Identify a New York Times articles that highlight the problems that human service agencies experience in maintaining their funding.

Based on what you read, what strategies in the Kettner readings do you think are most helpful in maintaining a financially-viable human service organization?

(B ! P 4 Designing and Managing P... Monitoring Monitoring can be defined as an assessment of the extent to which a program is implemented as designed and serves its intended target group (Rossi, Lipsey, & Freeman, 2004). Some program evaluation texts refer to monitoring as formative evaluation because it takes place during program implementation (McDavid et al., 2013). The word monitoring comes from the Latin word monere, meaning \"to warn.\" Monitoring provides feedback to warn a human service administrator when the implementation of a program starts to deviate from its original design. The administrator can then take corrective action to bring the program back into line with its program design. The primary purpose of monitoring (see Table 10.1) is program management. Consequently, monitoring has a managerial perspective. Monitoring provides a human service administrator with feedback on the current status of a program in terms of several questions: Is the program being implemented as designed? What proportion of the community need is the program meeting? Are only eligible target-group clients being served? Are subgeographical areas and subgroups (e.g., ethnic minorities, women, persons with disabilities) being served in appropriate numbers? What products and services are being provided and in what amounts? What results are being achieved in terms of outputs and outcomes? In the assessment of program outputs (including quality outputs) and outcomes, monitoring and performance measurement overlap somewhat. Performance measurement and monitoring are both concerned with outputs, quality, and outcomes as well as issues of cost-efficiency and cost-effectiveness. The difference between the two is that performance measurement is concerned with the reporting of feedback data and information to external stakeholders, whereas monitoring is concerned with using the feedback data and information to internally track the implementation of programs and to make changes and refinements as needed. Table 10.1 A Comparison of Performance Measurement, Monitoring, and Program Evaluation Table 10.1 A Comparison of Performance Measurement, Monitoring, and Program Evaluation Perfc N:;az::::;iit Monitoring Program Evaluation E:;i;:ni Program Program Program Primary External reporting Program management F'rogram and policy purpose(s) improvement Perspective(s) | Financial/managerial Managerial Policy/planning Feedback on program Feedback on program Feedback on program results, performance (outputs, operations (process, outputs, | accomplishments, and Use of data N N . quality, and outcomes) to | quality, and outcomes) to impacts (outcomes) to external stakeholders agency administrators policymakers and planners Monitoring also lays the groundwork for program evaluation by helping to ensure that a program is implemented as intended. No useful purpose is served in conducting an evaluation if a program is not implemented as intended. 234 231 Feedback and Self-Evaluating Systems Throughout this book, we have used the systems framework as a model for thinking about effectiveness-based program planning. We return to it once more to assist us in thinking about performance measurement, monitoring, and program evaluation. Self-learning systems, sometimes referred to as heuristic systems, learn by doing. Self-learning systems take data and information (feedback) about their operations, analyze it, and then use it to make adjustments in the way the program operates. For example, a thermostat is a self-learning system. A thermostat monitors the temperature in a room and adjusts the air conditioning as needed to maintain a comfortable environment. If we think of a human service program as a self-learning system (see Figure 10.1), performance measurement, monitoring, and program evaluation data provide feedback about its operations and functioning. This feedback becomes new input that can lead to changes, refinements, and improvements in how the program is designed and implemented. As Figure 10.1 illustrates, feedback is provided on the outputs (including quality outputs) and outcomes of a program. It is this feedback that is used for performance measurement, monitoring, and program evaluation purposes. Figure 10.1 The Systems Framework, Feedback, and Self-Learning Systems .@@ :> Qutputs E> Outcomes :> Impact J