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The impact of a pilot demonstration project on its community: A retrospective examination
Abstract
This study was designed to examine the impact made by a time limited pilot, or demonstration, project on the service community in which it existed. The project examined here, Project Transition, was funded for three years by the U.S. Department of Education's Division of Special Projects and Demonstrations, and was designed to assist persons with chronic mental illness in achieving vocational goals. In order to evaluate the project's impact on its community, interviews were conducted with forty-seven human service professionals who were associated with the project. These included the project's initiators, project staff, members of the advisory board, members of the state department of mental health, directors of collaborating agencies, clinicians from collaborating agencies, and a representative from the U. S. Department of Education. Respondents were asked a standard set of open-ended, and more focused, questions about their understanding of the project and its impact on their beliefs and professional practices. Responses were systematically examined by sorting them into content categories using two independent raters. Findings suggest that this program was viewed primarily as providing additional service resources to the community, rather than as a program designed to collect information about innovative treatment approaches. The project's impact on each group of respondents differed. Project staff members viewed the project as affecting their personal and professional commitment to the target population. Initiators were the most discouraged by their overall experience with the project. Advisory board members were the most disappointed about the project's failure to meet its original goals, and in many cases expressed a decreased willingness to work on future grant programs. Members of collaborating agencies tended to view the project through the lens of their own pre-existing agency needs. Directors of collaborating agencies focused on the benefits the project offered their agency, while clinicians focused on its benefits for clients. The program appeared to have minimal impact on the state department of mental health's beliefs about effective treatment strategies for persons with severe mental illness, although it did impact their knowledge about implementing new programs. Suggestions for future research are made.
Subject Area
Psychotherapy|Welfare
Recommended Citation
Prescott, David Lloyd, "The impact of a pilot demonstration project on its community: A retrospective examination" (1991). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI9211480.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI9211480