Contact
emails are provided for one-to-one contact only and may not be used for mass
emailing or group solicitations.
|
Session Title: Complex Systems Evaluation and Dynamic Logic Modeling: Lessons From the Field
|
|
Panel Session 105 to be held in Panzacola F-4 on Wednesday, Nov 11, 4:30 PM to 6:00 PM
|
|
Sponsored by the Systems in Evaluation TIG
and the Human Services Evaluation TIG
|
| Chair(s): |
| Bob Williams,
Independent Consultant,
bobwill@actrix.co.nz
|
| Discussant(s):
|
| Margaret Hargreaves,
Mathematica Policy Research Inc,
mhargreaves@mathematica-mpr.com
|
| Bob Williams,
Independent Consultant,
bobwill@actrix.co.nz
|
| Abstract:
Understanding the differences between self-organizing and organized
system dynamics can be a key to useful planning and evaluation of
initiatives in complex settings. The presenters in this session are
exploring ways to visually and conceptually integrate attention to
self-organizing system dynamics along side attention to the planned,
organized system dynamics typically represented in logic models. The
initiatives (funded all or in part by the federal Children's Bureau)
are an evidence-based home visitation program, parental involvement in
early childhood programs, and a quality improvement center for early
childhood maltreatment prevention. The panelists illustrate how they
framed their thinking, gathered information, and visually represented
findings about both organized and self-organizing system dynamics. They
particularly address the nature of logic models in these situations.
Their focus is on helping users of their work understand options for
influencing the key dynamics of their situation to move in a desired
direction.
|
|
Planning Infrastructure Changes in Complex Systems
|
| Melissa Brodowski,
United States Department of Health and Human Services,
melissa.brodowski@acf.hhs.gov
|
|
Melissa Brodowski is managing a number of complex initiatives around
the topic of child maltreatment prevention at the federal level. In her
role as Federal Project Officer, she has started to encourage grantees
to apply new knowledge from the complexity sciences to their work. She
addresses how she approaches this task and describes the challenges of
bringing a complex systems orientation to the work at the federal
level. She discusses the challenges and opportunities with applying
complexity to the planning and implementation of a new initiative to
support evidence-based home visiting programs with 17 grantees across
15 states and for the national cross-site evaluation. She also
describes the benefits that the agency and grantees find in the use of
logic models to describe their work while considering how to identify
and display the patterns within complex systems that are not expressed
in the typical logic model.
|
|
|
The Place of Logic Models When Investigating Self-organizing System Dynamics
|
| Jacqueline Counts,
University of Kansas,
jcounts@ku.edu
|
|
Governmental programs and systems focused on early childhood emphasize
parental involvement. Jackie Counts addresses how she and her
colleagues identified and encouraged authentic involvement in agency
work through a developmental evaluation. They conducted an agency
survey of over 90 agencies to identify systems' components from which
they developed a logic model. They conducted focus groups with over 100
parents to understand how parents define involvement and access
supports. They used the data from the focus groups to understand
self-organizing patterns and how those patterns are congruent and
incongruent with the logic model communicating the self-organizing
patterns of parental involvement along side the agency logic model to
help agencies adjust how their work supports the self-organizing
approaches of parents
| |
|
Balancing Attention to Organized and Self-Organizing System Dynamics
|
| Beverly Parsons,
InSites,
bparsons@insites.org
|
|
Beverly Parsons is the lead external evaluator for the National Quality
Improvement Center (QIC) on Early Childhood. The QIC seeks to improve
the well-being of children zero to five years old, and their families,
who are at risk of abuse and neglect. The QIC fosters collaborative
research and demonstration projects across multiple service systems.
The presentation addresses how the evaluation is seeking to understand
and visualize self-organizing patterns in this complex array of systems
along with the multiple organized system dynamics that are rooted in
the hierarchical organizations. She addresses where logic modeling is
used to depict organized system dynamics while showing the relationship
to self-organizing dynamics. She discusses the challenges of
identifying, describing, and using dynamic logic modeling in this
evaluation.
| |
Return to 2009 Conference Program