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Session Title: Valuing Collaboration: Lessons Learned Through Evaluations of a Federally Funded Kinship Initiative
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Panel Session 735 to be held in Palisades on Friday, Nov 4, 2:50 PM to 4:20 PM
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Sponsored by the Human Services Evaluation TIG
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| Chair(s): |
| Kate Lyon, James Bell Associates Inc, lyon@jbassoc.com
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| Abstract:
Collaboration can be the context for evaluation and a subject of evaluation. Panelists will discuss ways to incorporate collaborative activities into evaluation designs and share lessons learned through three federally-funded Kinship Navigator projects. These grants and a national cross-site evaluation were funded by the Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act of 2008. The first panelist will explore the challenge of navigating internal and external relationships in conducting the project evaluation. The second will discuss how Social Network Analysis informs interactions and collaboration among kinship service providers. The third panelist will focus on challenges and successes of collecting data on collaborative efforts of Kinship Navigator projects in the context of relationship-building between the evaluator and program. The fourth panelist will present preliminary findings on collaboration from the cross-site evaluation and will set the tone for a discussion on the practicality and usefulness of various approaches to assessing collaborative efforts.
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Internal and External Collaboration in a Multi-Agency Grant Project
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| Suzanne Sutphin, University of South Carolina, sutphist@mailbox.sc.edu
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South Carolina Connecting for Kids, a three-year federal grant awarded to the South Carolina Department of Social Services, is a Kinship Navigator program which provides access to community services to relatives caring for children in open treatment cases. The project evaluator from The Center for Child and Family Studies (The Center) at the University of South Carolina has pursued a collaborative process with the many community partners involved in providing the navigator services, including: United Way 211 system, HALOS, and the South Carolina Association of Children's Homes and Family Services. In addition to external collaboration, The Center navigates among its internal partners that provide training for kinship caregivers, information and technology services, and Spanish to English translation for the project. The lead evaluator of the Connecting for Kids project will discuss the challenges of conducting an evaluation in collaboration with multiple community partners and internal divisions of The Center.
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Visualizing Collaboration: Approach and Preliminary Results From the San Diego YMCA Social Network Mapping Project
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| Jennifer James, Harder+Company Community Research, jjames@harderco.com
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| Cristina Magana, Harder+Company Community Research, cmagana@harderco.com
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| Sophia Lee, Harder+Company Community Research, sophialee@harderco.com
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The San Diego YMCA Kinship Navigator is a three-year federally funded project to build a regional support system for San Diego's kinship caregivers. One of the primary goals is to evaluate how effective navigator services are in supporting kinship families and improving outcomes for children while strengthening the network of kinship care in San Diego County. Harder+Company Community Research used Social Network Analysis (SNA) to examine interactions and collaboration among kinship providers during the first year of program implementation. SNA provides a quantifiable basis for understanding the effect of inter-organizational collaboration on individual- and program-level outcomes. This presentation will provide an overview of preliminary findings and recommendations for utilizing SNA in evaluation research.
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Valuing Collaboration in Ohio's Enhanced Kinship Navigator Project
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| Kimberly Firth, Human Services Research Institute, kfirth@hsri.org
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Human Services Research Institute (HSRI) is evaluating the Ohio Enhanced Kinship Navigator project, a grantee under the Fostering Connections to Success Act. This presentation focuses on the interplay between building collaboration and evaluating collaboration. Early in the design and implementation stages, HSRI and the seven project sites recognized the important link between Kinship Navigators' success in helping families make connections and the Navigators' own community connections. As the project sites increased their attention to community outreach and networking, HSRI expanded its focus on the sites' collaborative efforts. Kimberly Firth is the liaison between HSRI and the project sites, leading the evaluation of community connections. This presentation will discuss why and how HSRI approached evaluation of project sites' community collaboration and the challenges and successes encountered. Preliminary findings from a survey that uses a collaborative scale to generate social network maps will help illustrate lessons learned.
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Assessing Collaborative Relationships and Their Impact on Service Delivery in the Family Connection Discretionary Grants
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| Kate Lyon, James Bell Associates Inc, lyon@jbassoc.com
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| Jennifer Dewey, James Bell Associates Inc, dewey@jbassoc.com
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| Grace Atukpawu, James Bell Associates Inc, atukpawu@jbassoc.com
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| Chi Connie Vu, James Bell Associates Inc, vu@jbassoc.com
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James Bell Associates, Inc. is conducting a cross-site evaluation of the Family Connection Discretionary Grants awarded with funds authorized by the Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act of 2008. These projects help reconnect family members with children who are in or at risk of entering foster care. The cross-site evaluation examines program processes and outcomes within and across four program areas, one of which is Kinship Navigator. One focus of the evaluation is the collaborative relationships that exist between grantees, evaluators, community service providers, and other stakeholders, particularly public child welfare agencies. The evaluation explores the extent to which collaboration enhances services and influences systems change. This presentation will highlight preliminary results of the cross-site evaluation, specifically the forms of collaboration within the Kinship Navigator projects. Ms. Lyon is a member of the cross-site evaluation team and is the evaluation technical assistance liaison to the Kinship Navigator grants.
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