PERI has completed 15 projects with fourteen local agencies. Descriptions of the agencies and the PERI services they received are provided below. In addition to the services outlined, PERI provided each agency with a one-page, visually appealing infographic that displayed key information about the agency, or a specific program within the agency, that the agency desired to highlight.
HFLA of Northeast Ohio
HFLA is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to promote
the economic self-sufficiency of the residents of Northeast Ohio by providing access to fair financial resources. This is primarily done through interest-free loans for those who would not otherwise be able to access traditional capital.
HFLA’s evaluation included several components to inform future lending opportunities.
First, PERI calculated HFLA’s default rate using all available loan data since HFLA
transitioned to an electronic data collection system in 2015. Second, PERI conducted an
exploratory analysis to identify predictors of default to help HFLA better understand
how to support clients at greater risk for default, a practice that could improve
outcomes for clients and funds available for future loans. Borrower demographics and
loan type were examined. Additionally, PERI outlined the data currently available for
evaluation, data recently added to HFLA data collection anticipated to be available for
evaluation in the future, and data PERI recommends adding to the loan management
system to improve evaluation capacity.
Seeds of Literacy
Seeds of Literacy provides free, one-to-one tutoring in basic
education and high school equivalency preparation for adults. Many students are working toward a GED, while others simply want to learn how to read. Tutoring is delivered by Seeds’ highly trained team of nearly 300 volunteers. Students work at their own pace, at their own level, at times most convenient for them.
PERI partnered with Seeds for an evaluation project. The first portion focused on evaluating reading tutoring data available since July 2014, the time point at which Seeds switched to electronic data collection. A standardized reading test called the Test of Adult Basic Education (TABE) was administered to students upon entry into the program and periodically throughout programming. The number of reading tests a student completed was typically related to the length of participation time/number of tutoring hours completed. PERI examined whether student background characteristics, number
of tutoring hours, and tutoring instruction method (i.e. in person only, virtual only, hybrid) predicted a change in reading grade equivalency from first to last reading test.
The test and attendance data required significant formatting and cleaning by the PERI
team to prepare the final data set for analysis. The second portion of the evaluation
assessed whether the same factors predicted GED attainment during the same time
frame. Results were presented to the Seeds team along with recommendations for
improving evaluation capacity in the future.
Adoption Network Cleveland
Adoption Network Cleveland connects and empowers individuals, organizations, and communities impacted by adoption and foster care, and provides a source of healing for those in need. Programs fall under several categories, including Youth Connections (for teens aging out of the foster care system), Pre and Post Adoptive Services, and Triad Services (for adoptees, birth families, and adoptive families). Adoption Network Cleveland requested an evaluation of their Permanency Champions Mentoring Program, which connects youth in foster care with long-term mentoring relationships with a supportive and committed adult.
The PERI team analyzed and reported on outcomes from a questionnaire that measures compatibility and satisfaction with the mentor/mentee match at six-month intervals. The PERI team evaluated match quality over time, match quality within mentor-mentee pairs, and match quality by relationship success. The PERI team identified several important indicators of match success and potential match failure. The agency can now monitor the responses on these critical items to help guide the support they provide mentors and mentees.
City Mission
The City Mission is a holistic ministry that serves men, women, and children at their point of crisis by progressing them toward stability, employment, and independent housing. The agency provides a residential program for men (Crossroads) and women (Laura's Home) who are experiencing homelessness and/or in crisis. Programs include mental health services, case management, child care, life skill classes, support groups, adult education, crisis intervention, and employment assistance.
The PERI team and The City Mission collaborated on an iterative process to improve the agency's data collection and evaluation practices for individual and group counseling services at Laura's Home. PERI modified an existing behavioral health survey for the agency to administer to individual counseling clients at key points during treatment. The PERI team also developed several assessments specific to the content of the agency's group classes, and created surveys to assess client satisfaction with both individual and group services. PERI worked closely with The City Mission to construct an implementation plan that includes an administration schedule, appropriate methods, and scoring guidelines. These products greatly enhanced the agency's ability to evaluate and understand the effectiveness of their services.
