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Assessment and FacilitationTools

Introduction

Since 1994, Human Service Research, Inc. (HSR) has partnered with state and federal governments, universities (especially Penn State University and University of Minnesota), extension programs, and non-profits in building tools to help strengthen communities, programs, teams, and individuals to improve the lives of children and youth. Through this process several assessment and facilitation tools were developed. These tools were designed to collect inforamation and help facilitate conversations at many levels that range from vision and purpose to individual changes of children and youth on life skills. This site is an integrative collection of these tools and resources. As always in a developmental process there were challenges (good and bad) and learning that included technological changes that advanced the way we collected and analyzed information for facilitation, assessment and evaluation tool as well as improved accessibility. We moved from paper surveys and CD technology to interactive surveys and facilitation processes on the web. HSR developed one of the first on-line interactive programs for children (ERIKA) and youth (ALEXSA) using cartoon characters, audio, and scenarios to collect life skills on decision making, critical thinking, caring, personal values and social conscience that are part of this site. HSR also developed one of the first online interactive programs using a card sort process to collect information from members of a group on how they perceive the group's purpose, structure, and process that generates information for conversations, goal setting, and evaluation that is included in this dashboard. The National Network for Collaboration Framework that is foundational for much of the development of these tools has been added to the dashboard.

Tools and Logging-in

Facilitation and assessment tools were designed to collect information at various levels that include the community, project/grant, team/staff, and children and youth. The information can be used to: facilitate conversation; help collaborators and team members assess their agreement on their purpose, structure, and process; identify strengths and weaknesses; and assess change. Logging-in is necessary to give you access to only your data that you collect, protect your data, and allow you to do housekeeping that might be setting up groups or analyzing your data. After you log-in you will be taken to a dashboard that will give you access to all of the tools that will allow you to set up your groups or surveys, administer them, analyze the data collected on-line, and use the information for documentation, feedback,learning, planning, and possibly changing.

Available for each of the tools are resources consisting of documents and videos that discuss: accessing the website and viewing it in multiple ways (i.e., keyboard versus a mouse/videos versus documents) and using various web browsers; setting up a group and sending the information out to group members; using the reports; and utilizing the results.

The majority of the early collaboration resources were developed using Adobe Acrobat with interactive links that have some limitations that can vary based on the browser used. We are recommending for this section to use Mozilla Firefox or Microsoft Internet Explorer (accessible through Microsoft Edge). Our testing also found Microsoft Edge and Internet Explorer "Read aloud" feature worked well with the training materials.

Click on the video to play.

Register

At this time this site is free as long as we can afford to maintain it. Customization is available at a cost. The main purpose of the registration is to set up a username and password that will help protect the data (keeping it confidntial) and give you the ability to monitor and analyze your own data. We will require a contact person, email address, and informaiton about your program/project. HSR will protect your data and only use it for research purposes to better understand the tools and possibly improve them in the future. HSR has collected information since 1994 from runaway and homeless youth, pregnant and parenting teens, homeless youth, juvenile deliquents, afterschool youth, 4-H, and more where have always protected the information. If you have questions or concerns, please contact us and we will be happy to discuss.

Contact Us

For assistance in using the website, the tools, or results contact Human Service Research (HSR) at hsr@humanserviceresearch.com