Scenario Six

As she had promised, Judy Hallowell came to the next committee meeting to work on an important aspect of the gardening program evaluation and the grant. That is, she asked the staff to pose the following questions to themselves: "How will I know if the gardening program activities have effected a change in attitude, activity level, health, or overall well-being of our residents? How do I acquire this information? What are my data sources?" Many of the staff were not accustomed to looking backwardto earlier recordsand then looking forward to creating new records of data on activities and their results. Judy coached them through identifying the items that were already available, such as Grandview's sign-up sheets for other programs. These showed the number of people engaged in activities on a steady or intermittent basis, which Judy said would be useful later. Neither had they really used to advantage the intake information regarding interests, attitudes, and skills, gleaned when residents first moved into Grandview. Before the meeting concluded, Judy asked the group to brainstorm the many new sources from which data might be gathered. The staff, now very much into the process, swiftly listed such items as checklists, interviews, and surveys. At that point, Judy distributed information on the topic and asked the group to think about what her information on data sources had to do with their new program and the evaluation process.

After reading chapter 6, reflect on Scenario 6 and describe what data sources will support the evaluation of the proposed gardening program?