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COMMUNITY ACTION PROJECT OF TULSA COUNTY TULSA, OK
CAP Tulsa launched its two-generation approach, CareerAdvance, in 2009. The program offered health care career training, college coursework and trainings, career coaching, incentives to reduce
the financial burden of entering school, early care and education and Head Start. The Foundation provided programmatic support for CareerAdvance which was incorporated into the Health Profession Opportunity Grants (HPOG), administered by the
Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, in 2010. As part of HPOG, CAP Tulsa is part of a study to determine how these training opportunities help participants to improve their skills and find better jobs. CareerAdvance has federal funding to continue through 2020.
presented in Exhibit 6; for more detail, please see the independent evaluation report.10
The Foundation faced the challenge of simultaneously supporting innovation and conducting an evaluation in a complex operating environment. Casey was particularly interested in learning whether two-generation programs can deliver a coordinated, seamless strategy for whole families, or whether they
are simply “two-track” programs (separate sets of child and adult services) offered in the same setting. Another complication
was the innovative nature of the approach, which involved making tweaks and modifications to service delivery as insights were gained.
The developmental evaluation sought to answer questions about the feasibility of an integrated two-generation approach to service delivery and how this approach might improve family financial stability and children meeting developmental milestones. A central goal was to examine programmatic challenges, lessons learned and promising practices developed in diverse communities. The evaluation was part of a broader effort by Casey to invest in building evidence around
two-generation approaches, which ultimately might provide data and information that would support or refute the validity of the approach.11 Originally, the Foundation included all four
sites in its evaluation, but soon afterward, CAP Tulsa was selected for a federal impact evaluation, and all parties agreed it was best for Tulsa not to be included in the more formative Casey evaluation. (See evaluation findings for CAP Tulsa on page 15.)
The evaluators conducted in-person interviews, focus groups and annual site visits from 2013
to 2016 to gather information
for the case studies, and they
made follow-up phone calls to directors and senior staff to clarify information gathered through site visits. The descriptive outcomes evaluation used data collected through the sites’ data systems between June 2014 and June 2016. The evaluation was descriptive since there was no control group
to which the program participants could be compared. The Foundation provided evaluation and data systems technical assistance, and many of the sites ultimately used the Foundation’s grant funds for data systems development or enhancement.
investing in innovation / 14
About the families
• Each FES-ECE site engaged 100 to 250 families in two-generation services between 2014 and 2016.
• Thirteen to 20 percent of participating families in Atlanta, New York and Garrett County had more than one child enrolled in Early Head Start or Head Start.
• FES-ECE engaged a diverse group of parents.
– Parents in Garrett County tended to be younger and were more likely to be married than those in other sites.
– More than 90 percent of the families in Atlanta were single- parent families.
– The majority of parents in Atlanta (60 percent) and Garrett County (58 percent) were employed.
– In New York, 39 percent of parents spoke English as their primary language and one-third did not have a high school degree or equivalency, which was significantly higher than the rate in Atlanta or Garrett County.
• Families identified a variety of different needs, and different common needs surfaced in each site: building assets in Garrett County, amassing savings in Atlanta and increasing parent earnings in New York City.
EXHIBIT 6 / FES-ECE Evaluation Findings
About their participation
• Having at least one parent employed predicted overall service receipt in New York and Atlanta, although the opposite was true in Garrett County.
• Parents participated in a variety of services, and the most frequently attended services varied by site.
– Parents typically attended two to three coaching sessions, which could address employment, education, financial or other issues.
– Eighty-eight percent of parents participated in parent support services in Atlanta.
– Sixty-eight percent of parents participated in financial services in New York City, and 91 percent of parents participated in coaching sessions in Garrett County.
About their progress
• Most children (86 percent in Garrett County, 71 percent in Atlanta and 57 percent in New York) scored at or above all domains in the child assessment in the fall of 2015, indicating they were achieving appropriate educational and developmental milestones.
• In Garrett County and Atlanta, where data were available at two points in time, families demonstrated improvement across most family well-being measures.
– In Garrett County (using the Crisis to Thrive Assessment), families’ scores improved in nine of the 14 areas measured.
– In Atlanta (using the Family Bridge Assessment), families showed improvement in all 10 areas that were measured. Given the nature of the study, however, these improvements cannot be solely attributed to participation in two-generation services.
• Families in each site reported gains in areas identified as important to each two-generation program:
– Atlanta families reported decreased debts and increased savings.
– Nearly half of the New York City families in English for speakers of other languages (ESOL) classes gained a level in ESOL.
– Garrett County families saw greater access to transportation.
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