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Jennifer McClendon, PhD, provides history of evidence-based practice

4/11/14 This morning’s speaker, Jennifer McClendon of UNR, gave us this history of evidence-based practice (EBP) and the difference between EBP and evidence based practices. I’m not going to attempt to explain that here, but you will be able to review it in her attached PowerPoint presentation. The entire group agreed that these last two weeks have been very informative, and those who have been unable to attend have really missed valuable discussion around this topic and in relation to SIF funding. Here are a few take-aways from today’s meeting:
  • Youth in the foster care system were heavily traumatized before they entered foster care; thus, they are coming to services with a lot of history and coping skills that need also to be addressed
  • Nonprofit funding faces a cultural issue that is biased against higher overhead rates; this results in a dilemma of funders wanting evidence of effectiveness but being unwilling to fund the costs to do evaluation
  • Tension exists between whether outcomes are program-driven or relationship-driven; is the program producing the results? Or is the person administering the program producing the results?
  • EBP started in the 1960s in Canada and was focused on medical outcomes.
  • That Nevada receives very little federal funding means there is great opportunity in this state to do what we want in terms of evaluation.
  • 400,000 youth under age 18 are homeless nationally; 50,000 of those youth are accessing services. That number can be translated here to suggest that only 1 in 8 homeless youth is accessing services.
  • 40% of homeless youth nationally identify as LGBTQ.
  • Texas and Nevada are the only two states that have family courts.
Next week, Deb Loesch-Griffin will join us to bring us her experience and perspective on evaluating programs. Some of the questions we’ll address are:
  • Is Nevada willing to be a testing ground for innovative programming?
  • What’s the mission for this group?
  • How can we change the culture of our community to care about youth homelessness?
  • How do evaluators get paid?
  • What is community-participation research?
  • How do we address program-level practices vs. policy and community interventions?
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5yReM2ZEfMCVzA5bTB1UGJCQ1BzWVRwQTdKLXRHNi1iN0w0/edit?usp=sharing – Evidence Based Practice(s)