The National Center for Adoption Competent Mental Health Services and the National Adoption Competency Mental Health Training Initiative (NTI) have partnered with the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Center on Children, Families, and the Law (UNL) on the evaluation of both projects.
UNL has recently released a new NTI evaluation report covering the October 2023 through March 2024 period. NTI participants continue to show knowledge growth and report high levels of satisfaction and that the content is relevant to their work. These data are consistent with findings from the NTI pilot and offer strong support for the value and impact of NTI.
Click on the menu to access and download additional information about the NTI Evaluation.
UNL will investigate the implementation and effectiveness of the Center, the Knowledge Hub, and Technical Assistance work. The evaluation team will evaluate the inputs, activities, outputs, and outcomes in five areas and answer core evaluation questions in each:
1. Center Operations
The National Center’s guiding principles serve as a foundation for the center’s work and include collaboration with partner organizations and embedded continuous quality improvement. Evaluation questions include:
How was a racial and broader equity lens applied?
How did youth and family voice with lived expertise inform Center work and what was the perceived impact?
How were evaluation findings used to improve Center efficiency and effectiveness?
2. On-Site Technical Assistance
Understanding the Technical Assistance model, its implementation and fidelity, perceptions of people involved, and the various outcomes will be essential to evaluating the Center’s effectiveness.
The key questions to be addressed in this area are:
To what extent were outreach and promotion activity goals achieved
What were the on-site TA model elements, processes, and tools?
What on-site TA activities were implemented and with what degree of model fidelity?
What were the perceptions of people involved in on-site TA?
To what extent were the intended short-, intermediate-, and long-term outcomes of on-site TA achieved?
What activities were implemented to support peer-to-peer sharing?
To what extent were peer-to-peer sharing goals achieved?
3. Sustainability
Another focus of the evaluation will be on efforts to build capacity and establish practices and collaboration for sustainability.
Work in this area will seek to answer questions regarding:
What activities were implemented to support sustainability?
To what extent were sustainability goals achieved?
4. Knowledge Hub
The hub development, content, utilization, and impact will be explored.
Hub questions to be addressed are:
What were the features and functionality of the hub?
To what extent were the hub goals achieved?
5. Dissemination
The evaluation will examine the dissemination activities of the Center to understand the various methods and products implemented to share results and lessons learned from the Center to multiple audiences through a variety of methods.
The evaluation will answer these questions:
What were the dissemination products and strategies?
To what extent were dissemination goals achieved?
