Re: Children's Services Evaluation

[Anne Powell <apowell@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Karen,

You haven't indicated what age group or specific problem and/or service 
domain is of interest to you, so I assume you're looking at child abuse and 
neglect prevention -- and so offer the following ideas.
(1) RAND (Lynn Karoly, et al) conducted what I believe is one the finest 
meta-analyses done to date, reviewing nearly all types of early childhood 
programs for long- and short-term outcomes (Investing in Our Children: What 
We Know and Don't Know About the Costs and Benefits of Early Childhood 
Interventions; go to http://www.rand.org/publications/MR/MR898/index.html 
to see the entire report online).
(2) Pacard Foundation's Center for the Future of Children Spring 1999 issue 
reviews 8 major early childhood prevention program evaluations; and there 
or other issues you may also find useful: http://www.futureofchildren.org/
(3) Abt, Assoc. evaluated ABC (Answers Benefitting Children), "The 
Effectiveness of Comprehensive, Case Management Interventions: Findings 
from the National Evaluation of the Comprehensive Child Development 
Program." Go to http://www.abtassoc.com/reports/childdevelopment-download.html
There apparently is some controversy about this effort among evaluators on 
the AEA "EvalTalk" listserv; their archives are at: 
http://members.home.net/saumitra/AEA/evaltalk.html#Archive.
(4) The US Dept of Education's Office of Educational Research and 
Improvement published an interesting report that encompasses early 
childhood issues, "Building Knowledge for a Nation of Learners: A Framework 
for Education Research 1997"
http://www.ed.gov/offices/OERI/RschPriority/plan/

If your interests are broader than early childhood programs, consider the 
following websites for evaluation resources:
*Child Abuse Prevention Network: http://child.cornell.edu/
*Kempe Children's Center: http://www.kempecenter.org/
National Center for Children in Poverty at Columbia University: 
http://cpmcnet.columbia.edu/dept/nccp/
*The Harvard Family Research Project: 
http://gseweb.harvard.edu/~hfrp/index.html
*The Institute for Research on Poverty (IRP) at Madison, Wisconsin: 
http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/irp/
*Urban Institute: http://www.urban.org/
*ERIC Clearinghouse on Elementary and Early Childhood Education: 
http://ericeece.org/
*The Family Violence Prevention Fund: http://www.fvpf.org/
*Electronic Policy Network: http://epn.org/
*Policy.com: http://www.policy.com/

Finally, you might want to join one or more of AEA's listservs, EvalTalk 
(AEA Discussion List) GovEval (Government Evaluation List), and Minority 
Issues in Evaluation, where you might post this same question.  They can be 
accessed on the web at www.eval.org (click on list and links).

Good luck and I look forward to the responses you get.

Anne Powell

At 11:23 AM 2/18/00 -0800, you wrote:
>I've received a request to compile a list of resources regarding the
>evaluation of children's services that are contributed by the members
>of this listserv and to make it available to anyone else who may be
>interested in it. I think that's a great idea and will follow through
>on the request.
>
>Karen Wade
>WestEd, Inc.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
M. Anne Powell
UC Berkeley School of Social Welfare
apowell@uclink4.berkley.edu
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