The Harvard Family Research Project separated from the Harvard Graduate School of Education to become the Global Family Research Project as of January 1, 2017. It is no longer affiliated with Harvard University.
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Reflective Assessments: A Tool for Learning
Sharon Edwards and Ira Cutler of Cornerstone Consulting Group explain how organizations can use reflective assessments to assess their progress and consider the choices ahead.
Risk
John Bare of the Knight Foundation shares his foundation's definition of the term “risk” when it comes to investing in initiatives, borrowing from the language of money managers.
Participatory Evaluation for Continuous Improvement
Kim Sabo of Sabo Consulting and Dana Fusco from York College, CUNY illustrate how they conducted a participatory evaluation of an after school literacy initiative to support its continuous improvement.
A Conversation With Paul Light
Paul Light is a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., an instructor at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and author of 14 books, including most recently Pathways to Nonprofit Excellence. Previously he was Director of the Public Policy Program at the Pew Charitable Trusts.
ProDES: A Continuous Improvement System for Juvenile Justice
Philip Harris and Lori Grubstein of the Crime and Justice Research Center describe the “bottom-up” development of ProDES, an outcome-based information system that tracks youth in the juvenile justice system.
Advice From the Experts on Nurturing Strong Full Service Schools
The following are excerpts from an evaluation panel at the conference, “Nurturing Strong Full Service Schools: Building Bridges with Communities,” that took place on May 20, 2002. It was the fifth in a series of national conferences about full service schools organized by Margot Welch and the Collaborative for Integrated School Services at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Panelists shared their evaluation findings and lessons learned.
New & Noteworthy
The New & Noteworthy section features an annotated list of papers, organizations, initiatives, and other resources related to this issue's theme of Evaluation for Continuous Improvement.
From the Director's Desk
An introduction to the issue on Continuous Improvement by HFRP's Founder & Director, Heather B. Weiss, Ed.D.
Evaluating Citizen Schools
Charlie Schlegel of Citizen Schools explains how their evaluation strategy successfully balances the need to determine program impact with the need for continuous improvement.
From Health Consumers to Health Consumer Researchers
A grassroots network of families of children with special health care needs shares the lessons they learned about conducting research to improve the health care for their children.
Learning From Families
M. Elena Lopez, from Harvard Family Research Project, discusses expanding the role of family support to include supporting families’ using information to improve their communities.
Evaluating Effect Sizes in the Policy Arena
Kathleen McCartney and Eric Dearing from the Harvard Graduate School of Education provide an overview on effect size and what it reveals about the effectiveness of family support programs.
How Can We Strengthen Family Support Research and Evaluation?
Carl Dunst, Co-Director of the Orelena Hawks Puckett Institute, urges getting beyond the question of “what works” toward a more detailed scrutiny of the relationship among family support principles, program practice, and family outcomes.
Connecting Good Research and Ideas with Policymaking
Three experts in conducting Family Impact Seminars share their techniques for bringing research about families to legislators in a way that not only grabs their attention, but also supports policy change.
A Conversation with Michael Quinn Patton
Director of an organizational development consulting practice, professor, and author, Michael Quinn Patton reveals historical and emerging trends in evaluation practice.
Boston Parent Organizing Network (BPON)
The Boston Parent Organizing Network (BPON) mobilizes parents, local organizations, and communities to improve the quality of education in the Boston Public Schools.
Family Support America: Supporting “Family Supportive” Evaluation
David Diehl of Family Support America outlines their top evaluation projects: compiling an online national database of family support programs and developing new ways to measure the effectiveness of family support programs.
Strengthening Programs and Summative Evaluations Through Formative Evaluations
Two evaluators from SRI describe the benefits realized by the Parent Institute for Quality Education when they prefaced their summative evaluation with a formative evaluation.
When Parents Assess Schools
M. Elena Lopez, from Harvard Family Research Project, discusses the role that data plays in helping parents assess, and then work to change, the performance of their children’s schools.
Participatory Action Research: Building Community Capacity Through Collaboration, Education, and Action
Priscilla Little, from Harvard Family Research Project, describes the implementation of the Milwaukee Participatory Action Research project and how it improved the evaluation and advocacy skills of all its participants.
Lessons From a Partnership Model Project
Kathe Johnson shares her experience from her work with the Women and Poverty Public Education Initiative, outlining four lessons she learned from this project, which connects professional academic and low-income women.
From the Director's Desk
An introduction to the issue on Family Support by HFRP's Founder & Director, Heather B. Weiss, Ed.D.
Multi-Level Evaluation Design: California’s Proposition 10
Pablo Stansbery, Senior Research Associate at Harder+Company Community Research, describes the process of developing an evaluation design that addresses the unique challenges created by California’s Children and Families Act.
Early Head Start Research-Program Partnerships
An in-depth look at the challenges presented by the evaluation of the Early Head Start program - an evaluation which required the cooperation of multiple layers of research and program partners.
National Evaluation of the 21st Century Community Learning Centers
Mark Dynarski and Mary Moore of Mathematica Policy Research, reveal the challenges of evaluating a national program implemented in multiple locations with inherently different key elements.