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The Third National
Conference on |
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October
2 - 4, 2002, Chicago, IL |
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Preconference | Wed., October 2nd | Th., October 3rd | Fr., October 4th | | ||||||||||
Session B-1: Evaluating the success of cultural competence interventionsDeveloping a Program Evaluation Logic Model for Measuring OutcomesThis workshop begins with a description of the Multicultural Healthcare Alliance, a unique collaborative arrangement between the health-care providers (Mayo Clinic — Rochester, Olmsted County Public Health Services, and Olmsted Medical Center) and the members of the multicultural community in Olmsted County, Minnesota. The mission of the Alliance is to increase access to culturally competent care, improve language services, and provide education to health professionals and to members or our ethically diverse communities. This mission is carried out through the use of "PathFinders"; bilingual and bicultural members of the Somali, Cambodian and Hispanic community who have themselves experienced the acculturation process. Through their experience and skill they educate others on how to access appropriate healthcare for themselves and their families. From relatively simple tasks such as reading a bus schedule to navigating a complex health-care bureaucracy, the PathFinders teach by example, offering varying levels of assistance while encouraging the increasing independence of their clients. While PathFinders have been successful in teaching individual members in their community healthcare skills, an equal contribution has been in helping providers to identify system barriers to healthcare access. The success of the Alliance lies in the collaboration among healthcare providers and the grass-roots efforts of the PathFinders as they identify and communicate necessary systems’ changes. In this way, the PathFinder Program demonstrates that help for a few (the target population) translates to help for many (all who benefit from systems’ modifications to improved health outcomes). From the early stages of planning, the Alliance recognized the importance and value of outcome evaluation for the PathFinder Program. Specifically, focus has been on two areas:
The initial stages of evaluation for the PathFinder program centered on collecting quantitative data that described the populations served and the services provided. It also focused on utilization and compliance statistics for the target groups. Although these data are important components to the overall evaluation process, the Alliance recognized the need to integrate the individual data collection efforts into a comprehensive design that would maximize the use of data for service improvement, planning strategies, and to document components of success for replication efforts. The logic model serves as the foundation for a comprehensive evaluation design and includes a succinct description of what the program is supposed to do (activities), with whom, (target population) and why (outcomes–short term and long term). This workshop will describe the process of creating a program logic model and the importance of identifying your program’s "theory of change"–the empirical evidence and underlying assumptions about why an activity or set of activities is expected to produce change. The workshop will also discuss some of the challenges faced with designing an outcomes evaluation system that includes data from three separate healthcare organizations’ documentation systems, that relies on data collection by individuals who have limited English and little or no computer skills, and with trying to assure consistent, complete data while experiencing high turn over of staff employees. We will discuss strategies used to overcome these difficulties and engage workshop participants in dialogue to consider some of the challenges they may face with developing an evaluation for their own programs. Take home materials will include an outline to help participants explore the use of logic models for program evaluation and a reference list of tools and resources for more information on the logic model evaluation process.
Mariann O’Keefe is the contract program evaluator for the Multicultural Healthcare Alliance and principal consultant of Data Matters, a consulting firm specializing in outcome-based, utilization-focused program evaluation for government and human service agencies. Mariann is a proponent of participatory evaluation methods where stakeholders participate substantively in the identification of evaluation issues, the design of the evaluation, data collection and interpretation, and the action taken as a result of the evaluation. Current projects include program evaluation for the Olmsted County Children’s Mental Health Center, the Rochester Diversity Council’s "Prejudice-Reduction Workshops", the Rochester School District’s Middle School After-school Program, and the Olmsted County Master Action Plan for Youth (a community-wide youth-development initiative). Prior to establishing Data Matters, Mariann worked for ten years in Olmsted County Community Services as a Senior Program Evaluator. She holds a M.S. degree from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and a BA in Psychology and Sociology from the University of Minnesota.
