Needs Assessment and Planning

Needs Assessment, Performance and Outcomes Assessment, Program Planning & Evaluation, and Continual Improvement.

We depend on a full complement of evaluation, assessment and improvement efforts to guide and improve the work that we do.  The Title V program relies on a continuous system of program evaluation and feedback programs to support ongoing improvement efforts.  A comprehensive statewide needs assessment is conducted every five years to support our review and planning process; smaller targeted needs assessments are conducted as issues emerge at the national or state level.

Program evaluation and improvement efforts are integrated into all ongoing and grant activities.  The application of logic models is increasingly utilized to facilitate clear conceptualization of program and evaluation activities.  Title V relies on various data sources to assess its program performance and outcomes.  Participatory action research (PAR) principles are incorporated into the Title V evaluation effort through the sustained involvement of families in the design, implementation and interpretation of evaluation efforts and the accompanying results.

Needs Assessment

  • Comprehensive Oregon Title V CSHN statewide needs assessment conducted every five years.  We are currently within our needs assessment and planning year as mandated by MCHB.  The 2005 needs assessment is being conducted from within our office around the broad areas of finance, early and continuous screening, health disparities and family participation.  Key informant interviews will be conducted during the months of February and March 2005.  Surveys of families will be conducted in March and April of 2005.  Data received from the interviews and surveys will be analyzed during April and May to be available to serve as the foundation from which the next five year program will be planned and written into our MCHB Block Grant Proposal.  A summary of the needs assessment results and the written plan will be available by the end of June 2005.
  • The Oregon Children and Youth with Special Health Needs Program partners with the Oregon Title V Program housed within the Oregon Department of Human Services, Office of Family Health.  They are also conducting a comprehensive five year needs assessment and we are partners together in coordinating our efforts and sharing results.  
  • Oregon Survey of Families for Children with Special Health Needs.  This survey, developed by OCCYSHN program, is administered at the community level through our Integrated Services Project Framework for Integrating Special Health services (FISHs) to asses the extent to which families feel the services they need for their children are available and accessible.  The data from this survey provides one piece of information from which community teams can begin to plan for better meeting the needs of their families with children and youth with special health needs.

Performance and Outcomes Assessment

The Oregon Title V Children with Special Health Needs program is committed to meeting the six national performance measures identified within the Healthy People 2010 framework.  These drive many of the activities within the Title V program. Data needed to support this commitment are derived from a variety of sources.

  • National Survey of Children with Special Health Needs. The primary goal of the National Survey of Children with Special Health Needs is to assess the prevalence and impact of special health care needs among children in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.  This survey also explores the extent to which CSHCN have medical homes, adequate insurance and access to needed services.  These data speak specifically to 5 of the 6 Healthy People 2010 CSHN performance measures and are utilized as a baseline from which our Oregon Title V program planning and assessment efforts begin.   Summaries of the survey data are available for review through an online data resource center www.cshcndata.org .
  • Outcomes Assessments are carried out within the Title V CSHN program relative to each of the program units including the CaCoon Public Health Nurse program, the CaCoon Expansion Program, the Community Connections Network of multidisciplinary clinics, and the Family Support Program as well as the various grants and contracts within our office.

Planning and Evaluation

Program planning and evaluation are activities that are ongoing and improvement based.  Examples of ongoing evaluation activities include:

  • The ongoing monitoring and analysis of the CaCoon Program data resulting in an annual evaluation report, CaCoon Annual Evaluation Report.   This report serves as the basis for a review of strengths and areas of opportunity for improvement within the program.
  • The Community Connections Program is developing their annual evaluation design and report format for a CCN Annual Evaluation Report.  Under development is an annual Title V Program Report that will summarize evaluation of the program as a whole.

Logic Modeling as a tool for planning and evaluating programs is being applied within the Title V program grant activities.  Efforts are underway to build a comprehensive logic model of the Title V program so that it can be represented to its stakeholders and to support evaluation efforts.

Continual Improvement

Continual improvement as an ongoing process is being applied to all of our clinic and community-based programs for children and youth with special health needs. Most notably is the current effort addressing improvement of community-based adolescent transition planning through a MCHB funded grant. Youth Transition Learning Collaborative.  

Within the Child Development and Rehabilitation Center, in which some Title V support is given to clinical activities, a continual improvement effort has been developed to further achievement of the 2010 CSHN national performance measures.

A new activity is the incorporation of ongoing improvement steps in the Community Connections Network Multidisciplinary Clinics through assessment and evaluation and feedback to the community clinic teams.