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ML2Program.docx

Running Head: PROGRAM EVALUATION PLAN

PROGRAM EVALUATION PLAN 2

Program Evaluation Plan

Kiara Bonds

Institution Affiliation: University South Carolina Beaufort

April 30, 2018

Description of ML2 Program

The ML2 Program is a youth program that is engaged in transforming the lives of the young people by changing their thinking and lives through being engaged in productive activities that will refrain them from being involved in criminal activities or risky behaviors. In addition, the reason for the existence of the Youthworks ML2 program youth development program is to offer an affordable and high-quality after-school programming that was an advocate by the afterschool alliance and others kinds of the research findings. More so, the program has design that is made up of the evaluation plans and clears goals; it is culturally sensitive climate; it focuses on leadership skills; focuses on linkages and academic skills; encourages family, parent, and community partnership; it contains the mentors and volunteers; the recreational attendance is also encouraged in this ML2 programs, etc. Additionally, the program was commenced as result of the negative statistics that were linked to the low socio-economic status of many families. In terms of implementation, the program will be implemented from an asset-based approach. The families and youths that will get involved in activities of this program for the HRHA communities they will have different kinds of the strengths that they will enjoy from which will be creating and sustaining the positive changes in Harrisville city. Here are possible strengths that youths and families linked to those youths will enjoy, namely: creativity, close-knit community, a strong desire for the better outcome; perseverance amid the time of difficulties; and cultural resources. To sum up, the ML2 program will focus improving or enhancing the key things that are math, literacy, and leadership skills of your residing in the Thomas Rolfe Community

Evaluation Purpose and Type

An evaluation can be termed as the process that typically examines a program. In the ML2 Youth Program it will be all about gathering and analyzing information that has been collected, activities of the program, its outcomes, and features or characteristics. The key purpose of this evaluation will be to make the judgment regarding the program for the sake of improving its efficiency and effectiveness, and more so, to inform the programming decisions. In every evaluation process, there are three purposes or reasons why the evaluation is conducted, namely: plausibility; adequacy; and probability. Firstly, adequacy evaluation or assessment is conducted to figure out if the goals were met or not met. The evaluators and stakeholders are only interested in knowing whether there is the accomplishment of goals or not. The importance of performing an adequacy evaluation is that there is no need of the control group, which aids in cutting the budget of an assessment as well as effort and time levels. Secondly, plausibility assessment or evaluation aids in determining if the program managed to accomplish anticipated goals or not and figuring out the changes as the potential impacts of the program activities rather than confounding or external sources. Since the adequacy and plausibility assessments are used to determine if the goals of the programs were met, the probability evaluation is used to figure the true impact of the program activities on indicators of interest. This kind of evaluation is a bit time consuming and expensive. In this case of the ML2 youth program, evaluation was conducted to figure out if the set objectives or goals of enhancing the literacy, math, and leadership skills of the youths has been achieved or not. The evaluation type that can be employed in this evaluation process can be termed as outcome evaluation type. An outcome evaluation aids in focusing on the changes in attitudes, comprehension, practices, behaviors that arise as a result of programs activities. This kind of evaluation will consist of both long and short-term results. More so, the program will be used in deciding if an activity or program affected the participant's outcomes and establishing and measuring the clear benefits of the programs. In this case of ML2 program, the outcome evaluation type will be used in measuring its impacts to the youths.

Ethical considerations

Ethics should be highly upheld in the ML2 Youth Programs. If ML2 youth program will have ethics (moral principles) that are respected they will help in guaranteeing the effectiveness of the program. There is need of having a consistent ethical behavior to every participant, and this will guarantee a more effective youth program. In addition, since is the ML2 program is termed as the theory of change, there is need of ensuring that ethical consideration is highly put into consideration in its initiation till completion, that is, from resources or inputs, activities involves, output expected, measures or outcomes, and impact of the outcomes. In addition, since the major reason for ML2 program is to bring the social change specifically to the youths, then there is will be need of ensuring there are moral credibility and leadership. Moral credibility needs to be part of ethical considerations especially for the program that aims at changing the social world and guaranteeing its betterment.

Additionally, ethical practices such as respect, accountability, responsibility, credibility should be effectively employed in the theory of change with the aim of ensuring that all activities that are conducted are guided by ethical principles. Every issue facing youths should be addressed with transparency. More so, there is need of ML2 program need to have the code of ethics and conduct guiding all the stakeholders and participants so that they can know what is expected of them.

Stakeholders

There are the crucial people that will help in facilitating the effectiveness of the ML2 program. Here are the possible stakeholders, namely: Harrisville Redevelopment and Housing Authority (HRHA), youths, families, community, professional project managers, technological and administrative support professional, well-trained and committed volunteers.

Evaluation Design

In evaluating the effectiveness and efficiency of the ML2 Youth Program, there are different things that will be put into consideration, that is, key evaluation questions, the data collections methods, data analysis, and limitations that are linked to such an evaluation design.

