Evaluation Topic Areas & Resources
Community Solutions at the University of South Florida collaborates with communities across the nation to assess and improve program implementation, integration, and impact and to ensure the translation of research findings into workable practices in the field. Comprehensive evaluations of financing structures, goals and impacts help systems and communities guide important decisions in policy and practice.
Child Welfare
- A.I.R. Child Welfare Technical Assistance Implementation Center: providing intensive technical assistance to states, tribes and counties related to the implementation of sustainable systems changes
- Child Welfare Prepaid Mental Health Plan Study: examining outcomes for children enrolled in the Florida Child Welfare Prepaid Mental Health Plan
- Children’s Home Society Case Management Baseline Assessment Study: assessing the child welfare case management services
- Evaluation of the Title IV-E Waiver: the permanency, safety, and well-being of children in out of home care
- Florida’s Center for the Advancement of Child Welfare Practice
Quality Improvement
- Child & Adolescent Needs and Strengths (CANS) and Service Process Adherence to Needs and Strengths (SPANS): a systematic assessment of child and family needs and strengths to guides service planning and delivery
Reduction in Mental Health Disparities
- ConnectFamilias Evaluation: examination of a community partnership in the Little Havana community of Miami, Florida
School-Based Mental Health Services
- Effectiveness of a Parent Support Program: Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP): increasing coordination in, and quality of, special education services for children with serious emotional/behavioral disturbances
- Mental Health Integration Study: increasing student access to quality mental health services
Success in School
- Dawn Center Primary Prevention Program Evaluation: assessing community awareness and education prevention programs of domestic violence and sexual assault
Suicide Prevention
- Relationship of Suicide Death to Baker Act Examination, Client Characteristics and Service Use Patterns: Veteran’s Acute Mental Health Care: understanding of the Medicaid funded services and the extent to which they were used by those who died by suicide
Trauma-Based Support
- Many Faces of Trauma: Community Engaged Trauma Research: development of partnerships and approaches that can remediate the psychological impact of trauma
- Trauma Recovery Initiative for Youth Center (TRI Center): providing trauma-informed services to children and youth experiencing complex trauma
Systems Planning & Policy
- Evaluation of Florida’s Behavioral Health Overlay Services (BHOS): profiles of children and youth who receive services in child welfare group homes and DJJ facilities
- Families and Children Together In Seminole (FACTS): ensuring that services and supports are integrated across human service systems and implemented consistent with System of Care and Trauma-informed Care values
- Financing Structures and Strategies to Support Effective Systems of Care: provides important information about finance policies that can assist communities across the country
- National Evaluation of the Children's Mental Health Initiative (CMHI): provides assistance to system of care community teams as they map out their desired system change, plan how to accomplish that change, and generate shared responsibility for the results
- National Survey of System of Care Implementation: an in-depth look at systems of care and the context in which they operate
- Out-of-Home Care Study: behavioral health treatment options for Florida's Medicaid population
- Profile of Youth in Out-of-Home Care Residential Programs: a look at the State Inpatient Psychiatric Program, Therapeutic Group Care, and Specialized Foster Care
- Profiles of Children with High Utilization of State Inpatient Psychiatric Program: examining data associated with longer length of stays, time to re-admission, and multiple admissions
- Quality of Life, Comorbidities, and Health Service Utilization for Youth with Tic Disorders: a look at clinical presentation, perception of self, access to care, and treatment strategies
- SEDNET: Network for the Students with Serous Emotional/Behavioral Health Challenges
- System of Care Practice Review (SOCPR): assessing system of care principles at the level of practice
- Utilization of the Most Costly and Intense Mental Health Services Among Out of Home Care: examining services for children and youth placed in out-of-home care
Youth Transition
- Healthy Transitions Initiative Process Evaluation: improving outcomes for transition-age youth and young adults (14-25 years of (age) with emotional and/or behavioral difficulties (EBD)