~AEA Public Library

Putting the Power of Data Back Into the Hands of Programs   346 KB   1 version
Uploaded - 11-16-2015
As the Internal Evaluation Department for a large human service non-profit organization called Volunteers of America, Los Angeles (VOALA), our mission is to create an empowered evaluation culture among our 72 programs. The goal is to provide insight into strategies that empowers programs to take on the evaluation with complete stakeholder participation. If a program does not believe changes will happen or have a stake in final decision making, buy-in will not happen and empowerment evaluation will not take root (Schnoes, Murphy-Berman, & Chambers, 2000). In our panel, we first review the process evaluation we conduct with programs to prepare for self-assessment with the goal of continuous quality improvement. We also provide insight on how we co-create a user-friendly dashboard. We will discuss a program that fully embraced the empowerment evaluation model and their success in creating a data-driven evaluation culture. In addition, roadblocks encountered during implementation will be discussed.

Empowering Stakeholders with Performance Management Tools   972 KB   1 version
Uploaded - 11-16-2015
Developing performance management tools is essential in monitoring program outcomes. Yet, in the process, stakeholders may rely too heavily on Evaluators for interpretation and decision making. As part of Volunteers of America of Greater Los Angeles’s (VOALA) initiative to implement continuous quality improvement at all programs, the Internal Evaluation department creates performance management tools to empower stakeholders to use real-time data to make program decisions. Ongoing performance management can serve as an early warning system as program evaluations by design are delayed indicators (Barrados & Blain, 2013). Dashboards, for example, allow organizations to identify areas of improvement quickly and plan interventions for improvement (Harrison, 2012). The following presentation will describe how the Internal Evaluation department developed performance management tools (i.e., dashboards, monthly performance reports, and residential occupancy reports) for 12 social services programs and discuss the strength and challenges of performance management tools and the inclusion of the various stakeholders.

A Visual Tool for Program Performance & Improvement   2.08 MB   1 version
Uploaded - 11-16-2015
The VOALA Internal Evaluation Team works directly with program staff to develop and implement a dashboard centered on continuous quality improvement (CQI). We empower our programs to effectively manage the dashboard, increasing the use and application of data for program improvement, which is a core tenet of CQI (Chinman, Hunter, & Ebener, 2012). The following presentation will explain guidelines on how a program can sustain a CQI dashboard with minimal support from Internal Evaluation. A premise of CQI is using a team approach to research, analyze, and implement quality improvements (Mark & Pines, 1995) leading to collaborative decision-making and staff’s ownership of process-oriented efforts. The presentation will also discuss successes and lessons learned citing relevant dashboard experiences from a VOALA emergency shelter program called Pathways to Home. Pathways to Home have utilized the CQI dashboard as a tool for monitoring progress in achieving intended outcomes, making informed decisions, and accountability.