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Preface and Acknowledgments
This document is the final report of the National Evaluation of Family Support Programs, undertaken for the Administration on Children, Youth and Families by Abt Associates Inc., with a subcontract to Yale University.
This evaluation benefited from the advice of many individuals. Our Senior Investigator's Team of Charles Bruner, Judy Langford Carter, Thomas Cook, Luis Laosa, Marie McCormick, Douglas Powell and Ralph Smith helped us to define family support programs, to select exemplary programs and to design an evaluation of them. Members of the Technical Work Group, including Carl Dunst, Larry Aber, Bernice Weissbourd, Sheila Kamerman, Heather Weiss, Francine Jacobs and Constance Williams, reviewed our evaluation plans and measures, and provided helpful comments on our preliminary findings.
Peter Rossi and Carol Weiss helped with the difficult task of designing a set of evaluations tailored to the specific circumstances of each of the programs included in the prospective studies. The site-specific evaluation designs benefited from the advice of Lynn McDonald, Carol Calfee, David Roth and Karen McCarthy. Thomas Cook, Larry Hedges and Robert Fisher offered guidance as we designed the meta-analysis that is the centerpiece of this report. Will Shadish provided ongoing help and advice as well as sharing with us an important software tool in the late stages of its development.
Staff of the Administration on Children, Youth and Families were responsible for providing technical input and for oversight of the evaluation. James Griffin provided support and oversight in the early design phases of the study. Mary Bruce Webb, who was responsible for the oversight of the study for the last five years, encouraged us to undertake a complex and challenging meta-analysis, and provided consistent sound advice throughout the study. Our colleague and collaborator, Sharon Lynn Kagan, educated us about family support and was an invaluable resource in our efforts to design the prospective studies. In addition, she and other staff at Yale University were responsible for Volume C of this final report.
Finally, several staff members at Abt Associates Inc. played important roles on the project. Valuable contributions were made by Barbara Goodson, Lawrence Bernstein, Cristofer Price, Alan Werner, Cindy Creps, Helen Barnes, Linda Hailey, Gabriela Garcia, Marjorie Levin, Diane Greene, Kate Greene, Robert St. Pierre, Chris Saia, Susan St.Pierre, Mary Kay Crepinsek, Melanie Brown-Lyons, Michael Puma, Mark Rollins, Rebecca Burstein, Emily Pollakowski, Maureen Cook and Deb Thebearge.
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