You are here

Home » Sectors » Health & Human Services
 

Health & Human Services

Agencies or organizations with the missions to assist those in need -- be they adults, children or families -- often have difficulty systematically depicting the outcomes and impact of their work: Again and again, agency staff tell us numbers can’t capture the efforts involved, their successes, or a clear path to program improvement. At Apter & O’Connor, we see and think of data collection more broadly, and in a manner that goes beyond metrics. The result is a highly customized evaluation and plan for your organization that transforms raw data into insight, lessons learned into a path forward, and success stories that propel continued funding.

Here are just a few of our health and human services clients, some of which include project summaries. Contact us today, to learn more about what we can do for your organization.

American Immunization Registry Association (AIRA): Every Child By Two

AIRA is a national volunteer membership organization that promotes and supports immunization information systems (IIS) to ensure healthy communities across the country. The offer advocacy, education, and technical assistance to their members. A&O has guided two strategic planning processes for this dynamic organization and completed a multi-year outcome evaluation encompassing their subcontractor Vaccinate Your Family (formerly known as Every Child by Two).  For the most recent project Cynthia O’Connor teamed up with Steve Schack of Clear Blue Associates of NYC and traveled to Savannah to facilitate a board retreat. Together, they led a five-month strategic planning and organizational capacity building process with AIRA’s senior staff and board of directors. Our holistic approach was based on the published body of work by Susan Kenny Stevens known as “Nonprofit Lifecycles” [1] We find that organizations often embark on strategic planning efforts that are almost exclusively focused on looking outward and focusing on their programs and services, with little consideration to the capacity that it will require. By taking this holistic view, we can help ensure that growth is managed, and efforts stay in synch.

[1] Susan Kenny Stevens, Nonprofit Lifecycles Stage-Based Wisdom for Nonprofit Capacity (Wayzata, MN: Stagewise Enterprises, Inc., 2002).

Testimonial

Our Board for our national association was able to come to agreement for a re-organization and succession strategy which we successfully implemented. We were able to “turn around” from decline.  

- A comment from our client...
View Case Study

21st Century Community Learning Centers (21st CCLC) and the Extended Day/School Violence Prevention (ED/SVP) programs

A&O conducts evaluations for several 21st Century Community Learning Centers (21st CCLC) and the Extended Day/School Violence Prevention (ED/SVP) programs. These programs are federally, and state funded to support tutoring, academic enrichment and a broad array of youth development opportunities before and after school to complement the school’s regular academic program. It features partnerships with school districts and community-based organizations to programs target students from high-poverty neighborhoods and attending low-performing schools.

A&O’s evaluation activities include systematic observations at all sites, interviews with staff and administrators, surveys of all stakeholder (students, staff and parents) and extensive analysis of student academic data. A&O has worked with large multi-site school districts as well as smaller community agency sites, including The Syracuse City School District, Watervliet Central School District, The YMCA of Central New York, and the Center for Community Alternatives.

Program Directors consistently note the value of these rigorous evaluations and the ongoing feedback and technical assistance for program improvement that the A&O team provides. These independent evaluations have provided the needed evidence and critical information to convince legislators at all levels of government to continue funding these after school programs.

Testimonial

We so appreciate the multi-year evaluations so we can note differences from year to year and reflect on improvements. Very helpful to share with our board, the principal and even our staff so they can see what impact they are having. The Student surveys are especially useful.

- A comment from our client...
View Case Study

Process & Outcome Evaluations of a Multifaceted Child Care Improvement Effort

Child Care Solutions is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1975 to provide information and resources to parents, providers, employers, and community leaders in Onondaga and Cayuga Counties (NY) who seek solutions to their child care needs. In partnership with the Early Childhood Alliance, Child Care Solutions has been working tirelessly to assure child care options are not only available but of high quality.

Beginning in 2021, The Child Care Quality Improvement Pilot (CCQI) funded by Onondaga County, provided extra resources to this effort. This year the pilot’s focus is on family child care. Key components include training family care providers to implement an evidenced-based curriculum (The Creative Curriculum), one-on-one coaching in using assessments (a curriculum fidelity tool, the Family Child Care Environment Rating Scale [FCCRS], and the Ages and Stages questionnaire) to inform lesson planning, and communication with parents. There are also stipends for the providers.

As the independent evaluator of the pilot, A&O’s work will have two key components. First, a process evaluation. This is designed to assess CCQI’s progress implementing the project components they’ve planned.

Second, an outcome evaluation will measure progress toward the intended outcomes and describe the activities’ early impacts. Stakeholder feedback and assessment data will be important to that evaluation, and A&O will synthesize data from a variety of sources to formulate suggestions for improvement.

