1. Purpose of Outcomes measurement
Ensure good outcomes for individuals
Provide evidence of successful practices
Documentation for Funders and policy makers

2. Levels: Continuum of Measurement
Gov/Funding Bodies
Service managers
Researchers
Professional trainers and educators
Specialists
Therapists and teachers
Consumers & Significant others
Needs  Outcome  Evidence  Impact
Individual  Aggregated
Specific  Global
Unique  Generic

3. Continuum of Measurement
Impact evaluation:
To what extent can changes be attributed to the program?
What are the net effects?
What are final consequences?
Is program worth resources it costs?
Evidence:
What is the nature & extent of changes?
Who is benefiting/not benefiting? How much?
What works best? What doesn’t work?
What are unintended outcomes?
Outcome evaluation:
To what extent are desired changes occurring? Goals met?
Who is benefiting/not benefiting? How?
What seems to work? Not work?
What are unintended/additional outcomes?
See that the questions we might ask line up with the common types of evaluations: need assessment, process evaluation, outcome evaluation and impact evaluation (and the type of questions inherent in each type)
Needs/asset assessment:
What are the characteristics, needs, priorities of target population?
What are potential barriers/facilitators?
What is most appropriate intervention? 3

4. It is important to…. Provide appropriate data to policy makers and government agencies.

5. Challenges to assessing outcomes

6. Challenges to Outcomes Measurement
Wrong tools, or no tools, used to measure outcomes
Reliability, validity, and administrative burden of measurement instruments (Salter et al. 2005)
Difficult to separate specific contribution of different interventions
Diverse range of services
Service mix unique for each individual
Numerous stakeholders with range of interests
Resistance to evaluation of service delivery
(Smith 1996)