This booklet is part of the Planning and Evaluating Health Information Outreach Projects series. This series supports the evaluation workshops offered through the Outreach Evaluation Resource Center of the National Network of Libraries of Medicine. The goal of the series is to present step-by-step planning and evaluation methods. Along with providing information about evaluation, each booklet includes a case study and worksheets to help you with your outreach planning. The second booklet, Including Evaluation in Outreach Project Planning, is intended for those who need guidance in designing a good evaluation plan. It discusses how to do the following: 1. Develop an outcomes-based project plan, 2. Develop an outcomes assessment plan, 3. Develop a pre-project assessment plan, and 4. Develop a process assessment plan. By including evaluation in the planning stage, you are committing to doing it and you are more likely to make it integral to the overall project. Conversely, in planning the evaluation you identify outcomes, which in turn help you to carefully assess project activities and resource needs. Table of contents: * Introduction * Step One: Develop an Outcomes-based Project Plan * Step Two: Develop an Outcomes Assessment Plan * Step Three: Develop a Pre-project Assessment Plan * Step Four: Develop a Process Assessment Plan/Take Home Messages * Appendix 1: How to Use a Logic Model at Different Stages of Your Project * Appendix 2: Sample Data Resources * Appendix 3: Evaluation Methods Tool Kit * Case Example: Senior Center Outreach Project * Worksheet 1: Outreach Project to Senior Citizens (Logic Model) * Worksheet 2: Writing Objectives and Methods for Assessing Them * Worksheet 3: Developing the Pre-project Assessment Plan * Worksheet 4: Process Assessment Plan * Checklist.

Featuring plentiful examples of how to proceed through each phase of the OBPE model, this book boils down planning and evaluation into an approachable, easy to understand process for public librarians, library managers, and grant writers.

The underlying theme of this book is that planning and evaluating an outreach initiative is one and the same process, and that asking the right questions at the beginning is essential for getting useful results at the end. Moreover the guide is practical in purpose, theory-based and offers a range of methodological possibilities and strategies that can be adapted to the most simple or complex outreach projects. The book covers areas from rural to urban to inner city and spans a diversity of racial, ethnic and cultural community settings.

Outcome-based planning and evaluation (OBPE), with its straightforward approach built on a flexible framework, is the perfect model to enable youth services professionals to deliver effective services regardless of uncertainties. An outcome-based approach can help youth services stay grounded in producing desired outcomes with and for youth through responsive programs, services, and processes that can adapt to changing conditions. Clarifying the relationship between planning, program development, and evaluation, the five simple steps outlined in this book will help youth services staff conduct solid community assessments and integrate OBPE into their work. Inside its pages you will learn a short history of OBPE and its evolution; why it is crucially important to involve youth in all stages of program development, with guidance on navigating challenges; how to think about planning as the need to react quickly, whether due to natural or human-made disasters, changing demographics, or economic swings; the five steps of OBPE, from gathering information about your community and determining the outcomes that will serve your community to crafting accurate outcome statements, developing an evaluation plan, and maximizing the results of successful outcome-based programs; how to visualize the steps needed to successfully plan, implement, and evaluate an outcome-based program, using the template included in the book; ways to share your data to let people know the library’s important role in the community; and additional useful tools to bolster your work, including environmental scan forms and ideas for creating relevant family storytimes.

Describes the CATE method for integrating outcome-based planning and evaluation into library programs and services for young patrons, and looks at how it worked at the St. Louis Public Library.