The Evaluation Team spent most of the fall preparing for the last year of the grant. The Longitudinal Outcomes Study staff put a considerable amount of effort into cleaning up data issues which has resulted in improved quantity and quality of the data for examining effectiveness of the FAST TRAC System of Care. We have also continued to recruit families into the study. To date, we have enrolled 246 participants overall (i.e., approximately 63% of eligible FAST TRAC families). Our target enrollment number was originally 220 so we are quite proud to have exceeded that goal.
As for the Local Evaluation efforts, to date we have examined evaluation data for approximately 246 Wraparound participants, 165 Peer Support Partner (PSP) participants, 114 Transition to Independence Process (TIP) participants, and 1,624 School-Based Mental Health (SBMH) participants. Note that in comparison to past reports, these numbers reflect our Team having established processes for pulling service-specific data out of the national outcomes study dataset (e.g., for PSP participants), as well as using other service-specific data.
In September, we met with each program to discuss and identify needs for this final year. Based on these conversations we then developed a Year 6 work plan. The primary goal of the work plan was to identify ways in which our evaluation team could support each program to become self-sufficient in their own data collection, interpretation, and reporting efforts.
In October and November, a concentrated number of hours were spent reconfiguring and customizing the Wraparound and Peer Support Partner data system called Efforts to Outcomes (ETO) in order to replicate the reports we use to create our quarterly Evaluation Briefs, as well as to assist with data integrity and quality.
In December, we met with PSP leadership and identified steps to help them get prepared to conduct their own evaluation activities post-grant, including collecting, interpreting, and disseminating PSP data. Lastly, we had two proposals accepted for the 28th Annual Children’s Mental Health Research and Policy Conference in Tampa, Florida:
• Effects of Wraparound on Caregiver Strain and Perceived Needs, and;
• Comparison of Service Effectiveness for Youth with Depressed versus Non-depressed Caregivers.
Each proposal was accepted as a 30-minute oral presentation. As always, FAST TRAC Evaluation Briefs describing FAST TRAC evaluation results are available for download at http://clermontfasttrac.org/category/evaluation. From your UC Evaluation Team… Happy New Year!
