Use Your Evaluation Information
to Communicate Your Results
Your State AgrAbility Project
November 19, 2004
Heather H. Boyd, Ph.D.
Evaluation Specialist
University of Wisconsin-Extension, Cooperative Extension
Evaluation Session
AgrAbility National Conference
2004
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Goals of Session
• Goal One
– Clarify the goals of your state project
Evaluation Session
AgrAbility National Conference
2004
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Goals of Session
• Goal Two
– Determine the evidence you need to
demonstrate project results
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AgrAbility National Conference
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Goals of Session
• Goal Three
– Consider ways to better incorporate people
with disabilities into your state project’s
program planning, evaluation and
communication
• Especially farmers, ranchers, growers, producers
and non-farm agribusiness professionals
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Goals of Session
• Goal Four
– Learn how to focus your evaluation energy on
outcomes, impacts and results that your
funders, persons with disabilities and other
program partners value most
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By the end of the session…
• You will
– Be able to articulate your state’s goals in
relationship to the national project’s goals
– Have a draft of an evaluation plan for your
state project, including one type of evidence
that helps you demonstrate results
– Be able to name one way to include more
people with disabilities in your program
planning, implementation or evaluation
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Background
• What do these words make you think
about?
– Evaluation
– Inclusion
– Outcomes and Impacts
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Let’s agree on a few things
• Evaluation can include gathering and
analyzing credible evidence about the
results (or lack of) your programming
• Including people with disabilities in your
planning and evaluation improves your
program, including its credibility and
results
• People want things to change as a result
of the programs they are involved in
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AgrAbility National Conference
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Your State Project Goals
• What are your goals?
• Do your staff and stakeholders share
these goals? How did you create them?
• How are people with disabilities included
in creating your project’s goals?
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National AgrAbility Project Goal
• “AgrAbility increases the likelihood that
individuals with disabilities and their
families engaged in production agriculture
(AgrAbility’s customers) become more
successful.”
www.csrees.usda.gov/funding/rfas/04_agrability.
html#PURP
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Your Credible Evidence
• Refer back to your state goals. What are
some ways that you can tell that you are
reaching them?
– Examples of credible evidence from
participants
• How are people with disabilities included
in the discussion of what is “successful”?
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2004
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National Project Credible Evidence
• “Measures of success may include
improvements in customers’ financial
stability or access to life activities and in
the capacity of states and regions to
deliver services this population requires in
a timely and satisfying manner.”
http://www/csrees.usda.gov/funding/rfas/PURP
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AgrAbility National Conference
2004
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Credible Evidence
• Are the following examples of “success”
for a state project?
– If so, why?
– If not, why?
– What further information would be important
to share regarding the example if you were
reporting to a funder, supporter, person with a
disability or other stakeholder?
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Credible Evidence?
• A rancher with schizophrenia met with
AgrAbility staff and members of his
personal support network to create a plan
for consistently taking the medication that
helps to keep him functioning well.
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Credible Evidence?
• With appropriate assistive technology
provided through a local granting network,
a crop grower with osteoarthritis was able
to plant 400 more acres of corn this
season. AgrAbility staff connected the
grower with staff from the granting
program.
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Credible Evidence?
• A dairy producer with multiple disabilities
decided to leave the dairy industry and
entered a non-farm agribusiness
arrangement as a lender with a local
financial institution. AgrAbility helped the
dairy producer with his career goal
clarification.
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Credible Evidence Exercise
• Describe one success of your project to a
person sitting near you, and include the
evidence of success.
• Now, the other person does the same.
• Describe what further information you
would need about the success, if any, to
make it more credible to you.
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Your State Framework
• What approaches does your state use to
implement your program?
• How does this affect your evaluation
opportunities?
– Discuss example of person-centered planning
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Person-Centered Planning
• Some common elements (O’Brien &
Lovett, referred to at www.inclusion.com)
– Persons with disabilities are at the center of
support networks that respect their dignity and
desires
– Group learns together through shared
experience with the person
– Goal is to enlist and engage a wider circle of
support for the person in the person’s
community
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Person-Centered Planning
• If you use it for your program, you can also
use it for your evaluation
– Clarifies goals for individuals
– Uses information from individuals and their
networks to determine progress toward goals
– Depends upon continuous improvement and
collaborative action
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Inclusion and Evaluation
• Person-Centered Planning
• Asking people with disabilities to
participate in planning, implementing and
evaluating programming
• Asking people with disabilities to serve on
advisory boards
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Your State Project and Inclusion
• Where and how do you already include
people with disabilities in program
planning, implementation and evaluation?
• Where and how do you already include
farmers, ranchers, producers, growers?
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Your State Project and Inclusion
• Where could you do more to include
people with disabilities in program
planning, implementation and evaluation?
• Where and how do you already include
farmers, ranchers, producers, growers
with disabilities?
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Focusing Your Evaluation Energy
• What is your evaluation question?
• What is credible information?
• Do you already have the information or do
you need to gather it?
• How much time and money do you have?
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Focusing Your Evaluation Energy
• How will you and others use the
information?
– What formats help accommodate different
learning styles and different people with
disabilities?
• How much time and money do you have?
• Who will share the responsibilities?
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Wrap-Up
Questions and Answers
Evaluation Planning Worksheet
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Acknowledgements
• Thank you to those who improved this
presentation with their feedback:
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Beth Swedeen, Waisman Center
Jenny Wagner, Waisman Center
Leah Nell Adams, AgrAbility
Bob Meyer, Biomedical Engineering
John Klatt, Program Development & Evaluation
Wintford Thornton, Program Development &
Evaluation
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