 

 

Child Care Solutions of Onondaga and Cayuga Counties (CCS): A Child Care Needs Assessment

In the past, Apter & O’Connor has worked with Child Care Solutions several times to support their needs assessment related to the current state of child care. A&O designed specific inquiries to examine child care supply and demand. The final product illustrated the child care needs unique to these geographic areas and the related work-life issues for both child care providers and the families they serve. The assessments included: a detailed review of national, state and local data; focus groups with child care providers, local government officials, funders and human service experts; surveys for parents and providers; and interviews with human resource professionals.  The rigorous methodology employed for each study provided child care advocates with a powerful tool to design new interventions and educate state and local legislators and funders.

View Case Study

City of Syracuse, Department of Neighborhood and Business Development

Apter & O’Connor provides consultant services for the City of Syracuse, Department of Neighborhood and Business Development. Our team works with community based organizations that receive US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funding.  In these times of shrinking funds, we are assisting CDBG agencies to strengthen their capacity in several areas including: governance and board development, performance outcomes and measurement systems, resource development and funding opportunities, effective collaborations for proposals and service delivery.  Our approach offers individualized technical assistance based upon unique organizational strengths, challenges and needs.   The A&O Team brings all of the needed experience for this project in strategic planning and grant writing as well as expertise as trainers and facilitators.  We are delighted to be collaborating on this project with Mr. Steve Susman, who, as former Executive Director of the Westcott Community Center in Syracuse, brings 37 years of experience in grant writing and reporting, non-profit management and board development.

View Case Study

Rigorous Inquiries into Trends and Impacts of The Early Childhood Alliance of Onondaga

The Early Childhood Alliance of Onondaga County (ECA) was launched in 2015 to advance a comprehensive, coordinated, well-funded system of high-quality, prenatal-to-age-five early childhood programs and supports. It is a diverse cross-section of community stakeholders with a shared vision that all young children in the county are healthy, thriving, and successful in school and life, and that all families of young children are supported in their parenting. A&O was engaged to examine two of teh ECA’s key areas of effort: funding support and parent engagement.

In 2022, we completed a study of recent early childhood funding levels and trends nationally, statewide, and within Onondaga County. The results serve as an updated baseline for monitoring future growth and to measure ECA’s advocacy impact.

Methods for this inquiry included a document review of past ECA reports, a literature review on early childhood funding levels and trends at state and national levels, interviews with ECA staff, and a spring 2022 funding survey of local anchor systems (nine key early childhood services and supports).

That report, Funding to Support A Strong Early Childhood System 2019–2021, detected an 8% decrease in funding for the early childhood ecosystem from 2019 through 2021 in Onondaga County. Several survey respondents noted that COVID-related challenges, closures, and lockdowns skewed service delivery data and, in some cases, resulted in underutilized services which could explain some of the funding decreases.

The second inquiry, also completed in 2022, examined the Parent Advisory Council (PAC), the primary mechanism for the ECA’s parent engagement work. A group of parents of young children meet regularly to discuss improving the early childhood system, leveraging their own experiences to provide the ECA with input about its initiatives.

The ECA funded this study to learn how the PAC was functioning, what impact the members have on ECA planning and decision-making, and if the parent participants perceive any value or benefit for themselves. ECA was also interested in gaining new knowledge and ideas from other parent engagement professionals and endeavors statewide and nationally to help inform their overall parent engagement strategy.

A thorough report, Parents in Partnership: An Initiative of the Early Childhood Alliance of Onondaga County, offered valuable insights to the Alliance and strong recommendations and references to strengthen their early efforts.

View Case Study

Health Foundation of Western and Central New York: Central New York Neighborhood Initiative — Helping Seniors to Age in Place

The Health Foundation of Western and Central New York in partnership with the Gifford Foundation funded a Central New York Neighborhood Action Initiative (CNYNAI) to create and test evidence-based practices that will enable seniors to remain in their homes and own communities as they grow older rather than in nursing homes or other forms of institutionalized care. To do this, the Foundation provided seven neighborhood-based organizations with resources to enable them to test best practice approaches designed to help people continue to live in their neighborhoods and to share knowledge, ideas and lessons learned with each other.

Apter & O’Connor served as the evaluator for this exciting initiative.  In addition, we facilitated “learning communities” for the seven selected organizations.  We were able to articulate the unique characteristics of each project that may have had the most significant influence or impact on creating conditions and supports that allow elderly residents to age in their own homes and neighborhoods.   Each of the NAI funded agencies successfully served their target population of low-income seniors within their identified neighborhoods and received positive reviews and accolades from their participants. All found the Learning Sessions a valuable opportunity to network, share ideas and resources and support each other.  Our final report, still in use, offered ideas for lessons learned by the Foundations as well as the seven agencies in serving this often challenging population in unique and creative ways.