East Cleveland Neighborhood Center
East Cleveland Neighborhood Center is a community-based, youth and family-serving organization providing culturally relevant and evidenced-based programs that promote family and community resiliency. Services help youth develop age-appropriate skills with a focus on social, emotional and behavioral health, and include a summer reading program, in and out-of-school drug and alcohol prevention programs, a community youth diversion program, and distribution of shoes and clothes for kids.
The PERI team worked with the Center to analyze and report on previously collected data from two sources related to social-emotional learning. PERI also worked with the agency to create new data collection tools to measure satisfaction with and efficacy of the agency’s in and out of school alcohol, tobacco, and drug prevention programs, as well as developed procedures for data management.
Fostering Hope
Fostering Hope and the organization’s network of volunteers provide life-enhancing programs to children living in residential treatment and foster homes in Cuyahoga County. The agency provides various services under three tiers: community involvement, trauma-informed health and wellness, and providing children with positive experiences and interactions that foster self-worth.
The PERI program entered and analyzed existing data from the Hope Grows Here gardening program and Hope in Balance yoga program and created data collection tools and data management protocols that can be used to evaluate these programs moving forward.
From Me 2 U, Inc.
From Me 2 U, Inc. is an organization that aims to protect and empower the future by supporting its foundation: youth, families, and aspiring professionals. From Me 2 U., Inc. offers a variety of programs including academic and wellness programs for youth, life coaching for adults, and an internship program for college students called Becoming Me. From Me 2 U requested assistance with developing evaluation measures and consultation regarding implementation of the Becoming Me internship program.
The PERI team engaged the agency in a collaborative process to develop two data collection instruments: a survey for student interns and another one for university field education faculty/staff, both of which will be used to gather feedback on student participation, various training portions of the program, the internship, and the student’s overall experience. The PERI team also provided recommendations regarding program implementation and data collection best practices.
Golden Ciphers
Golden Ciphers is an African American grassroots organization designed assist in reconnecting family structures; recreating communities; empowering mental, cultural and spiritual growth; and developing healthier lifestyles. Programs include gender-specific juvenile diversion programs (Black Butterflies and Youth Men Emerge), the Entrepreneurial and Employment Training program, and the Rites of Passage/Leadership Team for alumni of those programs.
PERI completed two projects for Golden Ciphers. They applied and were accepted for services in two separate rounds. During the first project, PERI conducted an evaluation to assess the effectiveness of Golden Ciphers’ juvenile diversion program by comparing recidivism data for those who participated in the program to data for those who were eligible, but did not participate. PERI assisted with updating the agency-wide referral and intake forms, created a program evaluation for use across all programs, and built an Access database to house and report the data collected with those forms. PERI also obtained a grant for computer equipment on behalf of Golden Ciphers. In Golden Ciphers’ second PERI project, an evaluation plan was developed for measuring the impact of Nguzo Saba principles on Rites of Passage participants, including the development of an evaluation tool and mechanisms for summarizing and reporting the data.
Providence House
Providence House is a crisis nursery that provides free, voluntary, emergency shelter for children in crisis situations which place them at risk of abuse or neglect. The agency provides children with safety and comfort in a home-like setting, and works with partner organizations to stabilize families, improve parenting skills, address mental health needs for children and parents, and preserve the family or find alternative long-term care for children. A voluntary Aftercare Program includes case management services, supportive items, and a trauma-informed psycho-education support group.
The PERI team entered, analyzed, and reported on data collected with existing assessment tools, and provided the agency with an evaluation report with outcomes related to service goals such as housing and family stability, employment, and mental health. The evaluation also identified clients’ most common barriers and strengths. PERI also created revised versions of the agency’s primary data collection tools to assess whether PH services are leading to changes in the core program goals, allow the agency to track achievement of individualized service goals, and evaluate the effectiveness of the Aftercare Program. In addition, the PERI team provided consultation services related to best practices in outcomes reporting.
