Who are you and who are the members of your team?
Michelle Graef is the Project Director, and Maggie Thompson is the Project Evaluator who works alongside Michelle to evaluate the implementation of the Quality Improvement Center for Adoption & Guardianship (QIC-AG) project to ensure it is meeting its timelines, goals, and objectives. Maggie is the primary point of contact on the QIC-AG project. It is a testament to Maggie's hard work and strong relationship skills that the project is running so beautifully!
How long has your project been around?
The QIC-AG is a five-year project that began in 2015.
What are you currently working on?
We collect and analyze data related to the center work plan, dissemination efforts, site challenges and capacity building, the utilization of the QIC-AG website, and the effectiveness of various meetings and webinars. We just finished data collection on a newly developed target audience dissemination survey and are currently cleaning the data in preparation for analysis.
Any challenges in the project/job assignment?
Because there was some staff turnover over the course of the project, we anticipate some challenges in pulling together and analyzing data from before Maggie joined the project into a cohesive final product. Any time you have to pick up where others left off, there is a possibility for knowledge loss and a lack of clarity about what the previous people were planning or had in mind when they put certain processes in place.
What are you hoping to accomplish during the next year?
The final year of the project will be quite busy! This summer we will conduct the annual interviews with QIC-AG partners and site personnel, analyzing the data, and presenting results to project leadership. In addition to the “normally scheduled programming” of the continuous center evaluation tasks, we will also be developing and administering two new surveys this fall to assess partner sites’ satisfaction with 1) capacity building activities and integration of project knowledge into their agencies, and 2) the process of becoming certified in Neurosequential Model of Therapeutics (NMT) and utility of the skills that were learned. Finally, we will begin pulling together all of the data we have collected over the course of the project in preparation for writing the final evaluation report. This report will detail our findings about whether the QIC-AG met its project goals and objectives.
Any goals overall?
Our Goals for the QIC-AG project are to serve our client with timely, relevant feedback and to produce an informative, cohesive evaluation of their implementation.
Any resources or places we can visit to learn more about your project(s) i.e. Facebook, twitter, website etc.
https://qic-ag.org/
Any upcoming training's or events?
On June 20 at 2:00 p.m. (CST), the QIC-AG is hosting a QIChat webinar on the exciting work being done in the 8 partner sites. This QIChat will highlight the intervention that Illinois has implemented to support to children and families who have achieved permanence. Illinois will discuss lessons learned while implementing Trauma Affect Regulation: Guide for Education and Therapy (TARGET); a strengths-based, psycho-educational approach designed to teach youth about the impact of trauma on human cognition. The interactive QIChat will provide an overview of the intervention and highlight adaptation, recruitment and retention efforts that Illinois has made to implement the intervention into their system. Come prepared to Chat as there will be plenty of time for Q and A. To register for the QIChat, click the following link: https://cc.readytalk.com/r/oyckjq9gmaop&eom.