809 Assignment 3 Heatlhy Eating Inititative

Edla Landry, Assignment 3

Delisle Health Promoting Schools, Healthy Eating Initiative

 

 Engage Stakeholders

 Who should be involved?

Involved parties: the Saskatoon Health Region through the Health Promoting Schools Program Administrator for the school, Delisle Composite School administration, student volunteers, staff, students and parents at Delisle Composite School, and Agrium.

 

How might they be engaged?

The various stakeholders will be engaged in a variety of different ways, providing feedback to guide future decisions about the snack program. The Program Administrator and the program volunteers will give feedback through a short survey and individual interviews. All students will be given a short survey to assess their use of the program. A sampling of staff, students, and student volunteers will give more extensive feedback through surveys and interviews. A report is required by Agrium, as a condition to their funding.

 

Focus on the Evaluation

 What are you going to evaluate?  Describe program (logic model)

The plan is to evaluate the weekly ‘healthy snack’ initiative at Delisle Composite School.  The initiative is in its first year, and does not actually have an official title.

DCS is part of a pilot project of twenty schools through the Saskatoon Health Region called “Health Promoting Schools.”  Fourteen city schools and six rural schools are participating. The HPS program has three main focus areas: Physical Activity, Healthy Eating, and Mental Health. As part of the Healthy Eating focus, DCS has started handing out a nutritious fruit or vegetable snack once a week before school to students, and afterschool to extra-curricular groups.

 Delisle Composite School (DCS) has 256 students from grade 7 to grade 12. The school is part of the Prairie Spirit School Division. 

 

What is the purpose of this evaluation?

This is a formative assessment to evaluate the effectiveness of the healthy eating initiative and make recommendations for any changes to improve the program.

 Who will the use the evaluation? How will they use it?

Who/users	How will they use the information?
Program Administrator	The program administrator would use the information to make changes to the program itself (food choices, frequency, distribution methods). The program administrator is also in charge of budgeting, so the information would help make financial decisions.
School Administrators	The school administration would use the information to improve the program on a school level:  find out how satisfied students are with the program (its effectiveness), and how to get more students involved in running the program itself.
School staff	Information from the program evaluation will be shared with all staff members to increase their knowledge of the healthy eating initiative and to increase staff commitment and support for the program (buy into the process).
Agrium	Information will also be used as part of a report shared with Agrium, one of the main sponsors of the healthy eating initiative.  (As a stipulation to the financial donation, a formal report on the program is required Agrium.)
Students	By participating through feedback, information will be shared with students to affirm their voice in the process.
Parents	Results from the evaluation will be shared with parents, to educate them about the initiative happening at the school.

 

 What questions will the evaluation answer?

Are students utilizing the program?

Do the students like the food choices and frequency of the breakfast initiative?

Does the healthy snack initiative affect student learning, energy, or athletic performance?

Are present resources being used effectively?

Can the program be expanded beyond its current scope?

 

What information do you need to answer the questions?

What I wish to know	Indicators – How will I know it?
Are students utilizing the program?	A survey question will be given to students to gauge how frequently they have used the breakfast or afterschool snacks.
Do the students like the food choices and frequency of the breakfast initiative?   Do the students like the food choices and frequency of the extra-curricular snacks?	A survey question will be given to students to gauge their satisfaction with food options presented, as well as the once-a-week frequency of the breakfast and once-per-sport frequency of the extra-curricular snack.
How does the healthy snack initiative affect student learning, energy, or athletic performance?	Through more thorough questions in the focus group, and by following the group over a longer time period, correlations may be observed.
Are present resources being used to their potential?	Interviews with the school administration, student volunteers, and Program Administrator will indicate any leftover/waste resources, as well as any budget concerns.
Can the program be expanded beyond its current scope?	With information from the budget (sponsorship) and survey results from the students, the evaluation should be able to give recommendations on the feasibility of expansion.

 

 When is the evaluation needed?

 The evaluation would be carried out throughout this next term, and be completed after the Term 3 end. Any adjustments could be made and implemented in the final term of the year.

 

What evaluation design will I use?

The evaluation will be formative, and will use a combination of Goal Based and Goal Free evaluation models. “Goals based evaluations involve evaluating the extent to which programs are meeting predetermined goals or objectives.” (Authenticity Consulting 2002) Because the program is very new, it does not have an established set of objectives to meet. Rather, they have one activity (handing out healthy snacks once a week) with a general “goal” that it is producing tangible health results. By evaluating whether the predetermined goal is being met, and combining it with a goal-free model determining unanticipated outcomes, an overall and more complete evaluation will be produced.

 

Collect the information

 

What sources of information will you use?

Existing information: Since this is the inaugural project for this group, no prior data exists specifically to the initiative. However, neighboring Delisle Elementary School has had a morning breakfast program for many years, and statistics about that project are available. There is information about the Health Promoting School organization available from the Saskatoon Health Region.

People: Program Administrator, School Administration, teachers, students and parents

Observations: Administrative observations and teacher observations

 

What data collection method(s) will you use?

