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compiled by Sheila Matano Earlier this year, the American Evaluation Association released a statement describing what evaluation is and its value to evaluators and the public at-large. There are many different types of evaluation and the time it takes to complete an evaluation project can vary from a few weeks to several years. Amidst a flurry of projects, debacles, deadlines and what seems to be a long and arduous winter, the CRC team took some time this week to decompress and reflect on what we love about our work.

by Sarah McCruden Welcome to CRCs monthly series of articles on all things techie: Secrets from the Data Cave! (For those who dont know, the title references our room – fondly referred to as the bat cave— where data staff can geek out in an isolated setting.) Here we’ll be offering you a fascinating sneak peek into the cave, with the latest updates & tips on what were implementing here at CRC!

compiled by Jill Scheibler Happy New Year from all of us at CRC to our friends, evaluation colleagues, clients, and miscellaneous blog followers! If you’re like us, the transition period spanning the end of one year and the beginning of the next is a very busy time masquerading as a relaxing one. But, even as we’d all like a bit more down time, the busyness of this transition time is a fertile one for reviewing lessons learned from the departing year and for setting goals for the new one…

by Sarah McCruden Welcome to CRCs monthly series of articles on all things techie: Secrets from the Data Cave! (For those who dont know, the title references our room – fondly referred to as the bat cave— where data staff can geek out in an isolated setting.) Here we’ll be offering you a fascinating sneak peek into the cave, with the latest updates & tips on what were implementing here at CRC!

by Sheila Matano The Baltimore Education Research Consortium (BERC) recently released a new report on schools in Baltimore City that provide out-of-school time activities. All the schools in the reports were funded under the Community Schools Initiative at the Family League of Baltimore City. One of the key outcomes for the OST programs was attendance; the report showed students who attended OST on a regular basis had a slightly higher school attendance rate than their peers who did not (95.

by Sarah McCruden Welcome to CRCs monthly series of articles on all things techie: Secrets from the Data Cave! (For those who dont know, the title references our room – fondly referred to as the bat cave— where data staff can geek out in an isolated setting.) Here we’ll be offering you a fascinating sneak peek into the cave, with the latest updates & tips on what were implementing here at CRC!

compiled by Jill Scheibler CRC was well represented at the 2013 American Evaluation Association conference, held close to home for us in Washington, DC! We learned a lot from this years sessions and had a great time connecting with old and new friends But we didnt just party there! (Although we did do just a bit of that with our fellow East Coast evalutors see the evidence at the end of this post.

Introducing. . . Secrets from the Data Cave by Sarah McCruden. Welcome to CRCs new monthly series of articles on all things techie: Secrets from the Data Cave! For those who dont know, the title references the room in our office where the data staff can geek out in an isolated setting that is fondly referred to as the bat cave. We will be offering you a sneak peek into this fascinating environment every month with the latest updates and tips on what were implementing here in the CRC data cave!

by Jill Scheibler Before working in program evaluation, I received education and training as a clinician, specifically as an art therapist. Through my work as an art therapist, which was based in a personal belief in and, more importantly, empirical observations supporting the mental health-promoting effects of making art, I became curious about how to demonstrate arts impacts to the general public (including dubious funders and policymakers) and found a lack of relevant research to back up what Id seen in practice.