As Coordinator of the Multicultural Healthcare Alliance Jeanne Nelson works closely with the ethnic communities in Olmsted County, MN. The Alliance, a collaborative initiative of Mayo Clinic, Olmsted County Public Health Services, and Olmsted Medical Center, formed in 1997 to help people from different cultures access healthcare. The most visible intervention of the Alliance is the PathFinder program. In this program, PathFinders, bi-lingual, bi-cultural staff, teach people in their community the knowledge and skills needed to independently access healthcare for themselves and their families. Jeanne serves as supervisor of the Pathfinder program. As the Alliance Coordinator, Jeanne also works closely with area healthcare organizations to promote culturally competent care environments and to minimize systems’ access barriers. Previous work experiences include nursing for 10 years in culturally diverse, inner city care-settings, primarily in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Jeanne received a M.S.N. degree from Villanova University and a BSN from the University of Maryland. Measuring the Effectiveness of the Outreach & Interpretation Project: A Community Based Effort to Increase Access to Public BenefitsThe Outreach & Interpretation Project (O&I) is a $1.2 million initiative funded by the State of Illinois Department of Human Services (DHS) aimed a breaking down barriers to immigrant/refugee access to a range of public benefits and services. Of course, access to Medicaid, SSI, KidCare, Food Stamps and other related programs is essential to maintaining the health and well-being of our newcomer populations. The program is administered through a series of grants to community-based organizations and health clinics and administered through the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR). Each grantee organization has been given the latitude to develop their own outreach and interpretation strategies and interventions so as to be most effective with their respective immigrant or refugee group. In the spring of 2002, ICIRR contracted with Millennia Consulting to conduct an evaluation of O&I. The emphasis of the evaluation was to understand best practices in outreach, case management and counseling, and interpretation across all programs. In this workshop, we will discuss our findings and how we chose to measure cultural and linguistic competence in O&I programs. We will identify "best practices" and lessons learned that might be applicable in other similar settings and/or programs. We will present and overview of our evaluation methods and findings briefly; and then, engage the audience in a facilitated dialogue in which questions and answers can be shared. Some issues that we expect to address and which are relevant to other settings include: Options for designing effective measurement techniques in a multi-agency, multi-lingual setting; quantitative vs. qualitative measurement techniques; questions of language and cultural competence of interpreters.
Wendy Siegel has been a leading advocate for cultural and linguistic competency in Illinois for the last twelve years. She provides technical assistance to a range of health and human services organizations serving immigrants. A founder of the Immigrant Refugee Health Task Force and Health Care Interpreter Services, Wendy has guided health organizations wishing to increase and improve services to cultural and linguistic minorities. Wendy has been a partner with Millennia Consulting, L.L.C since 1997, where she is engaged in strategic planning for nonprofit organizations and has completed projects in program evaluation, research, and policy. Prior to joining Millennia, she was director of the Chicago Institute on Urban Poverty/Heartland Alliance. In that capacity she built coalitions around public policy issues and provided oversight to advocacy initiatives. She has published articles and reports on public-private partnerships, community economic development, education, managed care, and health policy. She participates in a wide range of social service, health, education, and employment networks and is a member of the National Center for Nonprofit Boards, the American Planning Association, and the American Public Health Association. Wendy holds a master’s degree in urban planning and policy from the University of Illinois at Chicago and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.
Louise Cainkar is a Research Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois-Chicago's Great Cities Institute, whose mission is to enhance relationships and build productive partnerships between academics, communities, and community-based organizations [cbo's]. Louise is a sociologist who has been working with immigrant communities for the past 15 years, as both a scholar and community capacity builder. She has conducted immigrant community needs assessments, written professional histories of immigrant communities, and conducted community-based research that includes mentoring tools, such as training community members to be field researchers and focus group leaders. She has also published scholarly articles on Arab immigrants and on research as a capacity building mechanism. She is also the director of ICIRR's [Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights] Outreach and Interpretation Project, a unique partnership between the Illinois Department of Human Services, ICIRR, and 27 community-based immigrant organizations. |
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| As with the rest of Diversity Rx, this section
is a work in progress and we welcome information on other efforts, programs,
and reports that will expand upon the information offered here. Please
let us know if you have other examples to include here. |
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Diversity Rx is sponsored by: |
 The National Conference of State Legislatures |
 Resources for Cross Cultural Health Care |
 Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation |
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