Testimonial

I found the session on ‘fear of falling’ good reinforcement for the work I am doing when I look at safety in the home; I gained a few more areas of safety that I had overlooked. Hearing about other projects was helpful especially how there were problem solving to deal with barriers. Presenters were all helpful at generating deeper thought around topics such as connecting with people vs. technology, generational differences, concerns specific to seniors. Much thanks to Apter & O’Connor. I'm going to forward this useful report to our Executive Director and Personal Care Assistance President.

- A comment from our client...
View Case Study

Huntington Family Centers

The Huntington Family Centers Brighton Tower’s Service Coordination Program needed an independent quality assurance review on a tight timeline. Funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the program provides residents in this 600 unit subsidized senior housing complex with the personal assistance they need to access resources and services.

The review examined the 12-month period ending June 30, 2014. A&O worked with residents, apartment building staff and Huntington to answer the three questions all funders and providers need answered: 1) Did we implement with fidelity? 2) Did we do it with quality? 3) Did our services have an impact on our constituents? We conducted interviews, held group discussions with residents, and used questionnaires to collect anonymous feedback. Sixty residents participated (approximately 10% of total residents, and 25% of the residents served in 2013). We wanted to know about their satisfaction and utilization of the services offered as well as barriers the residents faced in accessing them. We also gathered ideas for improvement for the Service Coordination Program.

In addition to providing the deliverable of a high quality independent program evaluation for the client, our process of communicating with residents about the Service Coordination Program increased their understanding of this valuable resource.

View Case Study

Literacy Powerline

Apter & O’Connor is collaborating with the national organization, Literacy Powerline. The mission of Literacy Powerline is to increase literacy levels through effective and sustainable community collaboration and engagement. Literacy Powerline works with educators, business and labor leaders, philanthropic organizations, civic and faith-based groups, policymakers, literacy providers and students to demonstrate that everyone thrives when a community is committed to 100% literacy.  Scores of communities across the country have accessed the resources and capabilities of the Literacy Powerline team.  A&O is offering strategic planning, needs assessment and evaluation expertise to coalitions across the country to develop effective and highly accountable literacy initiatives within their own communities.  We are excited to be part of the Literacy Powerline team working with the Annie E. Casey National Support Center for the Campaign for Grade Level Reading to provide consultation for accountability systems, implementation and sustainability efforts of funded projects, particularly in rural areas.

The Campaign for Grade-Level Reading

Closer to home, Apter & O’Connor has designed an evaluation of the Herkimer Oneida Literacy Coalition for Literacy Powerline.  The approach is an empowerment model to facilitate stakeholder ownership of the evaluation activities and allow for on-going feedback, dialogue and appropriate adjustment.  The evaluation is designed to measure the development of a fully functioning literacy coalition and the impact on the community.

A&O has joined Literacy Powerline to support the Campaign for Grade-Level Reading in communities across New York State. The Campaign is a collaborative effort by foundations, nonprofit partners, states and communities across the nation to ensure that more children in low-income families succeed in school and graduate prepared for college, a career, and active citizenship. The Campaign focuses on an important predictor of school success and high school graduation—grade-level reading by the end of third grade.  Recognizing that schools can’t “do it alone”, the Campaign seeks to engage and mobilize whole communities to remove barriers, expand learning opportunities and assist parents to serve as partners in their child’s education.  A&O along with Literacy Powerline is helping to build a statewide network of GLR Communities across New York by offering coalition building, coaching, technical assistance and resources to individual communities and cities, so they can build their own unique networks and realize the goals of the Campaign.

View Case Study

Apter and O’Connor assisted the One Love Foundation staff in Yonkers, NY in completing a comprehensive assessment to better understand the educational needs to prevent sexual and dating violence among young people. A team of four at A&O began by helping the staff at One Love to prioritize data elements and indicators and identify relevant secondary data sources. Our team then worked to review, analyze and interpret all of this existing data. We used local measures to compare with regional, state, or national benchmarks to provide context for the findings. Finally, we provided guidance and technical assistance to the One Love staff to develop a logic model and evaluation plan, strengthen survey tools and plan for future focus groups and interviews.   

Testimonial

We received amazing feedback from everyone on the overall assessment. Thank you so much for your contributions to making this a success!

- A comment from our client...
View Case Study

The Salvation Army Syracuse Area Services: Expanding Evaluation Capacity for the Family Place Visitation Program

The Salvation Army received a funding award from the Central New York Community Foundation to develop an internal evaluation plan for the Family Place Visitation Program.  Apter & O’Connor was asked to facilitate a series of meetings with the key stakeholders and program partners to develop the organizational capacity for Family Place to systematically track, measure and report program implementation and its impact on children and families.

