Child and Family Program Evaluation: Learning to Enjoy Complexity

Abstract

The demand for program evaluation has grown so dramatically over the past 20 years that virtually all programs-big and small, well-funded and grassroots, new and veteran-are now expected to undertake it. The current popularity of "outcomes-based accountability" provides a backdrop for this "cautionary tale" about the uses and misuses of evaluation, and the necessity to match evaluations more precisely to the characteristics of the programs themselves, and to the particular resources and constraints inherent in each evaluation context. The Five-Tiered Approach to Evaluation-applied to a statewide home visiting program for young families in Massachusetts-is offered as a conceptual framework for this "matching" process.