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ASR Opens a New Los Angeles Office
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ASR is delighted to announce that we've opened a new office to better serve our Southern California partners, and now have an office in Los Angeles, in addition to our San Jose and Santa Cruz offices. ASR has been working with several Southern California counties over the last decade including Los Angeles, San Bernardino, San Diego, and Riverside and we wanted to make sure we were best serving our partners by having an office on the ground. "We are very excited to be closer to our Southern California partners and to develop new partnerships to help communities improve outcomes and move from data to action," says Ken Ithiphol who will be heading up the office after six years of working with ASR. He has participated in dozens of community and health assessments, homeless census and surveys, as well as in mental health projects using a Results Based Accountability (RBA) framework. You can reach him by email (click here) or 909-267-9332.
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Community Indicators Consortium E-Conference Highlights
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The inaugural Community Indicators Consortium E-Conference held in April was an attempt at working together internationally in a virtual setting. The e-conference brought together more than 85 presenters, including Angela Glover Blackwell, founder and CEO of PolicyLink, Todd Park from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and Bernice Steinhardt of the U.S. General Accountability Office (GAO).
Amongst the presentations was one from our partners at the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in which they shard details about Wikiprogress, the main platform for their Global Project and a place to find information and statistics to facilitate the exchange of ideas, initiatives and knowledge on measuring the progress of societies. The conference also included workshops and discussion about the latest trends in community research, how to put neighborhood indicators into action, regional sustainability, and global best practices in community indicator projects.
This technological platform offered similar opportunities as a live conference, and those who attended can continue to view recorded content, participate in live conversations and download white papers and other tools for months to come. For more information, to go to the Community Indicators Consortium Website,
click here.
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| Vol. XI, Issue 2 | June 2011 |
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Nine New Homeless Reports to Be Completed This Month
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ASR is completing final reports for homeless census and surveys in eight California counties including Orange, Riverside, Santa Cruz, Monterey, San Benito, Santa Clara, San Francisco and Sonoma, in addition to Clark County in Nevada. Fourteen ASR staff members helped to mobilize more than 400 homeless individuals and more than 700 volunteers to take part in the census and survey efforts. According to Susan Brutschy, President of ASR, "Hundreds of homeless individuals and volunteers from dozens of community partners helped to make this year's homeless census and surveys so successful. We had a huge mobilization of dedicated community members at a time when things are so dire for homeless individuals and families."
The reports will be published this month and will not only provide data on the overall homeless population but will focus special attention on specific subpopulations including homeless veterans and the chronically homeless.
During this year's homeless count, ASR continued to pilot efforts to train homeless youth to both count and survey other homeless youth. Not only do we feel that it's crucial to research this especially vulnerable youth population, but the federal government intends to put in new requirements in 2013 to collect better data about children and youth.
Because of the recent economic crisis and the rash in foreclosures in California and Nevada, it is an especially crucial time to study homelessness. One key goal is to collect accurate and reliable data to guide action from local government and community agencies. According to Peter Connery, Vice-President of ASR, "These reports will help us evaluate the impact of the economic crisis on homelessness, make sure that counties continue to receive federal funding, and guide spending to support the needs of homeless individuals and families."
The Riverside County Homeless Census and Survey is complete and can be found at their website: http://www.riversidehomeless.org/. Findings showed an increase in overall homelessness, longer periods of homelessness, more chronically homeless individuals, and a slight increase in the number of homeless veterans.
Make sure to check back on our website to view all the reports: www.appliedsurveyresearch.org.
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San Francisco's Homeless Count and Survey Featured by the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness
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ASR just recently completed the 2011 San Francisco Homeless Count and Survey which is now being featured on the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness' website. The 2011 Count shows a slight decrease in the overall number of homeless residents in San Francisco, from 6,514 in 2009 to 6,455 in 2011. In 2004, the city launched a 10-year plan to end chronic homelessness, more effectively connecting chronically homeless individuals to permanent supportive housing. The percentage of chronically homeless persons in San Francisco decreased from 62% in 2009 to 33% in 2011.
