Each program has a theory or conceptual framework that guides its activities and goals. Clarifying the theory or conceptual framework makes it possible to ask and answer questions such as: Why should the program work? In what ways? What are some good indicators of whether it is working? Professional evaluators help identify these underlying theories and design evaluations that reflect them.
For example, consider this scenario:
A nonprofit organization’s goal is to support the parents of children who enter the juvenile justice system. The organization believes that these parents experience undue stress, confusion, and insufficient support while trying to adapt to the events from initial charges, through court hearings and other required meetings and follow-up, to possible probation or confinement of their children.
During the last 6 months, the organization’s project director has identified a small group of parents who have experienced and successfully weathered this situation with their own children and have volunteered to be supports for parents and children who are entering the system. The organization believes that if these parents with personal experiences can work with these new families, they can help these families stay organized, know what is expected and what to expect, show up for court meetings and other appointments on time, work with the case manager and other officials, use resources for coping and stress management, and so forth.
While the organization may not be saying it specifically, its goals could be framed within a theoretical model of empowerment. If so, how would you identify activities, beliefs, and attitudes that are associated with empowerment? How might you measure them? As the professional, you can educate and formulate a conceptual framework for the project and tie this to specific program evaluation activities.
If you are interested in more information on family empowerment theory and applications, see the work by Nachshen (2005) related to empowerment of families with special-needs children, as well as further expansion of this work that has followed, including use of her Family Empowerment Scale.
In this Discussion, you consider methods for identifying theoretical or conceptual frameworks for a program that then support choices for methods of evaluating that program.
To prepare:
• Review this week’s Learning Resources, especially the Wilder Research (2009) article, “Program Theory and Logic Models.”
• Consider the information contained in your team’s Request for Proposal.
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Post an explanation of how you would determine an appropriate program theory/conceptual framework to characterize a program. Explain what kind of information you would need to gather to be able to identify the program’s theoretical/conceptual framework. Describe who and what might be good sources of that information. How might you use the professional literature to “fill gaps”?
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