Mental Health Program Evaluation

Evaluation for the Supporting Families Through Mental Health Education Program with the implementation of the National Alliance on Mental Illness Basic Program material/instructions will consist of two sources of evaluations: external program evaluation and internal program evaluation. In order for the program to be considered as effective in the Clearinghouse Continuum of Evidence to be then further utilized at Vista Maria and at other residential treatment facilities for children and adolescents, external evaluations will be conducted independently of the program developer which will include a process/implementation evaluation that will determine if the program activities have been implemented correctly, outcome/effectiveness evaluation that
In order to assess the number of actual participants that were served by the sessions, sign-in sheets will be made available at the beginning of each class session. This will provide an assessment on the number of participants that completed the program session. In addition to the sign-in sheets, survey pre and post questionairres will be provided to the participants, and data will be gathered from the youth’s therapist as to the family dynmics prior to the educational program. The pre and post questionnaires will include: pre-program questionnaire that will provide information on where the parent/guardian is struggling in understanding their youth’s mental health diagnosis/behaviors along with the current tools they use to try and resolve the issues and their level of support, pre-questionnaire/post from the youth rating their thoughts on how supportive their families are with their mental health, survey questionnaire given at the end of each class that will provide feedback and quality assurance on the class overall understanding and effectiveness and any further questions they may have that can be answered at the next class, survey questionnaire at the end of the six week session on the positives and negatives of the program as well as their thoughts on where they feel their relationship is with their youth, survey questionnaire provided to the youth at the end of the session that will gather their thoughts on what was helpful to them, and a survey questionnaire mailed to the parent/guardian participants six months and one year after program completion to assess effectiveness of the program. The success of the program will be determined through the goals and objectives being achieved after the first year with three sessions already having been