Date: Tuesday, February 10, 2026
Hello! I’m Helen Mittmann, Senior Research Associate at the George Washington University’s (GW) Funders Forum on Accountable Health, and a part-time PhD student at the GW Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public Administration. I study social policy, with a focus on policies and programs that work to advance the health and wellbeing of mothers, children, and their families.
In Spring 2025, as part of my coursework, I developed an evaluation proposal and had the opportunity to present it at the 2025 DC Consortium Student Conference on Evaluation and Policy, now the DC Emerging Evaluators Exchange (DCE3). What began as a class assignment ultimately became a learning journey driven by curiosity about how and why maternal, infant, and early childhood home visiting programs work, and a desire to better understand approaches to evaluating complex programs.
There are substantial racial disparities in maternal and infant health outcomes in the United States, with Black and American Indian and Alaska Native people experiencing a disproportionate burden of adverse pregnancy outcomes. Evidence-based home visiting programs are one strategy for addressing these disparities by providing tailored health education, care coordination, and preventive services to pregnant people and their families.
One such program is the Nurse-Family Partnership (NFP), which pairs registered nurses with low-income, first-time mothers to provide support during pregnancy and the earliest years of a child’s life. NFP has demonstrated positive effects on maternal and child health outcomes across multiple populations and settings, and in my review of this literature I found that the evidence base points to opportunities for continued learning about how and why the program works in different contexts. Given the diversity of communities and service delivery environments in which the program is implemented, there is value in better understanding what elements of the model work best, for which families, and in which contexts.
To explore these questions, I proposed a realist evaluation with a mixed methods, multiple case study design. Developed by Ray Pawson and Nick Tilley, realist evaluation focuses on understanding what works, for whom, and in what circumstances. It does so by examining how and why programs produce outcomes through an iterative process of developing, testing, and refining program theory. This approach felt particularly well suited to evaluating complex service delivery models like home visiting programs, which involve multiple interacting elements implemented across varied settings.
Developing this proposal was a helpful learning experience that boosted my confidence in evaluation design and strengthened my interest in maternal, infant, and early childhood home visiting models. Presenting at DCE3 allowed me to share this learning process beyond the classroom, and receive thoughtful, supportive feedback from evaluators at different points in their education and careers. I also appreciated the opportunity to connect with and support student presenters from other universities in the Washington D.C. area. Overall, this experience helped me build skills and momentum as I prepare to formulate a dissertation proposal and engage more deeply with peer feedback.
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Interested in seeing more work like this? Join us live for the 2026 DC Emerging Evaluators Exchange conference on Friday, April 24th! Students, new evaluators, or seasoned professionals are all invited to register for this virtual conference or in-person networking event. If you are a graduate student or recent alumni of a university within the DC region, you are also eligible to submit a proposal to present. See the Call for Proposals for full details.
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