The John H. Chafee Foster Care Program for Successful Transition to Adulthood Strengthening Outcomes for Transition to Adulthood (Chafee SOTA) Project

Instrument 4:

Evaluability Assessment Guide for Partner Agency Executive Directors

Activity 3: EXECUTIVE DIRECTORS, PARTNER AGENCIES

Introduction

Thank you for talking with us today. We are researchers from [Westat, an independent research firm located in Rockville, MD / the Kempe Center for the Prevention and Treatment of Child Abuse and Neglect, Department of Pediatrics, School of Medicine University of Colorado]. We have been contracted by the Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation (OPRE) within the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) to conduct an evaluation of Chafee programs serving youth in or transitioning out of foster care (called the Chafee Strengthening Outcomes for Transition to Adulthood [Chafee SOTA] Project). [NOMINATED PROGRAM] has been nominated as one of the programs to consider in this evaluation and you have been identified as a key collaborating agency.

 

During the conversation today, we are interested in collecting information about how you work with [NOMINATED PROGRAM] to serve youth transitioning from foster care. The goal is to determine the extent to which you and your staff might be able to be involved in an evaluation of it, as well as to gain your perspective on a few key components of it. At this time, we are not conducting an evaluation that will make conclusions about whether the program is working or not working. Please note that this interview will focus on the program overall and will not ask for information on individual clients.

Your participation in this interview is voluntary and it should take no longer than an hour and half to complete. We will keep your responses private. In addition, please feel free to let me know if you’d like to skip any question I ask by saying, “I’d prefer to skip this question.”

Would you mind if we recorded this interview? It helps us with more accurate note-taking. Recorded interviews will be stored in a secure location and will be destroyed after the recording is transcribed. [If permission to record is granted.] Please let us know if you would like us to turn off the recorder at any point during the interview.

Before we get started, do you have any questions for me?

Program Overview/Background

We’d like to begin with a few questions about the organization and your role within it, and then we’d like to learn a bit more about the services you provide. We have some information from the executive director of [NOMINATED PROGRAM], who identified you as a partner agency, but we would like to know a bit more.

1. What is your position and role in the organization?

2. Can you please tell us a little about the history of your organization?

• How and when did it start?

• Does it have multiple locations? If yes, where are they?

3. What is the mission or focus of the organization today?

4. How do you work with [NOMINATED PROGRAM]? That is, as a partner organization, how do you collaborate with [NOMINATED PROGRAM] to serve youth transitioning from foster care?

• Do you refer youth/young adults?

• Do you receive referrals from them?

• Do you share staff?

4a. Do you serve the same youth as [NOMINATED PROGRAM]? By that I mean, do you provide services to the same youth that [NOMINATED PROGRAM] is serving as well?

IF YES:

4b. For these next questions, we are asking about the youth that you serve that are also receiving services from [NOMINATED PROGRAM].

• How, specifically, are you serving them? That is, what programs are services do they receive from you?

• About how many youth are served each month? Each year?

• How are youth identified or referred?

• What are the eligibility criteria for service?

• Do you turn youth away or maintain a waitlist for service? If so, about how many youth are typically on the waitlist? Are youth referred to other providers?

5. What are the plans for continuing to serve these youth in the near future? Do you anticipate any changes to how you serve them, moving forward (e.g., in the program or services model used or target population served)?

Outcomes

6. What short-term and long-term outcomes are you hoping for in serving these youth (those that you serve that are also receiving services from [NOMINATED PROGRAM]?

7. How do you track outcomes for these youth?

• Do you share this information with [NOMINATED PROGRAM], and if so, what mechanisms to you have in place for sharing such information about youth (e.g., MOUs, data sharing agreements)?

• What outcome data do you collect on youth/young adults? In what format are the data? [Are there codebooks or data collection forms we could review?]

• What data are currently available?

• Do you have any reports or summaries that you could share?

Evaluation Capacity

8. As a partner agency with [NOMINATED PROGRAM], if it were selected to undergo an evaluation, would you and your staff have the capacity to be involved in any aspects of the evaluation? For example, , if you were asked to collect data on the youth you serve, would you be able to do that?

9. Is there interest in/enthusiasm from you and your staff for an evaluation of [NOMINATED PROGRAM]?

10. If there is an interest in evaluation, what would you hope to learn?

11. Finally, what would be the key challenges to evaluating [NOMINATED PROGRAM]? How might we mitigate any of these?

Conclusion

12. Is there any other information about your program that you think would be helpful for us to know?

Thank you very much for taking time to speak with us today about your work with [NOMINATED PROGRAM].

3 Instrument 4:

Evaluability Assessment Guide for Partner Agency Directors