Moving Beyond Process: Helping School Health Partners Evaluate Outcomes
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| Elana Morris, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, efm9@cdc.gov
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The Division of Adolescent and School Health (DASH) has developed a comprehensive evaluation capacity building (ECB) system to address the needs of its funded partners. This system is based on a continuum of needs related to evaluation expectations that vary in complexity. During the past five years, DASH focused on building evaluation skills related to program planning and collecting and using process data. As partners refined their basic evaluation skills, DASH identified the need to provide more advanced support to partners ready to conduct outcome evaluation. The presenter will describe how DASH conducted a needs assessment to build upon its ECB system, how partners were selected for the first year of TA focusing on outcome evaluation, and the types of TA provided. The presenter will share the benefits of TA including increasing individual skill building and group learning, and improving partners' attitudes towards the value of evaluation in their work.
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