Counties throughout California are attempting to take advantage of newly available First 5 funds, in order to improve the availability and quality of early child development (ECD) services in their communities. As counties move forward ambitious plans for service and systems enhancements, it is critically important to understand what works and how to improve the performance of new services integration strategies. Since 2005, the UCLA Center has been contracted by First 5 Tulare County to evaluate a range of health and ECD programs in the county that are funded through First 5 dollars. The first year of the evaluation focused on understanding and evaluating the data being collected through the online Outcomes Collection, Evaluation and Reporting Services (OCERS) provided by CS&O. In addition, meetings with each of the ECD providers were conducted in order to learn about their evaluation capacity and data collection activities and to assist them in building capacity to be evaluate their own efforts. Year two focused on assisting funded programs with increasing their evaluation capacity, as well as creation of data collection instruments in order to create a program-wide system of data collection based on service or strategy categories (e.g., parent education), as well as on continuing to measure outcomes. Years three and four focused on evaluation of specific result area strategies such as systems change, strong families and readiness of schools as well as production of two annual reports. Success in Tulare will be measured by a system of local programs that is not only providing needed and effective early childhood services, but is also continuously improving its ability to perform at the highest levels of quality and impact.

Evaluation of First 5 Kings County

First 5 Kings County contracted with the UCLA Center to evaluate their local funded initiatives and programs. The first year was in 2006 during which focused on one of their major initiatives called the Family Resources Center Initiative, which represents the largest of First 5 Kings County investments. Seven Family Resource Centers were established through the initiative to provide comprehensive services and support to children ages 0 to 5 and their families. UCLA Center conducted a family needs assessment in an effort to better understand the utilization of services, gaps in services as well as the barriers to services throughout the county, particularly for families with children 0 to 5 years of age. In 2007, a comprehensive evaluation of the FRCs was conducted to drill down further the information that was revealed by the Family Needs Assessment in order to inform FRC program quality improvement efforts and to help assess the extent to which the FRCs have thus far contributed to First 5 Kings County’s strategic plan goals. Year two focuses on a comprehensive evaluation of one of its School Readiness funded programs, Parent & Me, and a development of a three-year evaluation plan for all of First 5 Kings County’s funded initiatives.

For additional information, please contact Todd Franke, Principal Investigator or Maria Lourdes Brown, Project Manager.