Long-term evaluation of a maternal and childcare support program

Grant Evaluation

Program Evaluation

Overall Evaluation

Ongoing follow-up data will be collected for several years following the entrance of each family into the overall program in order to help determine the success of specific services and programs offered on a long-term basis, as well as suggesting areas of improvement or additional areas of need that can be targeted by the program. In order to develop a more short-term awareness of success and potential shortcomings in the program at large, monitoring of statistics related to childcare, including infant admission for medical services brought on by such factors as malnutrition and other areas of parent ignorance and/or neglect, will be rigorously maintained. A net positive effect should be noticeable within a year of the program's initial operation, with program participants showing significant lower proportional incident rates of such admissions than the population at large.

Individual Objective Evaluations

The education of women finding themselves in a crisis or unplanned pregnancy will be evaluated by:

Entrance and exit interviews and questionnaires with program participants

Follow-up interviews with participants at set intervals, for several years if possible

Coordination with area shelters and medical officials regarding educational needs, and ongoing evaluation of educational practices and topics in accordance

2. The offering of maternal and emotional services to pregnant women ages 16-28 and their mates throughout pregnancy will be evaluated by:

Tracking of individuals that seek additional outside services and their reasons for doing so, and coordinating such information with other related programs

Psychological evaluations to determine the level of emotional preparedness for childbirth and child raising during and following program participation

Follow-up evaluations to determine needs that were and were not adequately met

3. The developed posttest tool to assess the mother-to-be learning ability and knowledge on newborn care will be evaluated by:

Correlative studies to determine the degree to which this tool is validated by related tools, supportive research, and established theoretical and practical constructs

A study of the effectiveness of the posttest tool in helping to develop and implement educational programs that establish desired levels/areas of knowledge

Analysis of problems encountered during the provision of newborn care, identifying new areas of necessary education

4. Ensuring that 100% of group participants will be able identify at least one safety, nutrition, or parenting concern at each session will be evaluated by:

In-session prompting for each group participant to identify at least one such concern

Ongoing recordkeeping and evaluation of failures to meet this objective, with immediate additional interventions initiated after one incident of failure

Program leader/coordinator evaluations that ensure proper practices, methodologies and knowledge areas are incorporated into every group session

Information Reporting and Utilization

The information that is gathered for evaluation purposes will be reported to the program developer and all other program leaders, as well as to any interested contributors, public organizations and private citizens. It is believed that transparency will help this program to increase its effectiveness by demonstrating good faith to the community at large and to the specific population targeted by the program, while also encouraging the continued improvement of practices within the program. Information will be used to directly adjust and influence program offerings and methodologies .