The Beginning

The Center for Family Research (CFR) at The Ohio State University received a supplemental contract from the Ohio Department of Mental Health (ODMH) at the midpoint of fiscal year 2007 to enhance their evaluation efforts regarding the FA$T funding stream. The FA$T evaluation itself contained both quantitative and qualitative components that were intended to be used to generate important information about the effective use of state support in transforming behavioral health for Ohio’s children and their families. The major deliverable associated with the FA$T evaluation revolved around the collection of data from counties in order to generate statewide reports on the overall impact of the FA$T funding stream on the well-being of Ohio’s youth and families.  


For more information on the CFR’s evaluation efforts regarding the FA$T project please click here. 


The supplemental grant was designed to accomplish a fundamentally different goal. Here, the main thrust of the work done through the enhancement effort involved the creation and utilization of county-specific data from the larger statewide database.  The plan devised in order to accomplish this objective and concurrently to examine the usefulness of such data included the selection of a group of 10 counties to participate in this pilot project. Selection of these counties was based on both quantifiable criteria and county self-assessment criteria regarding their ongoing involvement in data collection efforts surrounding FA$T. Recruitment of the selected counties was augmented by both regional and local multimedia presentations that were designed to fully inform county representatives about the supplemental effort.

The final 10 counties that were selected for participation in the EScore pilot included:

• Northwest: Allen and Erie
• Northeast: Mahoning and Stark
• Southwest: Butler and Logan
• East: Fairfield and Jefferson
• South: Gallia and Pike

    
The data assembly, analyses, and reporting efforts regarding county-specific information from these pilot counties were expanded in order to go beyond the youth and families touched by the FA$T funding stream. Hence, the scope of work within the enhanced effort was designed to include those youth officially designated as Ohio Family and Children First service coordination cases.

Initially, county-specific data reports were generated on previously collected FA$T data and were made available electronically to counties through direct email, the CFR website, and regional presentations of the report data by CFR staff.   More specifically, these reports covered a wide variety of demographic variables on youth and families including but not limited to: age, gender, race/ethnicity, geographic location, risk of placement, and threat of custody relinquishment.  Further, the written reports also catalogued services tracked through use of the MACSIS claims database.  Family specific variables such as empowerment and stability were examined via the Family Caregiver Wants and Needs Scale (FCWNS) and the Family Stability Checklist (FSC).  Also included as a measure of county specific outcomes was Ohio Scales data regarding family satisfaction with services, hopefulness, problem severity, and functioning levels at the time of enrollment and termination.

In addition to a county-specific breakdown of this information, the CFR also created a number of additional innovative deliverables for the pilot counties including both face-to-face training and technical assistance designed to facilitate the interpretation of results contained in the reports. Also, subsequent recommendations for further data collection and analyses were made that were specific to each individual county’s needs. Further, these reports were used as demonstrations of the kinds of reports that could be generated to meet county-specific needs. In turn, these reports became the starting points in the effort to create county-specific data collection strategies that would reflect the need to track the expanded population, to address non-Medicaid reimbursable services, and to track outcomes across the new set of families.


To download the county specific reports for the Flight A Pilot counties from FY 2007 please click here.


Five regional meetings that included consultation with all ten pilot counties then were conducted. From these meetings, a common “toolbox” was created that could be used by each of the pilot counties in their research and evaluation efforts. This toolbox included a census tool that could capture demographically-oriented information specifically tailored to the Service Coordination population, the family empowerment and stability scales that had been included in prior data collection efforts, the Ohio Scales (three forms), a service-tracking inventory, a set of spreadsheets formatted for uniform data-entry, and documentation on the use of each of these instruments.


Following a statewide meeting held with the 10 pilot counties in September 2006, the instruments were modified and refined in response to user feedback, and small group trainings in the individual counties began in December, continuing through February.  Data collection on Service Coordination cases began in January and had commenced in full swing for all ten counties by the time the second statewide meeting was held in April 2007. During the initial data collection period, a second set of regional reports were created containing county-specific extracts from the statewide FA$T Outcomes report. The contents of these reports were presented during March and April at regional meeting sites.  Prior to the second statewide meeting and facilitated by ongoing remote technical assistance, each county transmitted collected data to the CFR. In turn, the data were summarized, linked to pre-existing outcomes data, analyzed, and returned to the counties in preparation for the upcoming statewide meeting.

Statewide Meetings for the Pilot Counties

The CFR hosted two meetings for the ten counties participating in the EScore pilot.  The first meeting was held in September of 2006, and focused attention on the comparison of county-specific data to the statewide database of youth and families served by the FA$T funding stream.  County representatives also participated in a dialogue about various issues related to the use of their databases, as well as devoting time to special topics (i.e., database construction and utilization) that would better meet the idiosyncratic needs of the counties. This meeting concluded with hands-on training on the use of the data-collection toolbox, with special emphasis on the spreadsheet-based data entry system. Feedback from the counties regarding the toolbox, along with feedback from Ohio and Family Children First on the census tool specifics, led to a December release of the toolbox for use in the pilot counties.

For more information on the statewide EScore meeting that was held in the Fall of 2006 please click here.


The second meeting was held in April 2007 and focused on reports related to the newly gathered data on service coordination activities. Feedback on the needs and desires of counties to collect descriptive information about the youth and families who are officially designated FCFC Service Coordination cases was the main topic of discussion in this meeting.  In addition, the county participants carried on a dialogue regarding additional evaluation needs that were related to tracking the outcomes of these service coordination efforts. Finally, an afternoon “Open House” was used to gather feedback about the Internet-based template from both the 10 pilot counties and representatives of 22 additional counties who had expressed some interest in becoming part of the expansion of EScore in the 2008 fiscal year. This latter meeting provided a useful forum for discussing specific information-gathering efforts that are related to officially designated FCFC service coordination cases.


For more information on the statewide EScore Meeting and Open House held in April 2007 please click here.

Feedback Sets the State for the 2008-2009 Biennium Effort

The feedback gathered from the morning and afternoon sessions of the April 17th open house capped a series of efforts to lay the foundation for the further expansion of the EScore data collection in the 2008-2009 biennium.  More specifically, the feedback gathered during these meetings – as well as through extensive phone and email contacts with both local FCF and state OFCF partners – provided extremely helpful suggestions for updating and enhancing present data collection needs in order to more accurately capture information on activities related to service coordination. Among other things, the feedback on needed enhancements indicated:

• The need to implement a more user-friendly system of data entry and reporting.
• The need to expand the focus of the data collection from individual children/youth to the whole family.
• The need to supplement behavioral health outcomes (Ohio Scales) to include the OFCF commitments to child well-being.
• The desire to begin cataloguing historical data on the youth and family prior to service coordination referral.
• The need to track Service Coordination activities (e.g. identifying services that are received by youth and families while in service coordination).
• The need for additional data collection on systems of care involved in service coordination (schools, courts, health/medical, community, etc.).