CUED
Center
for Urban Economic Development
University of Illinois at Chicago
An Evaluation of the Parental Involvement Demonstration
Project Number: 360
Report Date: June 1996
Author(s): William D. Howard, Joan Fitzgerald, Janice Matthews-Rasheed
View Paper in PDF format (381k)
The Paternal Involvement Demonstration (PID) is a three-year, public-private partnership designed to assess the value of providing intensive job training, placement and paternal involvement services to young non-custodial fathers whose children receive support from Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC). The need for a PID program was a concern of staff at several local social service organizations. The Westside Holistic Family Center's policy advocacy work, for example, acknowledged the frustration of fathers not being able to support their children. In the fall of 1990, the Illinois Department of Public Aid (IDPA) and (what was then called) the Woods Charitable Fund began working together to develop a program that would respond to the employment and parenting needs of young, non-custodial fathers. After extensive research and discussion, a demonstration program was developed and funding obtained. The demonstration had three components: service delivery, policy advocacy and evaluation. The three policy goals of the demonstration were:
1. To assist fathers receiving support from the State of Illinois Transitional Assistance program to become economically self-sufficient and to be able to provide financial support to their children, through placement in good jobs that provide adequate salaries and benefits.
2. To strengthen the ability of disadvantaged fathers to provide and maintain on-going, positive relationships with their children.
3. To modify public welfare policy to eliminate existing disincentives to paternal economic and social self-sufficiency, and to establish the value of on-going federal and state funding for paternal self-sufficiency programs.
The evaluation methodology for PID was designed to be sensitive to the tension between scientific validity and usefulness of findings that characterizes most social service program evaluations. The PID evaluation includes an impact assessment, a process analysis, and a cost analysis. The impact assessment was designed to evaluate the effect of the program on the participants. It was used to determine the impact of the program on the participants by comparing the participant outcomes to those of a comparison group, and by comparing the participants responses to survey items and behavior before entering the program and at six-month intervals thereafter. The process analysis was designed to determine how effectively the services were provided, and how appropriate the interventions were in achieving the goals. The process evaluation served three purposes. First, it provided feedback to the service providers so that service changes could be made while the program was still in progress. Second, it allowed the evaluation team to examine the degree to which programmatic shortcomings were due to faulty implementation of the interventions as opposed to the choice of interventions provided.
Due to significant on-going program changes, high participant drop out rates, and participant selection bias, the validity of the statistical results were seriously compromised. As the ability to conduct the quantitative analysis deteriorated, a decision was reached by the Steering Committee and the evaluation team to put more emphasis on the qualitative analysis when interpreting results of the demonstration. Increased emphasis on the qualitative analysis led to a greater emphasis being placed on focus groups and to attendant follow-ups with selected participants.
Initially, the PID demonstration was implemented at three Chicago program sites: Chicago Commons, the Chicago Institute for Economic Development, and The Neighborhood Institute. Each of these sites developed a different approach to providing mandated social services. These mandated social services included on-going case management; employment placement and/or job training; and family-focused parenting education. During the third program year, The Neighborhood Institute dropped out of the demonstration. The program was then managed transitionally by Chicago Commons. Later, it was restarted at Kennedy-King College.
The Chicago Institute for Economic Development (CIED) is a 501C-3 non-profit corporation. CIED has been operating several programs for low-income people in Chicago. Since 1980, these programs have focused on job training, placement and entrepreneurship. CIED's approach to PID is rooted in their belief that the men's personal, social, educational and employment problems can -- and should -- be addressed simultaneously. Accordingly, the PID employment search process at CIED begins as soon as the men enter the program, as it is the hook that attracts most of the participants. CIED's PID program guidelines require that there be no delay in starting the human potential and parenting aspects of the program.
The Mary McDowell Settlement House of Chicago Commons serves Southside Chicago's Englewood and New City communities. Generally, Commons has worked with neighborhood residents in an effort to enable them to overcome the barriers of poverty, discrimination, illiteracy, and social isolation. Commons PID strategy incorporates the assumption that the men must address their personal and self-esteem issues before they can become good employees or parents.
The Neighborhood Institute (TNI) has been providing a number of economic development services to Chicago's South Shore community for over 14 years. TNI offers programs to promote individual, family and community economic development -- including job development, placement and training services, entrepreneurial development and small business assistance, and adult literacy. The widely acclaimed Southshore Bank has worked with TNI, its affiliate, to establish many business ventures and housing rehabilitation projects. The philosophy of TNI's PID program was that once the employment aspect of the program was in place, the other program goals would be achieved more easily. TNI's PID program director believed that once the men are supporting themselves, significant gains in self-esteem would occur, thus making it easier to address the men's personal problems and better facilitate their becoming more involved with their children. The PID program was significantly different from any of the other programs run by TNI. The general orientation of TNI was towards employment training and entrepreneurship, and its regular client base was much less needy. Before the end of PID's first program year, TNI had to replace its site coordinator twice, and then lost its entire PID staff, causing the program to be put on hold until new staff could be hired. Shortly thereafter, TNI decided to discontinue its PID program. The Chicago Commons site took over the case management of the TNI participants until a new program could be established.
