Evaluation

human service organizations need to gauge how services they provide are improving peoples' lives. Funders want to know if they are investing in programs that make a positive difference for individuals and communities. To assess the impacts of services and funding initiatives, Flint Springs Associates partners with our clients to design and conduct evaluation research.

Focus of recent evaluation projects:

• Benchmarks for a Better Vermont: The effectiveness of this project to strengthen the capacity of small to midsize nonprofit organizations (NPOs) to make significant, sustained program performance improvements by incorporating Results-Based Accountability™ (RBA) as a system of performance measurement
• Department of Mental Health: The degree to which a federally funded effort to provide outreach and early intervention through peer support services for young adults at risk for mental illness contributed to improved health, employment, housing, and pro-social behavior
• Learning Together, Vermont Department for Children and Families: The impact of implementing a model program for pregnant and parenting teens across 16 Parent Child Centers on preventing subsequent pregnancies, building positive parenting skills, and achievement of educational and employment goals
• Central Vermont Community Action Council: The program performance and client outcomes for three economic development programs operated by five Vermont Community Action Agencies
• Vermont Department of Mental Health: The degree to which a federally funded initiative to reduce the use of seclusion and restraint in the Vermont State Hospital and the Brattleboro Retreat achieved its goals
• Vermont Department for Disabilities, Aging and Independent Living: Whether older adults and persons with disabilities received better information and improved access to services through a federally funded Aging and Disabilities Resource Connection systems change grant
• Vermont Department for Disabilities, Aging and Independent Living: Why a Centers for Medicaid and Medicare (CMS) supported effort to integrate Medicaid and Medicare funding and services for older adults and persons with disabilities did not achieve its goals
• Vermont Department of Mental Health: How well the Vermont law (Act 114) that governs the administration of involuntary psychiatric medication to patients receiving in-patient psychiatric care is implemented in the four Vermont hospitals administering involuntary non-emergency psychiatric medication
• Vermont Department for Disabilities, Aging and Independent Living: The degree to which federal funds earmarked for senior centers strengthened Vermont's senior center and meal site delivery system; and, promoted successful aging and independent living
• Community of Vermont Elders' Gold Star Nursing Home Employer Program: Whether a program to promote best practices in nursing homes improved recruitment and retention of direct care workers
• University of Vermont Department of Biology: The degree to which National Science Foundation (NSF) funded projects at the University of Vermont increase undergraduate, graduate and faculty participants' interest in science and research, research activities, and the development of a competitive and collaborative research community
• Chittenden South Supervisory Union: What impact school-based programs targeting teens and their parents have had on community norms for drug and alcohol use, students' attitudes toward high risk behaviors, and teens' connections with adults and other social assets
• Howard Center for Human Services: Whether the Community Outreach Team, a street outreach program for persons with psychiatric disabilities increases access to resources and perceived safety in the downtown Burlington, VT business district