Family Place was established 7 years ago as a collaboration of The Salvation Army, Catholic Charities, Huntington Family Center and the County Department of Social Services to reduce the length of stay for children in foster care. Together they provide a variety of parent support activities in different settings. The needs of the families are quite variable and complex which presented a challenge to determining feasible performance measures.

The fact that the services are provided by four different entities contributed to this challenge.  A&O led the group in developing a logic model of Family Place that communicates the relationships between community needs, program elements and activities, service outputs and family outcomes. From there A&O facilitated the development of benchmarks, indicators of progress and reporting systems that now provide reliable and consistent information to the leadership team for ongoing measurement of fidelity and impact and identification of areas in need of improvement.

Testimonial

We could now say we can measure the performance of our collaborative project and determine if it is truly having an impact on the people we serve.

- Comment from our client
View Case Study

St. Joseph Hospital and Health Center, Syracuse NY: The Children’s Health Innovation Project (CHIP)

CHIP was a funded by the National Institute for Mental Health as a system of care grant intended to improve mental health services and outcomes for children and youth. Apter & O’Connor provided a process evaluation, technical assistance for planning that included practitioners, administrators and parents, and a focused inquiry involving a series of interviews with primary care physicians and mental health professionals.

View Case Study

The Wayne County Task Force for Run Away and Homeless Youth and The Wayne County Housing Consortium

Apter & O’Connor developed and analyzed a survey to 792 eighth and eleventh grade students who attended 6 schools in Wayne County a rural community in Western New York.  The survey gathered information related to the prevalence and issues surrounding homeless and/or run away youth. The survey design probed sensitive information in a manner appropriate to young people of diverse backgrounds.

View Case Study

Unity House is a large and complex human service agency. Their mission is to empower people in recovery from substance abuse, coping with mental illness or diagnosed with a developmental disability.  Apter & O’Connor’s work with Unity House started with a strategic planning process. The resulting three-year plan guided their preparation for NY State’s service-delivery and reimbursement transformation resulting from Managed Care. The process explored new business opportunities, planned for updating all administrative systems for new compliance requirement, designed a robust performance management (PM) infrastructure to support high quality programming and addressed the steps needed to strengthen their marketing and community engagement.

Following the strategic planning process, A&O was engaged to provide professional development and lead a newly convened PM committee. Over the course of 18 months, the committee examined each program area to articulate intended outcomes, identify performance measures, collect and analyze data, develop user-friendly reports and dashboards, and plan for program adjustments and improvements. The work with A&O concluded but the PM Committee continues with data-driven-decision-making now a part of the agency culture.

Testimonial

This strategic planning process was different than others I’ve participated in the past. It was at a higher level and more intense; we really had to work. The end product was worth it – we now have a viable plan for the next three years that will situate the agency for success.

I want to thank A&O for everything. I was so impressed by your ability to take information from our industry, digest it and feed it back in an organized way. My observation was that you were attentive and did not miss anything from what we said, to how we engaged.  I feel that you helped to push the agency and staff to a new level in terms of strategic planning and program evaluation. I completely enjoyed my experience with you. Thank you and enjoy the fall!

We have made so many strides with our dashboards and data collection! I believe our directors now “think” data. Thank you for our support

- Comments from Unity House directors...
View Case Study

21st Century Community Learning Centers (21st CCLC) and the Extended Day/School Violence Prevention (ED/SVP) programs

A&O conducts evaluations for several 21st Century Community Learning Centers (21st CCLC) and the Extended Day/School Violence Prevention (ED/SVP) programs. These programs are federally, joand state funded to support tutoring, academic enrichment and a broad array of youth development opportunities before and after school to complement the school’s regular academic program. It features partnerships with school districts and community-based organizations to programs target students from high-poverty neighborhoods and attending low-performing schools.

A&O’s evaluation activities include systematic observations at all sites, interviews with staff and administrators, surveys of all stakeholder (students, staff and parents) and extensive analysis of student academic data. A&O has worked with large multi-site school districts as well as smaller community agency sites, including The Syracuse City School District, Watervliet Central School District, The YMCA of Central New York, and the Center for Community Alternatives.

Program Directors consistently note the value of these rigorous evaluations and the ongoing feedback and technical assistance for program improvement that the A&O team provides. These independent evaluations have provided the needed evidence and critical information to convince legislators at all levels of government to continue funding these after school programs.

Testimonial

We so appreciate the multi-year evaluations so we can note differences from year to year and reflect on improvements. Very helpful to share with our board, the principal and even our staff so they can see what impact they are having. The Student surveys are especially useful.

-
View Case Study