November 2002 Evaluating Community-Based Tobacco Prevention Programs Minnesota’s Experience Amy J. Ellestad, MPH Laura Hutton, MA Minnesota Department of Health

November 2002 Minnesota Youth Tobacco Prevention Initiative’s (MYTPI) * FMV= Fair Market Value Relationship to Tobacco Settlement

November 2002 Components of MYTPI

November 2002 Community-Based Grantee Focus Areas  Reduce Exposure to Secondhand Smoke All locally funded grantees required to address SHS Populations-at-risk grantees strongly encouraged to address SHS  Implementing Comprehensive School-based Tobacco Prevention  Youth Advocacy  Assuring Access to Treatment  Reducing Youth Access

November 2002 Evaluation Requirements of Community-Based Programs  Evaluation Plan and Report  One staff person to oversee the implement evaluation plan  Minimum 10% of the grant toward evaluation  Use evaluation results to improve program  Approval on all surveys

November 2002 Program Evaluation Assistance Center (PEAC)  Awarded a grant to the University of Minnesota Division of Epidemiology  Evaluation Coordinators, graduate assistants, a faculty director, and an associate director  Charge: Support grantees to evaluate their program Evaluate common types of activities occurring throughout the state

November 2002 How PEAC Works with Grantees  PEAC coordinators meet with grantees to develop evaluation plans  The grantees are responsible for implementing their evaluation plans  PEAC supports the grantees in implementing the evaluation plan by providing services

November 2002 Services PEAC Offers to Grantees  Training on evaluation topics  Creating forms & logs to manage data  Writing questions and providing advice on focus groups and interviews  Customized survey development

November 2002 Services PEAC Offers to Grantees  Customized data entry spreadsheets for surveys  Help with data interpretation & analysis  Using evaluation results to improve programs  Assistance in final report development

November 2002 Statewide Evaluations of Common Types of Activities  PEAC conducts assessments of common activities done across grantees  Common activities include: working with schools youth development activities second hand smoke

November 2002 Lessons Learned  Providing one-on-one evaluation help is useful to grantees  Grantees need help in turning work plans into evaluation plans  Grantees need to understand how to use their data for program improvement

November 2002 Lessons Learned  The more flexibility allowed in work plans, the harder it is to provide evaluations across grantees  By working closely with grantees, evaluators can give a “heads up” on problems to Health Dept.  Having a close relationship between Health Dept. grant managers and evaluators is critical  Concrete steps help grantees move toward “Best Practices”