Like many other counties across the county, San Francisco has seen an increase in the percentage of individuals and families who are experiencing homelessness for the first time. To view the complete report, click here.
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| U.S. Government Accountability Office Studies Best Community Assessment Projects including Santa Cruz County CAP |
In an effort to develop a key national indicator system for the country, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) selected and studied 20 comprehensive indicator systems from diverse U.S. and international areas, amongst them ASR's Community Assessment Project in Santa Cruz County.
"We are proud that our work on the Santa Cruz County CAP was studied in order to develop best indicator practices for the United States," said Susan Brutschy, ASR president. The criteria for selection as a case study included comprehensiveness-a mixture of economic, social, and environmental indicators; longevity-in existence for at least 5 years and currently in operation; outcome-oriented-with measures of progress over time or toward goals or outcomes; and involvement of a government entity as a partner or as a user of information from the system.
In a report to the U.S. Congress released by the GAO last month, our work on the Santa Cruz County CAP was highlighted for "encouraging benchmarking and action to generate improvements." The mention was due to the development of the Go for Health! Collaborative after our report brought to light the high percentage of overweight children in Santa Cruz County. Go for Health! now has 150 member organizations working towards the common goal that Santa Cruz County children will be physically fit through healthy eating and regular physical activity. Our CAP work was also mentioned as an example of how some indicator systems effectively addressed data gaps through the collection of original survey data. The Santa Cruz County CAP is the second oldest assessment project in the United States, having started in 1994 and is completely self-funded by several Santa Cruz County partners.
Other mentions include: the Boston Indicators Project for their creation of the MetroBoston DataCommon, an online mapping tool that allows users to analyze multiple data sets and create customized maps of the region and its municipalities; the government of South Australia for creating an audit committee to oversee the development of indicators used to track progress toward goals outlined in the South Australian Strategic Plan; and Community Indicators Victoria for their Website which allows users to create customized "Wellbeing Reports," with comparative charts for the geographic areas and indicators most relevant to them.
The complete report addresses how indicator systems are being used, how indicator systems are developed and designed, how to sustain indicator systems, and how a U.S. key national indicator system could be developed and used. To read the report visit www.gao.gov/new.items/d11396.pdf
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Latino Report Card
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The first Silicon Valley Latino Report Card, released in March, has been crucial in understanding the needs of the Latino community in Silicon Valley. The report card is also acting as a tool to create change to improve the lives of all Silicon Valley residents. "We want to engage the entire Silicon Valley, not just the Latino community to improve the quality of life for the whole Silicon Valley region," said former San Jose Mayor Ron Gonzales, who led the Hispanic Foundation of Silicon Valley in launching the project.
The report, created by data collected by ASR, revealed the challenges and opportunities of the Latino community in the Silicon Valley in a report card-style format.
Latinos were faring the best in terms of health with a "B" grade, but education and environmental sustainability got "C" grades, and financial stability and housing got "D" grades.
Within the area of education, one of the best grades of "B" went to very young Latino children in terms of their readiness for kindergarten. However, Silicon Valley Latinos got a "D" for college readiness.
With these findings in hand, Ron Gonzales has made presentations in San Mateo County and will present in Santa Clara County in hopes of sparking more community interest and acquire more support for phase two of the project- identifying three or four issues from each subject, and working towards making positive changes in those areas. Another component of phase two is a fundraising campaign to help address the shortcomings revealed in the report.
To contribute to the effort to improve quality of life in Silicon Valley, please call Margarita DeAvila at (408) 216-7612.
To read the entire report, please click here: http://www.appliedsurveyresearch.org/projects/LatinoReportCard_2011.pdf
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ASR Will Assist the City of Watsonville with Gang Prevention
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ASR was recently hired to provide evaluation services for the City of Watsonville Park and Community Services Department's CONTIGO program. This new venture is exciting for ASR, not only because CONTIGO will provide gang prevention and intervention services for youth and their parents but also because the targeted Marinovich neighborhood is less than a mile from ASR's headquarters. "The CONTIGO program has the potential to help improve the lives of many Watsonville youth," said Abbie Stevens, Director of Assessment and Evaluation Services at ASR.
