1. A Family Support Approach to Family Support Evaluation
Enhancing Practice Through Reflection: International Family Support Conference
June 9-10, 2005
Galway, Ireland
A Family Support Approach to Family Support Evaluation
Dr. Charles Bruner, USA

2. Family Support America’s Various Definitions of Family Support
A set of beliefs and an approach
A type of grassroots, community-based program
A shift in human services delivery
A moment for social change

3. Principles of Family Support Practice (Guidelines for Family Support - 1996)
Staff and families work together in relationships based on equality and trust
Staff enhance families’ capacity to support the growth and development of all family members
Families are resources to their own members, other families, and community
Programs affirm and strengthen families’ cultural, racial, and linguistic identities
more 

4. continued . . .
Programs are embedded in their communities and contribute to community-building
Programs advocate with families for services and systems that are fair and responsive
Practitioners work with families to mobilize formal and informal resources
Programs are flexible and culturally responsive to emerging family and community issues
Principles of family support are modeled in all program activities, including planning, governance, and administration

5. Contrast Between Family Support and Traditional Services
Diadic, professional-client intervention
Focus upon presenting issue in professional’s domain
Family Support Services
Emphasis upon peer learning and support
Focus upon reciprocity
Community building as well as individual goals

6. General Programmatic Practice of Family Support - Through Family Centers and/or Home Visiting Services
Identifying and enlisting marginalized and socially isolated families
Working in poor neighborhoods with limited economic, social, and physical capital

7. Goal of Family Support from the Family Perspective
AFTER
community
goals and work
family and friends
school ties
formal services
community
goals and work
family and friends
school ties
formal services
BEFORE

8. Goal of Family Support from the Community Perspective
BEFORE
AFTER
Community Hubs
Leaders

9. Evaluating Human Service Interventions: Current Political and Scientific Approach
Policy emphasis is upon results-accountability based on programs showing success in achieving funder-determined, discrete results
Gold standard of proof considered the randomized control trial (client – specific treatment – client impact)

10. Need for a Different Evaluation Strategy for Family Support
Families and communities define results to be achieved, on a highly individualized level
Families and practitioners define processes to reach goals, beyond discrete intervention/curriculum
Family support success defined in terms of inclusion, not separation into treatment and control group
Family support builds community and goes beyond client impact

11. Purposes of Evaluation:
Learning, continuous improvement, and knowledge building
Marketing, funding, and diffusion of effective practice

12. A Family Support Approach to Family Support Evaluation
Flexible and individualized, to capture all gains
Holistic and strength-based, recognizing the capacity of practitioners and families to collect and analyze data
Based upon principles of family support

13. De-mystifying Evaluation: Three Basic Questions
1. Were you able to do what you said you were going to do? (process/formative evaluation)
2. Did it result in what you wanted to see happen? (outcome/summative evaluation)
3. How confident are you that your information and evidence support your answers to the first two questions? (rigor of evaluation, not to be confused with RCTs or empiricism)

14. 1. Were you able to do what you said you were going to do?
Engage and sustain relationships with families and communities
Take a strength-based, ecological approach
Work in partnership in identifying goals and objectives, including support for self-help and mutual assistance

15. 2. Did it result in what you wanted to see happen?
Parent impacts
Child impacts
Program impacts

16. Parent Impacts Stabilize living situation Establish realistic goals
Effectively navigate systems to meet basic needs
Broaden social ties and contacts
Think positively
Share their talents
Strengthen their parenting
Manage personal relationships
Manage adult responsibilities
Advocate for themselves and others

17. Child Impacts
Socialize
Learn
Connect with their own family

18. Program Impacts Serve as community anchors
Contribute to community economic well-being
Unleash human capital
Broaden size of supportive community
Model family support practices for other systems

19. Emerging Evaluation Tools
Results mapping (form of goal attainment scaling)
Time dollar contributions
Participant satisfaction and range of connections
Participatory evaluation, empowerment evaluation, interactive evaluation