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.
Research Update 1: Highlights from the OST Database
This Research Update synthesizes findings from the profiles of 15 research and evaluation reports added to the Out-of-School Time Program Research and Evaluation Database in December 2006. It highlights strategies for assessing program processes as well as key outcomes and features of programs that promote positive outcomes.
Free. Available online only.
Family Involvement Interventions: Shining the Spotlight on Evaluation (Symposium)
This panel symposium, held at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) in Chicago on April 10, 2007, followed up on HFRP's family involvement sessions at previous AERA meetings in 2005 and 2006. The 2007 symposium featured discussion regarding the evaluation of family involvement interventions
A Decade of Urban School Reform: Persistence and Progress in the Boston Public Schools
HFRP staff members Abby R. Weiss and Helen Westmoreland describe the evolution of Boston Public Schools' family and community engagement efforts in a chapter of this book.
Family and Community Engagement in the Boston Public Schools: 1995–2006
This chapter describes the evolution of Boston Public Schools' family and community engagement efforts. The authors discuss how collective community action contributed to a critical reframing of the district's approach to family and community engagement over a 10-year period. Chapter by Abby R. Weiss and Helen Westmoreland in A Decade of Urban School Reform: Persistance and Progress in the Boston Public Schools 2007. Edited by S. Paul Reville with Celine Coggins. Published by Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.
What's Different About Evaluating Advocacy and Policy Change?
Julia Coffman of HFRP describes four ways evaluators may need to adjust their approaches when evaluating advocacy and policy change.
Advocacy and Policy Change
This 32-page issue of The Evaluation Exchange describes new developments in evaluating advocacy and policy change efforts that attempt to inform or influence public policy at the local, state, or federal levels.
Free. 32 Pages.
Strategies for Assessing Policy Change Efforts: A Prospective Approach
Justin Louie and Kendall Guthrie of Blueprint Research and Design outline the steps for advocacy and policy change evaluators to follow in using a prospective approach to evaluation.
Evaluating Advocates' Spheres of Influence With Domain Leaders
The evaluation of the Center for Tobacco-Free Kids gathered data from a wide range of audiences that the advocacy organization targets in order to influence public policy.
Home School Community Partnerships
This course is designed to acquaint and apprentice teachers in early childhood education to the theories, practices, skills, and knowledge(s) of home and school relationship building in home and school partnership literatures. There is a focus in this course to develop understandings of diverse contexts and ethics when working with families and children. In this course you will study yourself, the school, communities, families, and children you work for as well as the contexts of future teaching situations.
Free. Available online only.
New & Noteworthy
The New & Noteworthy section features an annotated list of papers, organizations, initiatives, and other resources related to the issue's theme of Advocacy and Policy change.
Working With Logic Models to Evaluate a Policy and Advocacy Program
Authors from the Institute for Health Policy Studies at the University of California, San Francisco describe how they used both macro-level and individual grantee logic models to drive the evaluation design of the Clinic Consortia Policy and Advocacy Program.
Ten Takeaways on Evaluating Advocacy and Policy Change
HFRP summarizes key observations raised in this issue of The Evaluation Exchange. Note that the focus here is on advocacy that informs public policy at the local, state, or federal levels.
Necessity Leads to Innovative Evaluation Approach and Practice
Innovation Network describes their methodological innovation—the intense-period debrief—use to engage advocates in evaluative inquiry shortly after a policy window or intense period of action.
Pioneers in the Field: Four Foundations on Advocacy Evaluation
Representatives from four foundations discuss their expectations and approaches for assessing their advocacy and public policy grantmaking.
Evaluation and InterAction
Ken Giunta and Todd Shelton of InterAction answer HFRP's questions about their approaches and ideas on evaluating advocacy.
What does monitoring and evaluation look like for real-life advocates?
Stephanie Schaefer, codirector of research at Fight Crime: Invest in Kids—a national nonprofit, bipartisan organization of law enforcement leaders and violence survivors—describes how they use evaluation to inform their advocacy and demonstrate their impact.
Evaluating Nonprofit Advocacy Simply: An Oxymoron?
Marcia Egbert and Susan Hoechstetter offer nine principles to guide advocacy evaluation, based on a recent and groundbreaking Alliance for Justice tool on this topic.
Continuous Progress: Better Advocacy Through Evaluation
Edith Asibey and David Devlin-Foltz describe the new Continuous Progress website, which helps advocates and grantmakers collaboratively plan and evaluate advocacy efforts.
A Guide to Measuring Advocacy and Policy
Organizational Research Services identifies outcomes associated with advocacy and policy work based on its new resource, A Guide to Measuring Advocacy and Policy.
Using and Evaluating Social Media for Social Change
Allison H. Fine is a senior fellow at Demos, a network of action and ideas based in New York City. She writes and speaks on increasing civic participation by harnessing the power of digital technology. In 2006, she published her latest book, Momentum: Igniting Social Change in the Connected Age.
The eNonprofit Benchmarks Study: Diving Into Email Metrics
Karen Matheson from M+R Strategic Services describes a recent study that helps nonprofits measure and interpret their online advocacy and fundraising success.
Constituency Building and Policy Work: Three Paradigms
Janice Hirota and Robin Jacobowitz describe three paradigms that show how constituency building and policy change efforts can work together to achieve sustainable and systemic reform.
From the Director's Desk
An introduction to the issue on Advocacy and Policy Change by HFRP's Founder & Director, Heather B. Weiss, Ed.D.
An Emerging Framework for Assessing Nonprofit Networks
Based on their new handbook Net Gains, Madeleine Taylor and Peter Pastrik offer guidelines on how to evaluate nonprofit networks that are used to achieve social change goals.
Evaluating an Issue's Position on the Policy Agenda: The Bellwether Methodology
Policy issues need both visibility and momentum to be transformed into political action. Harvard Family Research Project's bellwether methodology helps evaluators assess if both characteristics are emerging.