Integrating the Pieces

The Link to Technical Assistance

An essential goal of the Center for Mental Health Services is to make the evaluation meaningful for a variety of audiences. These audiences include the grantees, other collaborators, such as Federation of Families, Vanguard and the National Resource Network, community members, families, and policymakers. Focusing on the rare opportunity afforded by this evaluation to gather information on system, services, children, families and costs as programs are built and sustained, CMHS has mandated that feedback of and discussions about data be an ongoing part of the evaluation activities. Sharing information on all the descriptive and outcome data takes several forms. One of these is a commitment to learning communities which bring together CMHS staff officials, grant administrators, line staff, children and families, technical assistance providers, hub directors, representatives of the public awareness campaign, community leaders, project directors and evaluators. Three such opportunities occurred in 1997: a meeting of site evaluator staff convened at the USF Annual Research Conference in February, the annual Project Directors's Meeting held in April, and the Strategic Planning Retreat in June. Topics focused not only on the data themselves, but on how communities can make use of evaluation and the importance of family members as interpreters and conduits of the results.

In addition to the annual forum provided by the learning community, evaluation data and information are shared in an ongoing way with sites through multiple mechanisms including:

Collaboration with the hub directors. Hub directors have participated in evaluation site visits which allows them to provide technical assistance targeted to evaluation findings. Macro staff have also attended hub meetings which have allowed them to work with smaller audiences of site staff on data collection issues and assist them with interpreting and using evaluation results.

Data profile reports which summarize site-specific data and are disseminated to sites three times per year. These reports offer some site-specific customization and give sites ongoing feedback on evaluation results. Sites have used these reports for multiple purposes including informing legislative initiatives, reporting to other funders and potential funders, and making program and evaluation improvements.
Monthly telephone conference calls with site evaluator staff to address questions, issues, and technical assistance needs related to the evaluation. Selected topics have included linking service data to outcomes, how to develop public communication plans for disseminating data, family involvement in the evaluation, and cultural competence issues in evaluation. Many of the calls have been facilitated in collaboration with Vanguard and family members.
CMHS Evaluation Bulletin Board and Evaluator Listserv which are used by evaluation staff to exchange messages and documents, and to post teleconference notices and important updates, respectively.

Future Activities

In addition to the activities described above, which are ongoing, in the next year Macro staff will be conducting site visits to each of the 22 currently funded sites to provide on-site technical assistance to identify strategies for improving data collection and minimizing attrition. Site visits to the nine new grantees will also be conducted to bring them on board and to provide technical assistance at the onset of their data collection activities. In the next year, data from the Comparison Study, the special study on managed care, additional cost and services analyses, and the other ongoing components of the evaluation will continue to inform the CMHS Child, Adolescent and Family Branch activities, particularly the strategic planning efforts focused on communicating evaluation findings and building a framework for developing a national policy on systems of care for children with serious emotional disturbance and their families.

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