Psychology WEEK ONE ASSIGNMENT

1

Program Evaluation Discussion (Tides Family Services)

Student name

Faculty name

Due date

Population Served: vulnerable children and adolescents, 6-21 years, and Rhode Island 1) Agency selection

I chose Tides Family Services (TFS), a Rhode Island nonprofit whose no-walls philosophy puts clinicians and youth workers in the neighborhoods in which they operate, as well as ensuring 24/7/365 coverage to youth between 6-21 years. The model embedded in the community fits a depression-oriented assessment since it encourages systematic screening of adolescents, fast response, and stepped care in real-life situations. TFS also releases available materials such as annual report that mentions serving approximately 500 youths daily which facilitates realistic output goals and cohort size to be analyzed.

2) Program overview

communities. Services/interventions: strength-based counseling, cognitive behavioral therapy, after-school program, organized recreation, 24/7 crisis response, Tides School-linked school services, and Enhanced Outpatient Services (EOS) which provides home-based clinical services. Undesired outcomes: juvenile suicide, Criminal incarceration or child placement, worsened family living conditions, unnecessary hospital admission, delinquency, and unnecessary aggressive criminal justice intervention. All these intentions are recurrently echoed in the web pages of TFS and service pages.

3) The logic model information

Inputs (resources): multidisciplinary workforce to cover various points of access; payer and state contracts and philanthropy; transportation and communication infrastructure to support 24/7 coverage; information systems to monitor screenings and sessions and school involvement, and crisis phone lines. The inputs and the magnitude of the volume of daily service are supported by TFS annual report and program pages.

Activities: (a) intake and risk diagnosis; (b) PHQ-A assessment of the baseline and scheduled intervals; (c) an individual CBT; (d) a family-centered work and care organization; (e) a twenty-four-hour crisis response; and (f) school-based or alternative-education services. PHQ-A is also short and public-domain, having clear scoring guidelines and a strict need to pursue any positive item of suicide with a clinical interview, which makes this tool appropriate to routine surveillance and escalation routes.

Outputs (measurable): enrolled and active; PHQ-A screenings and re-screenings, individual/family therapy sessions, crisis response, school days in the Tides School, and the contacts with care-coordination or to home-visit. The 500 young persons per day will establish a sensible baseline of quarterly and annual output objectives in a dashboard assessment.

Outcomes (aligned to goals):

Short (0 -8 weeks): establishment and participation in care; add to safety plans (where mentioned); mean PHQ-A decline at baseline.

Intermediate (3-6 months): PHQ-A clinically meaningful change or remission; reduced crisis calls; increased attendance /school behavior.

Long-term (6-12 months): long-term symptom improvement, grade or graduation, and avoiding deeper-end systems; TFS has already focused on avoiding later accession into the adult criminal-justice system.

4) Ethical considerations

Confidentiality: Assessment data should be de-identified in compliance with HIPAA, either through removing identifiers using Safari Harbor or through Removing identifiers doing Expert Determination and role-based access controls and audit logs must be documented in analysis plan. When the standards are met, then de-identified data are not subject to the Privacy Rule of HIPAA.

Professional ethics: The evaluators are to adhere to the American Evaluation Association Guiding Principles as they are systematic inquiry, competence, integrity, respect of people, and common good and equity, which are to be applied in relation to consent/assent processes, cultural responsiveness, role clarity, and transparent reporting.

Clinical safety: PHQ-A suicide item positive response should be assessed by clinicians urgently; the evaluation process should not jeopardize or interrupt duty of care.

Conflicts of interest: When program personnel provide the services and analyze the results, reduce bias through an analysis plan that has been developed in advance, role separation, independent review.

5) Missing information

On the public pages, there is no mention of the PHQ-A cadence, the fidelity checks on the CBT or family models, staff to caseload ratio, or subgroup-disaggregated results. To close gaps, I will record clear assumptions (including PHQ-A at entry, at six weeks and discharge), use conventional definitions of indicators (including engagement = ≥2 fall within 30 days), and come up with placeholders, which can be amended, when TFS uses brief data dictionary or de-identified extracts.

Reference

Tides Family Services. (2025, September 17). Home. https://www.tidesfs.org/