Strive for unobtrusive and not time-consuming methods:

·         Online surveys

·         Interviews (Program Administrator, School Administration, select staff)

·         Observations

·         Focus Groups (students)

 

Instrumentation: What is needed to record the information?

Surveys:  online survey questions to be completed by all students (school may choose to incorporate into the annual “Tell Them From Me” survey)

Interviews: interviews of the Program Administrator, school administrator, staff/coaches to give feedback and anecdotal evidence

Observations: evaluator will do personal observations at a morning breakfast distribution to gauge student responses, reactions, and cleanliness

Focus Group: determine a focus group with a range of students and interests (extra-curricular or not participating, student volunteers, etc.) and facilitate a group discussion around the survey questions to collect more in-depth responses.

 

 When will you collect data for each method you’ve chosen?

Because the program has already begun, no data collection in the “before” category is possible.

Method	Before program	During program	Immediately after	Later
Surveys		x
Interviews		x	x
Observations		x
Focus Group		x	x

 

Will a sample be used? Pilot testing?  No

 

Analyze and Interpret

 How will the data be analyzed and what methods will be used?

Surveys
Interviews and focus group
Observations

 

How will the information be interpreted-by whom?

The evaluator will be responsible for analyzing survey data.  The Program Administration and School Administration will be invited to look at the results and collaborate with the evaluator to deconstruct the data.

 

What did you learn?  What are the limitations?

In the end, the goal would be to give constructive feedback on the evaluation questions in order for the program to grow and improve.

Because it’s a formative evaluation and the program does not have an end date, there are not any time constraints on collecting data, other than the sooner it is completed, the sooner the evaluation can be used by the Program Administrator. The evaluation may also be used as part of the final report required by Agrium, but this is not due until the end of 2014.

One limitation is that as an evaluator and a staff member of this school, there is an ethical line to balance when looking at the data and making evaluations for issues related to the school. 

The largest limitation is that there is presently a Leased Kitchen Operator in the school that has restaurant items for sale in the morning and at lunch. The healthy snack initiative has been very cognizant of this and has carefully selected its program as a consequence. Because of the potential for internal discord, and because they are not participating in the program directly, I did not choose to include the kitchen operators to give feedback as part of the program evaluation.

  

 

Use the information

 How will the data be analyzed?

All data (surveys, interviews, focus group information) will be tabulated by the evaluator.

 

How will the evaluation be communicated and shared? What are the next steps?

The survey and interview data will be summarized for the main stakeholders including the Program Administrator and the School Administration. At that point, recommendations for the healthy snack initiative can be formulated and used to make changes as needed. A final report will be drafted.

The program administrator will use the final evaluation as part of the report required for funding from Agrium.

A summary of the survey data can be shared with staff as information.

A summary of the survey data can be shared with the students and parents through the school newsletter.

 

Manage the evaluation

 

x	Human subject’s protection
	Management chart
x	Timeline
x	Responsibilities
x	Budget

 

Human subject’s protection

An online survey will be used by students.  Most online survey sites allow for anonymous collection of data. There will be no names, emails, or IP addresses collected. Interviews will be done individually, and the interviewees and the focus group participants will be protected and their results anonymous.

 

Timeline

March: prepare surveys and interview questions, form focus group

March/April: conduct surveys and do observations; focus group continues
April: analyze survey results, interviews of Program Administrator and School Administration
April/May: meet with Program Administrator and School Administration to collaboratively generate areas of improvement.
May: final report given to Program Administrator and School Administration, and distribution of information (to staff, newsletter, students)

 

Responsibilities

The evaluator is responsible for creating all survey and interview questions, and to administer the survey and interviews. The evaluator will also collate the results and create the final report.  Summarize the results and create a report to share with administration and the teacher.  

 

Budget

All surveys will be web-based and interviews will be in-person, so no fees will be incurred or consumables used.

 

 

Standards  (Decriptors from www.cdc.gov/eval/materials/frameworkoverview.PD)

 

x	Utility “Serve the information needs of intended users”
x	Feasibility “Be realistic, prudent, diplomatic, and frugal”
x	Propriety “Behave legally, ethically, and with due regard for those involved and affected”
x	Accuracy “Reveal and convey technically accurate information”

 

Utility

Create accurate and relevant survey and interview questions. Use the results to make program adjustments and changes.

 Feasibility

Because of the formative nature of the evaluation, there are not any pressing time constraints or deadlines to be met. The scope of surveying all students may be too large, and adjustments can be made to take a sample instead if this proves problematic. 

 Propriety

Particularly because the evaluator is on staff, extra care must be taken to ensure the trustworthiness and credibility in collecting and handling information.

 Accuracy

The results of the survey and the complied comments from the interviews need to be carefully collected and analyzed.

 

 

 

 "CDC Evaluation Working Group." Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2 Nov. 1999. Web. 28 Feb. 2014. <http://www.cdc.gov>.

 

Jones, Ian. "Ian Jones - Field of IT - The Domain of Evaluation." Ian Jones - Field of IT - The Domain of Evaluation. University of North Carolina Wilmington, n.d. Web. 3 Mar. 2014. <http://arcmit01.uncw.edu/jonesi/Evaluation.html>.