Assessing the Quality of Evaluations of Adolescent Pregnancy Care Programs

Abstract

This article reviews and analyzes the evaluations of the Adolescent Family Life Act demonstration care programs. The purpose of the study was to assess the quality of evaluations conducted by 45 of the individual demonstration care projects funded under theAdolescent Family Life Act. This legislation mandated that a minimum of 1% and a maximum of 5% of the budget for each program must be spent on evaluation, and that each program must develop a collaborative arrangement with a local college or university to provide the technical expertise for the evaluation. Despite the good intentions of those whoproposed theAct, it was discovered in this article that the evaluations generally were not of sufficient quality to adequately evaluate the programs. Several implications of thesefindingsforfuture model service delivery programs are presented, along with suggestions on how to improve both the design and implementation of evaluations in this area.

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References

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