HOPES Logic Model

This week we will be covering a program called the Health Outcomes through Prevention and Early Support, or HOPES.  This program is provided in several locations, but I happen to know more about the location in Amarillo, TX that is run by the Family Support Services and the Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS). My sister-in-law’s best friend ended up in a relationship with a man who drank a LOT, and she started drinking with him all the time.  This caused her to end up going from being a wonderful mom to her two sweet little girls, to a semi-abusive and extremely neglectful mom.  This is when the HOPES program jumped in to help get her and the girls back on track.

Below is a logic model that was made using a logic model builder on the Child Welfare Information Gateway, located at https://www.childwelfare.gov/topics/management/effectiveness/logic-model/.

Logic Model
Program Name:  Healthy Outcomes through Prevention and Early Support (HOPES)
Program Vision: The HOPES program is intended to address child abuse and neglect prevention of young children by focusing on community collaboration, tailored to each community, in eight targeted high risk counties by increasing protective factors of families served. Population Served: For families with children ages 0-5 experiencing stress in the home. Population Needs to be Addressed by Services:  Services offered through project HOPES will be evidence-based or promising practice, parent education and support, home visiting services, and wrap-around services for families, with children 0-5 years of age, who are considered at-risk for child abuse and neglect.

**Services	Resources	Outcomes		Indicators	Measurement
Trained educators will meet with families in their home 1-2 times per month and address parental issues and concerns. There will be monthly parent-child play groups, equine therapy, and informational & social connections for parents.	Prevention and early intervention contractors, volunteers, trainers, and facility staff. Federal, state, and local resources	Participants know how to access formal support systems in their communities.	Participants demonstrate knowledge of the array of services available to them in the community. Participants demonstrate knowledge of their own abilities to meet theirs and their family’s needs independently.		Parent-Child Relationship Inventory Family Assessment Form Community Life Skills Scale (CLS) NCAST
		Participants demonstrate empathy and responsiveness to infant's' physical and emotional needs.		Participants provide infants with age-appropriate toys, play materials, and activities. Participants feed infants when they express hunger and stop feeding when they demonstrate satiation. Participants provide custodial care (diapering, feeding, bathing, and clothing) while positively interacting with infants.	Parent-Child Relationship Inventory Family Assessment Form
		Participants understand the nature of parent/child attachments (bonding).		Participants demonstrate knowledge of the characteristics of a healthy parent-child attachment. Participants demonstrate knowledge of the conditions that jeopardize the formation and/or maintenance of healthy attachments. Participants demonstrate knowledge of the risks associated with lack of or unhealthy parent/child attachments.	Parent-Child Relationship Inventory Family Assessment Form
		Participants access formal support systems in their communities when they need them.		Participants contact the agencies that are most likely to help them meet their family's needs.	Inventory of Social Support
		Participants understand their infant's' needs.		Participants demonstrate knowledge of the basic survival needs of infants and children.
		Participants know the importance of maintaining family and cultural traditions and routines.		Participants demonstrate knowledge of the importance of following family routines (predictable mealtimes, wake-up and bedtime routines, family meetings, etc.). Participants demonstrate knowledge of the importance of establishing and maintaining traditions and social activities that are important to their family and culture (such as birthdays, religious holidays, weddings, and other celebrations).
** Service Assumptions: The HOPES program helps stop child abuse before it happens. By teaching parents and caregivers parenting skills and helping them build the support structure they need, program participants are able to handle life's difficulties and address problem behaviors in children before they lead to abuse and neglect. HOPES offers evidence-based parent education and support for families who have children 0-5 years of age who are considered at-risk for child abuse and neglect. HOPES program services are provided at no cost to program participants.

The model includes services provided, resources, outcomes, indicators, and measurement. The services provided are excellent for all families, but especially those who are on the verge of child abuse, or who have been abusive.  These services help the parents learn how to raise their children, how to take care of them, how to “deal” with them, and what they can do when those bad feelings come up to avoid hurting their child and their family in general.  The resources cover the people and places involved to help the families.  When in the program, these people will come and check on your family at your home twice a month, and you and your family will come in to participate in classes each week. The outcomes cover what you will learn while taking these classes and learning great parenting skills.  The indicators cover everything that you have learned and hopefully passed while working on the “outcomes”. Last but not least, are the measurements, or outcome data collection, that are provided to help your family follow the life skills and development processes.  These are great to help make sure your family is on the right track.

If we were to carry out an actual evaluation, I feel that an outcome evaluation would be beneficial as it “compares what happened after a program with what would have happened had there been no program” (Engel & Schutt, 2014, p. 251). This would cover the impact made on the families, have there been any, and make it easy to measure the “before and after” aspects and possible benefits.

There are quite a few stakeholders in the HOPES program, all over the state of Texas, that have at least “some interest in the program” (Engel & Schutt, 2014, p. 247).  These stakeholders tend to run the program so they can be involved before and during the program.  Hopefully they can be involved after the program is finished so that they can kind of keep an eye on the families involved and reach the extra hand out just in case those needs come up again.

Further research could be done to help evaluate the cause and effect of the program. If a Black Box or Program Theory were used, it may work, but we would need to cover if the program is working or not and ask something such as, “What aspects are making this program successful?”  When considering the Researcher or Stakeholder Orientation, we would have to base our study on the views of the stakeholders.  This could be positive for the families involved. When considering the use of Quantitative or Qualitative methods, I can almost guarantee that this specific program would be much better to use a qualitative method, as it is so important in “learning how different individuals react to the treatment” (Engel & Schutt, 2014, p. 277). The Quantitative method is favorable for use, but the Qualitative method adds much more practical information.  Then there is the Simple or Complex Outcomes.  When considering these, we must realize that the Simple Outcomes only look at the immediate outcomes of the program, when a lot, if not most of these families are going to need to participate for at least 2 years with the long-term aspects of the program in mind and several possible outcomes.

We feel that the program is beneficial to the families who are currently participating, and although a few changes may make it even better in the long run, it’s best to work through the available aspects for all the families in need.

By: Whitney Skierski & Brittany Culley

References:

Child Welfare Information Gateway. (n.a.). Logic Model Builders. Retrieved             from https://www.childwelfare.gov/topics/management/effectiveness/logic-model/

Engel, R. J., & Schutt, R. K. (2014). Fundamentals of social work research (2nd ed.).  Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Family Support Services. (n.a.).  Healthy Outcomes through Prevention & Early Support, HOPES. Retrieved from http://www.fss-ama.org/hopes.html