March 29, 2006
Site visits
Making regular visits to your CBO’s is one way to provide one-on-one feedback and support that will help them improve the way they implement the activities with the children. During your visits you can also get a sense of what kind of support the program leader may be getting from their director or supervisor and whether the overall culture of the agency is compatible with the goals of the project.
Site Visit Form
Please use the form attached to report on your site visits.
Download Site Visit Form
The demographic information at the head of the form will be useful for evaluating whom and at what level the community agencies are implementing the activities.
The sections on introductions, implementation and discussion help us gauge whether the minimal conditions for implementing the activities are being met. It also helps us assess which particular skills are strongest in CBO implementation and where we should focus most training effort in increasing implementation skills.
Please send a copy of your completed forms to your mentor after each round of site visits. These will be shared with project coordinators and with the project evaluators so that we can assess how the program is working overall.
Follow Up and Feedback
When you make arrangements for your visit, try also to arrange for a time that you and the program leader can talk. Ideally, this would be right after the activity but when that is not possible it could be carried out by phone at a prearranged time.
Keep feedback simple and where possible use a “sandwich” technique. Start with something positive; follow it with either a question about (or a recommendation for) areas of improvement; and end with another positive comment. Be brief, be succinct and be direct.
Some PL’s feel that since this is “science,” they should model their teaching approach on traditional classroom practices. Others are more comfortable in a “recreational” mode and avoid intervening with or controlling the activities in ways that seem too “school-like.” Your task is to help them find an appropriate blend for the two worlds.
The nature of these projects is such that they do often call for structure in their implementation. Even though the activities are not driven by specific learning outcomes and assessments, we do want kids to reflect on what they are doing and to try to make sense of these experiences. In sports children and coaches generally accept that the experience should be both fun and structured (and skill-based). So long as they don’t become competitive, these activities can take on a similar feeling.
Time, space and behavior management issues are guaranteed to come up and you should be prepared to make suggestions. But until you know a PL and their site well, you should limit your recommendations to a few very specific suggestions so that the program leader is not overwhelmed and has something to work on for the future.
Posted by CharlieH at March 29, 2006 09:10 AM