Key Evaluation Questions

Here are the possible research questions that will help in evaluating the ML2 Youth Program evaluation plan:

a. Are the objectives of the ML2 Youth Program met or not?

b. Has the ML2 Youth Program been designed properly to make sure it achieves its set objectives or goals?

c. How well is the HRHA taking part in ensuring there is the success of the ML2 Youth Program?

d. What are potential benefits of the youths who have been involved in activities of ML2 Youth Program?

e. What are the possible risks or threats to the achievement of the ML2 Youth Program goals or objectives?

f. What is the long-term plan of the ML2 Youth Program in enhancing the lives of youths and the one that will guarantee betterment of the world?

g. Do you support ML2 program?

h. Do you believe ML2 Youth Program in future time can guarantee betterment of the world?

i. Are the challenges hindering accomplishment of ML2 Program goals?

j. Would you wish to be part of ML2 program in coming days or quit?

Data Collection and Analysis Methods

For the evaluation research questions to be answered two types of data need to be collected, that is quantitative and qualitative data. For the secondary data to be collected to answer the evaluation questions, various sources of secondary data should be utilized. An example of the secondary source of data is an annual report from 2015 to 2017 regarding the Harrisville Redevelopment and Housing Authority (HRHA) and its impacts on housing projects. In addition, the primary data will be through collected through the use of questionnaires, survey, and interviews. Through the use of questionnaires, participants such as ML2 project manager and youths will take part in evaluation process because they will help in providing primary data required for one to make the judgment regarding performance and effectiveness of ML2 Youth Program. More so, the data collected through questionnaires will be supplemented by the data collected through interviews and survey to help in making a sound judgment.

Amid the time of analyzing the data collected, the best tool that can aid in providing good analysis results is SPSS. It is the best platform to use in analyzing the data collected because it has the capability of performing statistical tests such as the t-test and drawing graphs. More so, it is able to analyze the even large amount of the data with minimum errors and it is also fast. In the entire evaluation process based on data collected, two types of statistics can be employed, that is, inferential and descriptive statistics but the most effective kind of statistics for this case is the descriptive statistics. Descriptive statistics can help in summarizing the given dataset which can either be sample or representation of the entire population. More so, the descriptive statistics will help in explaining the outcomes of the ML2 Youth Program to the Youths and the entire community in general. Furthermore, in terms of tests that can be employed, the bivariate t-tests is the preferred one during the time of assessing the answers of different participants and figure out how they correlated with evaluation research questions to aid in giving sound judgment. Lastly, the survey and interview data will be analyzed using the code sheets.

Types of Data collection

Secondary Source of Data

Evaluation Questions

Closed and Open Questionnaires

Survey

Interviews

Annual Report 2017 of Harrisville Redevelopment and Housing Authority (HRHA)

Annual Report 2015-17

Harrisville Redevelopment and Housing Authority (HRHA)

a. Are the objectives of the ML2 Youth Program met or not?

X

b. Has the ML2 Youth Program been designed properly to make sure it achieves its set objectives or goals?

X

c. How well is the HRHA taking part in ensuring there is the success of the ML2 Youth Program?

X

d. What are potential benefits of the youths who have been involved in activities of ML2 Youth Program?

X

e. What are the possible risks or threats to the achievement of the ML2 Youth Program goals or objectives?

X

f. What is the long-term plan of the ML2 Youth Program in enhancing the lives of youths and the one that will guarantee betterment of the world?

X

g. Do you support ML2 program?

X

h. Do you believe ML2 Youth Program in future time can guarantee betterment of the world?

X

i. Are the challenges hindering accomplishment of ML2 Program goals?

X

j. Would you wish to be part of ML2 program in coming days or quit?

X

Limitations of Evaluation Design

The evaluation design may require a lot of resources to facilitate the entire process which they may be not available. Additionally, time is crucial, and time is highly consumed. Biasness of the data collected is another challenge that can be faced which may limit the effectiveness of the evaluation design because data that can be used for evaluation is biased. In addition, a large amount of data collected can make evaluation process a bit complex and challenging.

Management and Monitoring

The key role of the plan implementation timeline is to guide on plan execution. The proposed plan will be commenced in March 2018 and end at January 2019 as the time when the results will be anticipated

Goals

Task/Objectives

Needed Resources

Month Range

Status

Involving the Stakeholders

Using the feedback from the stakeholders

PET; HRHA

January-February 2018 Complete

Complete

Follow the code of ethics need for evaluating a program

Study the Harrisville Redevelopment and Housing Authority code of ethics

PET; HRHA portal

March 2018 June 2018

Complete

Data collection to answer evaluation questions

Use questionnaires and surveys on project managers and youths

PET; Participants’ times and availability

April 2018

Data analysis of data collected

Analyzed completed Questionnaires and project manager reports

PET; Project manager accountability and effectiveness

May 2018-July 2018

Triangulate the data findings

Carrying out interviews

PET;

August 2018

Accountability of program

Preparation of the full evaluation report

PET;

September -November 2018

Disseminate the findings to entire stakeholders

Post on ML2 Youth Program website or through emails

Program evaluation task force;

December 2018

Enhance the ML2 Youth Program

Coming up with possible recommendations to improve the ML2 Program

Program evaluation task force

January 2019