In early summer 2016, Marc Maddy, Director of Evaluation & Quality Assurance, and Chelsee Bower, Quality Assurance Specialist, applied on JusticeWorks’ behalf to be part of the PACE Project.
Under the auspices of Montclair State University’s College of Education and Human Services in collaboration with the John Templeton Foundation, the PACE Project is an innovative approach to evaluation capacity-building that offers unique professional development opportunities for staff involved with youth character development programs as well as evaluators.
PACE is designed to immediately increase the capacity to evaluate, improve, defend and seek funding for programs; and, offers a unique opportunity to develop expertise in evaluation capacity-building and innovative evaluation techniques including systems evaluation and person-centered analyses.
The PACE approach is innovative in that it seeks to move beyond evaluation skill-building activities for program staff to also address the more foundational conditions of curiosity, motivation, and careful thinking that drive evaluation work forward. In addition, this Project is organized around a true partnership between independent evaluators and human service programs, in which ownership of the evaluation process is shared, and both sets of professionals bring expertise to the project.
As a result of participating in the Project, JusticeWorks expects to have:
- Enhanced evaluation capacity;
- A well-developed theory of change;
- A Program and Evaluation Profile (PEP) that can be used to communicate about the program and its evaluation with stakeholders;
- An Evaluative Thinking site plan, designed to incrementally improve the organizational culture and communication around evaluation;
- An established relationship with an independent evaluation professional; and,
- Access to a network of participating programs and evaluators.
JusticeWorks YouthCare is excited to have been selected as a participating program and will begin formal PACE-related activities in Fall, 2016. Those efforts will continue for one calendar year, concluding with a formal presentation at Montclair State University’s Research Conference in Fall, 2017.