| Session Title: A Two-Year External Evaluation of a Federal Emergency Management Agency-Funded and State-Led Disaster Case Management Pilot Project in Response to Hurricane Ike |
| Multipaper Session 682 to be held in Manhattan on Friday, Nov 4, 1:35 PM to 2:20 PM |
| Sponsored by the Disaster and Emergency Management Evaluation |
| Chair(s): |
| Scott Cummings, Texas AgriLife Extension Service, s-cummings@tamu.edu |
| Abstract: This session will provide evaluators with information and best practices for evaluating recovery from a large-scale natural disaster. Disasters such as hurricanes, wildfires, tornados, flooding, drought, earthquakes, and tsunamis are a reality and are seemingly encountered more frequently. Although the media covers these disasters as they occur, and occasionally in the aftermath, there is relatively little known about the long-term impact of disasters on people, beyond the immediate impact reported in the media. Questions such as, how long does it really take to recover, how are people impacted after the event, and what service are needed to help people recover are rarely publicized. It is important to evaluate the human impact and learn from these events. Thus this session will identify best practices applicable for evaluating mitigation, response, and recovery efforts related to the previously noted disasters. Additionally, the complexities of developing, contracting, and implementing such efforts will be discussed. |
| The Storm After the Hurricane: A Multifaceted Approach to Evaluating the Recovery of Those Impacted by Hurricane Ike - The Federal Emergency Management Agency's Disaster Case Management Pilot Project |
| Billy McKim, Texas AgriLife Extension Service, bmckim@aged.tamu.edu |
| Scott Cummings, Texas AgriLife Extension Service, s-cummings@tamu.edu |
| Paul Pope, Texas AgriLife Extension Service, ppope@aged.tamu.edu |
| Shannon Degenhart, Texas AgriLife Extension Service, sdegenhart@aged.tamu.edu |
| In May 2009, a FEMA-funded and state-led disaster case management pilot (DCMP) project was launched and began providing long-term disaster case management (DCM) services to more than 30,000 individuals impacted by Hurricane Ike. An external evaluation team was contracted to determine the effectiveness of the DCMP project over a two-year period. Their evaluation consisted of a three-tiered process- and outcome-based evaluation: 1) quantitative analyses of program data from the Coordinated Assistance Network (CAN) and Tracking-at-a-Glance (TAAG) databases, 2) multiple focus groups and more than 800 face-to-face interviews of disaster case managers, and 3) a mail-survey sent to 15,000 DCM clients, to determine client perceptions of the usefulness, practicality, and success of the DCMP project. Because FEMA often collaborates with multiple government and non-government agencies to facilitate successful recovery efforts, sharing the design and implementation of this evaluation may contribute to future evaluations of disasters or emergency incidents. |
| Challenges and Successes of a Multifaceted Evaluation of the Federal Emergency Management Agency's Disaster Case Management Pilot Project in Response to Hurricane Ike |
| Scott Cummings, Texas AgriLife Extension Service, s-cummings@tamu.edu |
| Billy McKim, Texas AgriLife Extension Service, bmckim@aged.tamu.edu |
| Paul Pope, Texas AgriLife Extension Service, ppope@aged.tamu.edu |
| Shannon Degenhart, Texas AgriLife Extension Service, sdegenhart@aged.tamu.edu |
| The purpose of the disaster case management pilot (DCMP) project was to provide disaster case management to those impacted by Hurricane Ike. Thus, a multi-tiered evaluation of the DCMP project was implemented to determine the effectiveness of the project. Many challenges were related to decisions made by DCMP administrators prior to the onset of the project, including development of a project strategy without an evaluation strategy or evaluation team, not establishing a criterion measure of project success at the onset of the project, and failure to identify standardized variables and measures prior to project implementation. Successes included a multi-tiered evaluation, establishing and maintaining a communication network across more than 15 autonomous organizations, overcoming federal privacy restriction barriers, and aggregation of data from multiple databases with relational files. The presenters will share successes and challenges encountered throughout the project along with recommendations to improve future evaluations of disasters or emergency events. |