1. OVERVIEW Partners in Pregnancy is a community program aimed at giving young couples the resources they need with their pregnancy. Young pregnant couples often find themselves searching for answers and help, but resources are scarce for this demographic regarding how to build a positive family environment. We realize that many young couples do not understand or are not fully prepared for the possible problems that may develop later in their relationship due to the pregnancy. These problems may cause a decrease in the overall satisfaction of their relationship. With that in mind, Partners in Pregnancy is devoted to offering counseling, referral, and educational programs that help foster strong relationships in pregnant couples from the onset. It is imperative that we create a one-stop service that provide young parents with all the resources they will need to properly raise their child and keep their relationship healthy. Program Description Partners in Pregnancy is a nonprofit organization in Alachua County that is dedicated to promoting strong bonds within the family conducive to creating a positive home environment. The vision of our program is to provide young pregnant couples counseling and referral services to help be loving and supportive parents. Partners in Pregnancy seeks to be a beacon in Alachua County that will guide young pregnant couples to mature healthy families. It will be the leading counseling and referral service provider, advancing the community by providing a meaningful and needed service. It will also seek out the assistance of other community programs and professionals. EVALUATION PROPOSAL Purpose: The purpose of the evaluation of Partners in Pregnancy is to assess the outcome of the program within Alachua County. We would like to see if our Young Parenthood Program (YPP) model works for the demographic that we have. Furthermore we would like to pinpoint what is working within the program. We need to figure out if all of our goals are understood and being met within the guidelines. If we find that all goals are not being met appropriately, we would like to be able to improve that aspect of the program. Evaluation Questions: Assessing the knowledge and work ethic of staff: Does staff feel a sense of efficacy in their work? Does staff know the goals and mission statement set forth by the program? Assessing Clients: Client Intake Assessment – Baseline Data: What is the feeling in the home prior to participation in the program? What are the deficits and challenges faced by our clients in terms of their relationship and their pregnancy? Assessing clients’ understanding and knowledge: What skills did clients learn in this program? How will clients apply the skills learned in this program? What behavioral changes have clients made by the end of participation in the program? What immediate steps/actions will clients make following the program? What is the feeling in the home following the program? Assessing the program: Have we succeeded in understanding, verifying and increasing impact of products or services on customers/clients (eg, outcomes evaluation)? What are the delivery mechanisms to be more efficient (eg, process evaluation)? Are these delivery mechanisms cost-effective (eg, process evaluation)? EVALUATION PROCESS This evaluation will include the following steps: 1) collect the data, 2) organize the data, 3) analyze the data, and 4) report the data. In collecting the data, we will administer assessments in the form of questionnaires to staff and clients. For the clients, this includes a preliminary intake assessment, as well as an outcome assessment upon exiting the program. Also, we will collect quantitative data in order to determine the statistical impact, the extent to which the program met goals and objectives, and the cost-benefit ratio of program delivery. During the data collection step, we will concurrently conduct Step 2, by entering all data into a database in order to organize and store the information. Following steps 1 and 2, all information will be analyzed for trends that are significant. During this step (Step 3), focus will be on goal attainment and cost-benefit analysis. Finally, Step 4 will involve creating several reports for various stakeholders. Reports will emphasize outcomes, impact, goal attainment, and cost-benefit analysis. Some qualitative information (“stories”) will also be highlighted within the reports. ANALYSIS AND CONCLUSION Simply put, program evaluations are conducted to make programs better. Evaluations benefit programs at every stage of implementation. Certain constraints will be challenging for this specific evaluation. For example, quality home environment is difficult to measure, so concrete and specific indicators will need to be coded and used in analyzing outcomes. Also, long- term outcomes will not be possible to evaluate in the short-term, so this evaluation will have to focus on short-term and intermediate term outcomes. For start-up programs, evaluations can provide process data on the successes and challenges of early implementation. For this reason, our program will put 15% of the total budget towards its first evaluation in order to ensure enough funding to support a team that includes staff and an outside professional evaluator who is more experienced in statistical analysis. While evaluation is not without challenges, the information obtained from this program evaluation will help to streamline and target program resources in the most cost-efficient way by focusing time and money on delivering services that benefit program participants and providing staff with the training they need to deliver these services effectively. Teenage mothers are more likely to leave school, which leads to a lower educational level: they are prone to have financial problems and lower incomes in the future: they are associated with increased rates of alcohol and drug abuse. http://www.10-facts.com/2009/03/16/10-facts-about-teenage-pregnancy/ 70% of teenagers, who had a child, have experienced domestic violence in their teenage years. http://www.10-facts.com/2009/03/16/10-facts-about-teenage- pregnancy/ Approximately 4 in 10 young women in the U.S. become pregnant at least once before turning 20 years old. (Facts in Brief: Teen Sex and Pregnancy, The Alan Guttmacher Institute, New York, 1996).