In September of 1994, TNI's PID program was transferred to Kennedy-King College, where it was renamed "Fisher of Men." The community college's PID program has been modeled after a successful program serving women who live in Chicago's predominately Latino West Humboldt Park neighborhood.
In the first year, each site developed its own approach to achieving PID goals and objectives. During the project's second and third program years, several program-related changes were implemented at all three PID sites based on the site directors' increased ability to identify and implement more effective program strategies. The changes included the addition of family development specialists at two sites and an expansion of the activities of the family development specialist at the third site; the implementation of the federal waiver that makes the participants eligible for additional benefits under Project Chance; increased interaction between the evaluation team and the sites; and new programs and workshops.
A survey that identified key demographic variables was administered to participants and to members of the comparison group. Survey results revealed that there were only a few significant demographic differences between the two groups. Because of high drop out rates among participants, high turnover in the comparison group, and non-randomized assignments related to both groups, quantitative outcomes proved to be less reliable than the evaluators qualitative outcome assessments.
Qualitative data were used to gain increased awareness and understanding of the participants' experience with the three demonstration sites, and to provide data on the themes and patterns that underlay the men's personal lives. The detailed data on the economic, social and psychological issues of the men are useful to inform future programming, policy and case management/counseling efforts.
Much of the qualitative data were gathered through focus groups with the participants, members of the comparison group, and with program staff. Some of the major findings were the following:
1. Many of the men wanted to work but because many of the local job opportunities were in Chicago area suburbs, they had no means of transportation to reach those jobs for which they were best qualified.
2. Given the low skill levels of most of the men, few qualified for jobs paying much over the minimum wage.
3. Job retention among PID participants was disappointingly low.
4. Participants at all three sites had tense relationships with the mothers of their children.
5. For many PID participants, the program seems to have had a profound impact on their parenting skills.
6. Many of the men who missed days at work did so because of medical and dental problems -- many of which could have been identified (and perhaps addressed) upon these men's entry into the program.
7. Many of the fathers wanted to establish legal paternity; some wanted custody of their children.
Several issues were raised during the course of the process evaluation. Although implementation problems are unavoidable when working with programs like PID, it seems that many of the program's problems could have been avoided if there had been a longer planning period before program startup. Once the program got started on the wrong foot, problems became cumulative, and they became more difficult to remedy as the program matured. The evaluators identified other implementation problems during its process evaluation:
1. An unanticipated large number of program changes at the sites in order for these sites to remain responsive to the needs of PID participants.
2. Confusion at the sites caused by the absence of a PID executive director during a significant part of the program's startup phase.
3. PID program initiatives incompatible with the program's original design.
4. Participant recruitment and retention difficulties.
Costs per program participant were determined exclusive of the TNI and Kennedy-King project sites. These two sites were not included in the cost analysis because of the problems associated with transferring the TNI program over to Kennedy-King and because the evaluators were unable to determine the number of bona-fide PID participants for the period that TNI was part of the PID program. Using a formula that was weighted by the number of months that each participant (including drop outs) remained in the program, the evaluators calculated the program cost per participant at Chicago Commons and CIED to be $2,789 and $3,444, respectively. Average cost per participant for Commons and CIED combined was $3,069.
Much has been learned as a result of the Paternal Involvement Demonstration. Its focus on both demonstration and advocacy, while creating some problems, has resulted in many valuable insights. The following policy and program recommendations emerge from the finding of the PID evaluation:
1. The program should move out of the demonstration and into a new program phase. The new program should be established in accordance with the evaluation recommendations and as a result of input from the project director, site directors and the steering committee.
2. Participants in programs like PID (or any welfare-to-work program) need to be assured that they will be employed as a result of successfully completing the program.
3. Before full-scale implementation of a program such as PID, there should be a pilot phase in order to provide for an opportunity to work out the inevitably unanticipated problems.
4. If a pilot year is not a feasible option, then all program components should at least be in place before the project begins.
5. All project staff should be hired and trained prior to any participant recruitment and program activity.
6. Before beginning a program such as PID, similar programs elsewhere should be identified and reviewed in order to anticipate services that will be necessary and to identify problems that are likely to be encountered.
7. Rigorous screening should be conducted when trying to identify PID-type service providers in order to ensure that the service provider's goals are compatible with overall program goals.
8. For new programs, it is advisable that service delivery providers have several recruitment strategies in place before starting the program.
9. Culturally sensitive and well-trained interviewers are key to the success of the data collection efforts.
10. Prior to signing on, service delivery providers should be fully informed as to the role of evaluation, and as to what the expectations are regarding their role in data collection and dissemination. Service delivery providers should be required to sign agreements to provide this data, and their on-going funding should be contingent upon doing so.
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