Spanish for "with you," the CONTIGO program design combines gang prevention, and family and community strategies to provide youth, grades fourth to seventh, with the skills needed to make positive and healthy decisions to resist gangs and drugs, and to enhance their academic skills.
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Other Exciting New Projects
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Our team at ASR is pleased to have recently been contracted to partner on the following projects:
- The County of Santa Clara Probation Department contracted with ASR to redesign the evaluation programs supported by the Juvenile Justice Crime Prevention Act (JJCPA) grant funds. ASR will revise the logic model and evaluation plan, validate a youth asset survey, and revise the evaluation methods.
- ASR has just begun to partner with a collaborative effort at the neighborhood level to prevent and reduce obesity in the Columbia neighborhood in Sunnyvale. Using the process of collaboratively defining results, indicators, root causes, strategies, and data to track obesity-related outcomes, ASR will help the Coalition create a plan to address obesity issues.
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Project Updates From ASR Project Leaders
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Kate Branscomb
This was a busy year for school readiness assessments-the Kindergarten Observation Form/Pre-Kindergarten Observation Form was used to assess the readiness of 4,966 children in Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Santa Clara, and Santa Cruz counties in 2010-2011 alone. We are currently finalizing reports, sharing this year's findings with schools, districts, and other agencies, and beginning the planning process for school readiness assessments to take place in Fall 2011. We will also be presenting readiness findings from the Los Angeles Universal Preschool study at a national early childhood research conference (the National Association for the Education of Young Children Professional Development Institute) in Providence, RI this June.
Penny Huang
For our work with First 5 Contra Costa we are managing the data collection efforts of more than 30 grantees that serve evaluation purposes. We are coordinating with the grantees to ensure clean and systematic data collection, which sometimes includes developing a database (such as in Access), or a data entry tool (such as an Excel spreadsheet) and/or web-based data collection method (such as SurveyMonkey). We use those data to report back to First 5 and the individual grantees about their outcomes. For some targeted grantees and programs, First 5 CC has asked us to conduct additional interviews to explore the impact of the programs. These programs include Mental Health Consultation and the CARE Parent Network.
Abigail Stevens
We just returned from Valdez, Alaska where we administered 500 community surveys for Providence Valdez Medical Center and a coalition of community stakeholders. ASR is conducting a community health assessment to produce a comprehensive health report to help the Valdez community and Providence Valdez Medical Center develop an action plan to address the most critical health issues facing their community. ASR is currently administering surveys to health care providers and businesses in order to get a more thorough assessment of the community's health needs.
Deanna Zachary
We are completing an evaluation of a public health project in the state of Connecticut. The Connecticut Association of Directors of Health (CADH) hired ASR to help conduct an evaluation of the Health Equity Alliance Project (HEA). The HEA project is designed to support local public health departments to improve health equity by focusing on the social determinants of health (SDOH) such as the social, political, economic, and environmental conditions that impact health. There are three major components to the HEA project: 1. The creation and testing of a Health Equity Index that shows the correlations between the SDOH and health outcomes in all cities and towns in Connecticut. 2. Workforce development within local health departments such that staff members become more educated about the links between the SDOH and health outcomes. 3. Outreach to local community members to educate them about the SDOH, and for communities to establish priorities and action plans to improve the SDOH. The project is now in a pilot phase in three Connecticut cities: New Haven, Hartford and Groton and is funded by the Kellogg Foundation.
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Satisfaction Survey
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At ASR, we believe that the satisfaction of our partners is of utmost importance so in the spirit of true partnership, we will be asking for your feedback in a Satisfaction Survey being sent out next month. We want to celebrate our strengths and improve our service to you to ultimately ensure we are meeting ASR's mission of providing high quality research services that help our partners build better communities.
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Contact Us
Let us help you to collect information about your programs and your community in order to sustain your work during these tough economic times. We can also help you to analyze the data that you already have! Call us in our Watsonville office at 831-728-1356 or in our San Jose office at 408-247-8319. View our website at www.appliedsurveyresearch.org.
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