Cleveland UMADAOP
Cleveland UMADAOP (Urban Minority Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Outreach Project) is a nonprofit agency whose primary mission is to improve the quality of life in the African American community by preventing and reducing risk factors and increasing protective factors. The agency addresses issues and concerns around prevention of substance use and abuse across life spans, recovery supports for persons suffering from chemical addictions, and reentry supports for the ex-offender population.
UMADAOP's PERI project was focused on developing an evaluation plan for the Distinguished Gentlemen of Spoken Word (DGSW) program, a performance arts-based program that uses poetry to develop positive personal and social outcomes for the young men who participate. PERI and UMADAOP created an electronic evaluation tool to assess program impact. Data collection and management recommendations were provided. PERI also created data summary mechanisms including a dashboard to allow for analysis of findings in real-time.
Effective Leadership Academy
Effective Leadership Academy (ELA) provides short-term programming to young people in grades 5-12 to cultivate leadership skills that are not traditionally covered in the academic curriculum, including 21st century soft skills, social-emotional learning, and life skills. Distinct leadership programs are offered during the school year, in the summer, and for youth going through transitions. Due to Covid-19, ELA's programming shifted from an in-person format to online delivery.
PERI worked with ELA to examine knowledge gain and satisfaction with programming for youth who participated in ELA online programming in 2020 using pre and posttest data previously collected by ELA. Online data was compared to in-person data when possible. PERI provided guidance for improving survey collection tools and procedures moving forward. Final products included interactive web-based graphs to visualize and filter the data.
Eliza Bryant Village
Eliza Bryant Village, an anchor in Cleveland's Hough neighborhood for over 125 years, is the oldest operating African American-founded long-term care facility in the United States. The services they offer to seniors include skilled nursing, memory-care, rehabilitation, dialysis, independent living, home care, and community outreach. Additionally, in 2020, Eliza Bryant Village opened an Elder Justice Center to provide temporary, safe housing and support services for older adults experiencing abuse, trauma, violence, and/or criminal victimization.
Eliza Bryant Village's PERI project was focused on evaluation consultation for the Elder Justice Center. PERI collaborated with Eliza Bryant Village to identify and develop data collection tools to assess the impact of their emergency shelter and social services on the older victims they serve. Appropriate data collection time points were also determined. An evaluation plan was created that produces sufficient and meaningful data, while also minimizing data collection burden on staff and clients.
Cleveland Transformation Alliance
Cleveland Transformation Alliance is a trusted community partner working to ensure every student is engaged in high-quality, equitable education by giving families and students the information they need to commit to their best-fit public school.
Cleveland Transformation Alliance's PERI project focused on its Ambassador Program, which provides information about school quality and selection through community-based organizations, and select components of the Navigator program, which provides more intensive, one-on-one services to families regarding school selection and barriers faced. PERI and CTA collaborated to ensure adapt pre-existing forms and surveys and add new ones where necessary to collect appropriate data to measure the number of families reached, the link between the Ambassador and Navigator programs, and the short-term impact of CTA's school selection services. Opportunities for family feedback were incorporated into the evaluation plan for the first time, and PERI provided graph templates that can be used to visualize results after data are collected with the new tools.
Believe in Dreams
Believe in Dreams is a youth empowerment organization whose mission is to fulfill dreams of economically disadvantaged youth who have survived a non-medical adversity by providing access to enriching opportunities, connection to the community, and hope for the future.
Believe in Dreams and PERI collaborated to improve surveys and procedures for evaluating the short-term outcomes of a Dream experience from the youth, parent/guardian, and nominator perspectives. An additional survey was designed to evaluate the impact of alumni events for families. Longitudinal plans and tools were also created for measuring the long-term outcomes of a Dream experience, particularly on three core mission areas: access to opportunities, connection to community, and hope for the future. Additionally, PERI created a dashboard to display key indicators of impact. It updates automatically when new survey responses are received.