Social services agencies always strive to deliver services that are effective and that best serve the interests of their clients, and Haven House is no exception.  We attempt to measure the effects of the things that we do, but because homelessness is a complex situation, and because the needs of each client family are unique, it is difficult to evaluate the multi-faceted services that we deliver to our clients.  However, social scientists have done a great deal of research to develop methods of evaluation.  We are fortunate to have access to those resources in our community.  The Department of Psychology at MSU has strengths in the area of Evaluation Science.  We had the good fortune to benefit from this expertise.  Professor Rebecca Campbell offers a graduate course in Evaluation for doctoral candidates.  This fall Haven House was selected to be the case study around which the course was built.  The students were divided into teams and carried out two major activities.  The first was to observe the activities that go on at Haven House and to review materials that describe the Haven House programs.  Based on this they developed a "logic model", a graphic description of the activities of Haven House.  The logic model is important because it captures what we are trying to do, and the outcomes that we hope to achieve.  This then becomes the basis for designing evaluations.  The logic model is shown below.

Once they developed the logic model the class designed a measurement instrument to assess the extent to which some of the desired outcomes are achieved for each family completing their stay at Haven House.  Although the course has ended, the class will continue to work with us to fine-tune an evaluation questionnaire that will be administered anonymously to each family as they prepare to end their stay at Haven House.

In addition to this start to refining our evaluation methods, we hope to seek funding for additional research to develop state-of-the-art evaluation procedures for many facets of the services that we provide.

Many thanks to Professor Campbell and the students from Psychology 992 (Evaluation).