The Measurement Group

Improving outcomes in health, behavioral health & social services through applied social research

Some of my professional influences in evaluation

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Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

An evaluation blog that I follow, aea365.org, had a recent post by Liz Zadnik about her professional influences and inspirations in evaluation. Reading Liz’s post got me thinking about some of my own influences over the years.

First of all, I am grateful for the mentorship of George J. Huba, PhD – my partner at The Measurement Group for 23 years. Back in the day, George started TMG from his kitchen table. Shortly after securing our first contract, I joined him in this exciting venture. Even though we both had professional training and experience in social science research methods (he much more than I), we learned a lot over the years about translating that into doing evaluation in the real world with programs that serve vulnerable populations. I learned from George’s ability to take results from complex analyses and turn them into straightforward, bottom-line recommendations for health, mental health, and social service professionals. George’s high standards set a bar for my work that I continue to strive for. Now a “retired evaluator,” George is currently a social media force to be reckoned with, blogging at www.hubaisms.com and tweeting prolifically as @DrHubaEvaluator.

My list of professional influences would not be complete without Vivian B. Brown, PhD. Dr. Brown, an accomplished community psychologist and founder of Prototypes (retired), was an early adopter of program evaluation, back when very few community treatment program administrators really understood the value of collecting data to demonstrate their outcomes. I have many fond memories of meetings with Vivian and George where we would brainstorm about evaluation questions, ways to disseminate our findings to the field, or how to use the information from our evaluation work to improve services for the women and children in Prototypes’ outreach, prevention, and treatment programs. One of the most important things I take from my work with Dr. Brown is to always be cognizant of the burden of collecting data from program participants, especially with respect to asking sensitive questions and the context in which they are asked.

Before I became an evaluator, I was trained as a research psychologist. So what made me want to do that in the first place? Jonathan M. Cheek, PhD was my undergraduate advisor at Wellesley College. There was something about doing research with him that sparked my interest. It struck me as something that certainly wouldn’t be boring. I have always appreciated the opportunities I had early in my career as an undergraduate to conduct and publish psychological research in several articles and book chapters. And although my work in personality research was a long time ago, it’s been exciting to see a renewed interest in the study of traits (for example, Susan Cain’s excellent book “Quiet”). My background in individual and group differences has certainly influenced my approach to evaluation — realizing that it’s not only whether a program is effective, but for whom and in what circumstances.

There are many more influencers and inspirations than I can acknowledge in this blog post. So, I’d like to think of this as the start of an occasional series and I look forward to giving a shout out to the rest of you in the future.

National Youth HIV & AIDS Awareness Day

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national youth hiv & aids awareness dayApril 10 is National Youth HIV & AIDS Awareness Day. I’m blogging today to show support for this important initiative. According to aids.gov, “National Youth HIV & AIDS Awareness Day is an annual observance that takes place on April 10 to educate the public about the impact of HIV and AIDS on young people and to highlight the work young people are doing across the country to respond to the epidemic.”

I’ve had the privilege of working with a number of programs on the cutting edge of services for and by young people living with, or at risk for, HIV/AIDS. In the 1990’s, a group of 10 youth-focused programs were funded as Special Projects of National Significance by the Health Resources and Services Administration HIV/AIDS Bureau. In my role as one of the investigators in a cross-cutting evaluation of that initiative, I learned about the innovative work by these programs and the way they helped to empower young people — especially at a time when today’s treatment options were not yet widely available. It’s rewarding to see that a number of the programs that we worked with are still thriving and continuing the work that was started all those years ago.

What did we learn about HIV/AIDS service models for youth?

Looking back, what are some of the things we learned that might inform HIV and AIDS services for young people today? One thing that stands out is the use of empowerment models that were used by many of these programs. We reflected this theme in our evaluation by using an empowerment evaluation approach, providing extensive training and technical assistance in program evaluation to the young adults who staffed these programs — a number of whom have since gone onto successful careers in public health and non-profit management. Of course, I’m certain I learned more from them than they did from my colleagues and me (aka those of us with “letters after our names”).

Our evaluation findings, as well as papers from each of the programs in the initiative, were published in a special issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health. As we stated then, “One of the most important factors in the model’s success is that youth and professionals share an equal partnership in all stages of program design, planning, and implementation.” We also pointed out that “active case management is crucial, not only to ensure that clients receive needed services, but also to ensure that the programs themselves run in a coordinated, tightly linked way. Given needs of adolescent clients and existing adult-oriented service networks, the use of active case management and the active participation of youth in the services system are critical.”

Developing, Storing, and Sharing Lessons Learned from Evaluation

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tmglogoI have a guest post today on the American Evaluation Association‘s AEA 365 blog about Developing, Storing, and Sharing Lessons Learned from Evaluation. Thanks to AEA for the opportunity to contribute to AEA 365, a blog that provides a tip-a-day by and for evaluators.

Much of what I’ve learned about developing, storing, and sharing lessons learned in evaluation comes from work that Dr. George Huba and I started at The Measurement Group. We developed the approach described in my AEA 365 post and implemented some of the strategies described there in several large cross-cutting evaluations. While these ideas derive from working in the context of developing, storing, and sharing lessons learned from the evaluation of large, complex initiatives, the lessons that we learned as evaluators about developing, storing, and sharing lessons learned could just as well be applied to the evaluation of individual programs.

The Measurement Group on Twitter

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Twitter logoI tweet for The Measurement Group on Twitter. For those of you who follow me there, I’ve changed my Twitter name from @lmelchior to @DrLisaMelchior.

I tweet about topics related to health, behavioral health, social services outcomes for vulnerable populations and the types of programs The Measurement Group works with. I also tweet about measurement, program evaluation, quantitative/qualitative methods, and data. So whether you are interested in content or methods, find me at @DrLisaMelchior and follow The Measurement Group on Twitter!

A resurgence of qualitative methods

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Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I recently blogged about my growing appreciation of qualitative and mixed methods approaches to evaluation, even though I was originally trained in quantitative psychology. It turns out I’m not alone! It seems that we are in the midst of a resurgence of qualitative methods. An article by Gergen, Josselson, and Freeman was published in the January 2015 issue of American Psychologist — the flagship journal of the American Psychological Association – titled, “The Promises of Qualitative Inquiry.” The article notes the addition of the Society for Qualitative Inquiry to APA Division 5 as “an invigorating and enriching expansion in the vision of psychological inquiry and its potentials.” One aspect of the inclusion of qualitative methods in Division 5 is APA’s publication of a new bi-annual journal, Qualitative Psychology.

In my professional life, my work is multidisciplinary, but mostly bridges the worlds of psychology (from my graduate training and professional licensure) and program evaluation (from years of postdoctoral experience and hands-on evaluation of healthcare and social services. Qualitative methods are “hot” now in evaluation too – the American Evaluation Association AEA 365 blog had a week recently dedicated to qualitative evaluation-related topics (January 2015) and has another one this week.

Why the renewed interest in qualitative methods? In his article Pursuing Excellence in Qualitative Inquiry, Kenneth Gergen describes it as part of transition in psychological science, with a shift to “a new pluralism.” From my own experience, I think that the richness of description that qualitative methods allow resonates with people. Qualitative findings “make sense” to research and evaluation stakeholders – that is, the people who use the information for decision-making, program improvement, and sharing a program’s successes, challenges, and lessons learned.