Welcome to post 2 of what I hope will be a regular series, where we introduce ourselves to the community.
Introductions so far:
- [Today’s Post] Stephen Tregear
- [Today’s Post] December Lange Treacy of Nebraska
- [Post 1] John Barkowski and Caroline Newkirk of Mississippi
- [Post 1] Jan Fields of Michigan
- [Post 1] Chris Lysy
We ask just five quick questions.
- First the Basics: Your name, role, and your state?
- What challenges are you facing in your current role?
- What lessons have you learned?
- Is there anything you would love to hear more about from your colleagues?
- Do you have any hopes or expectations from this community in terms of format, lessons, or tools?
Just share your responses in a comment, or send an email to [email protected]. We will pull the responses together in collections and share them just like we are doing in this post.
Stephen Tregear
Your name, role, and your state?
I am Stephen Tregear. I am the Program Director for the OD2A Cross-Site Evaluation being performed under a contract with CDC. The purpose of the cross-site evaluation is to learn about how OD2A recipients are working to implement and evaluate prevention activities. My team is also charged with performing a cross-site outcomes evaluation. At this time our focus is on the implementation evaluation.
What challenges are you facing in your current role?
Creating relationships across the recipient community. I had hoped to introduce my team to you at the OD2A Recipient’s Meeting. Unfortunately, due to the cancellation of the meeting this was not possible. For our evaluation to be successful it is very important that we develop collaborative relationships so that we can learn from your experiences.
What lessons have you learned?
We have only just begun so we have nothing to report just yet. We have begun the implementation evaluation by collecting data from the Work Plans, Evaluation Plans, and APRs submitted by each recipient. To add context to the contents of these documents, we are planning a number of primary data collection efforts (interviews, focus groups, etc.) once we obtain clearance to do so from OMB.
Of course one of the major confounders to implementation is COVID-19. To understand how COVID-19 has impacted your programs, we are planning to interview up to nine jurisdictions to learn how the pandemic has impacted implementation; however, we do not want to burden jurisdictions at this time and are hoping that things will have settled down a little by August/September.
Do you have any hopes or expectations from this community in terms of format, lessons, or tools?
Yes. I am very excited to be a member of a community of professionals who are doing such important work.
December Lange Treacy
First the Basics: Your name, role, and your state?
My name is December Lange Treacy (pronounced di-SEM-ber LANG TRAY-see) and I am the Assistant Director for the Support and Training for the Evaluation of Programs (STEPs) in the Grace Abbott School of Social Work at the University of Nebraska Omaha. My team serves as external evaluators for Nebraska OD2A.
What challenges are you facing in your current role?
While it is not so much as challenge as it is an imperative for growth, I want to learn much more about equitable evaluation. Related to OD2A work, this might mean seeking opportunities to identify and explore racial health disparities in the state, as well as engaging with the technology divide and how that may be impacting overdose prevention work in under resourced communities during COVID-19.
What lessons have you learned?
I am able to keep learning and gathering resources informally by subscribing to newsletters, listservs, and Facebook pages. Community-Campus Partnerships for Health, Equitable Evaluation Initiatives, Expanding the Bench, Center for Culturally Responsive Evaluation and Assessment, AEA 365, and Urban Institute are just a handful of organizations to which I subscribe.
Is there anything you would love to hear more about from your colleagues?
Nothing in particular – I love gathering any and all tools and resources to add my evaluation toolkit!
Do you have any hopes or expectations from this community in terms of format, lessons, or tools?
I hope to build relationships across this community of practice and create opportunities for future collaboration.
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