Population Accountability
Select a Result - In plain language, what quality of life
conditions do you want for your target population?
For population accountability purposes, a result is a broad value statement that all
partners agree to work toward. It describes a specific facet of well-being for
an entire group of people. Some examples are:
- All Alaska teens become productive results
- All Alaska children live in a safe and healthy environment
Result statements are different from grant objectives. They should not:
- refer to a service, either directly or as a way of defeating the target population.
Generally, services are not included in result statements because doing so would
exclude some partners. For example, "all children have access to preschool"
does not include work by other services which could be included if the result
were "all children are ready for school." An advantage of broad statements
is that they allow programs to acknowledge and support one another, which makes
advocacy easier.
- include words such as improve, increase or decrease
The problem with these words is that if they are used without numbers, they are
too vague to be meaningful (e.g., what does it really mean if the percentage goes
from 57% to 63%?). If numbers are included, then you would need to change
the result statement every year, which might make year to year comparisons difficult.
The population accountability process is a cycle; each success is a step along the
way. Each partner can work seperately and contribute to progress. For
example, programs designed to reduce tobacco use among teens, increase physical
activity options for high school students and encourage healthy eating habits in
families with children under 18 all work toward a healthy adolescents result.
Result and indicator exercise
It would be hard to show that a single agency had made a difference toward these
examples, but the chance of doing so would increase if it were part of a very broad
coalition. The challenge for broad coalitions is finding common ground and
agreeing on a result.
If needed, Mark Friedman suggests using this exercise to help your group reach a
common purpose (e.g., agree on a result) and start to tighten the focus of
attention to a small number of characteristics that can be used to measure
progress toward the selected result(s). (http://www.raguide.org/RA/results_to_what_works_exercise.htm):
- Start with several flip-sheets, with "Results: what quality of life conditions do we
want?" written on one, "Experience: how would it feel to be in a community with this
result?" on another, "Indicators: how would we measure that experience/condition?" on
a third, and "What works?" on the fourth.
- Ask each person in the group to complete a statement such as:
We want children who are...
or
We want a community that is...
- Write each statement on the appropriate piece of paper. Most of these statements will
be results. During this step and for each of the others, if someone makes a statement
that fits better on one of the other sheets, write in on that sheet while explaning why it
fits better there.
- Then move to the Experience sheet, and ask each person to think about a result in terms of
everyday experience for someone in the community. For example, ask "What would your
neighbor see, hear or feel that meant that... (result) ...where you live?"
- Then move to the Indicators sheet, and ask each person what they would count to measure a
statement from the experience sheet, and how they would count it.
These statements can then be grouped and modified to eventually arrive at a small number that
everyone can support.
If you have more that one result, they should all be equally important.
Although the indicators identified by this exercise are a good place to start, you may want
to ask others to suggest more. This is an important step, because what you measure
will come to define this work as a whole. If you miss a key factor or select a key
indicator that has serious flaws, the credibility of the accountability process may come
into question.
|
|
