Five Steps Of Outcome Based Planning Evaluation For Youth Services

Outcome-based planning and evaluation (OBPE), with its straightforward approach built on a flexible framework, is the perfect model to enable youth services professionals to deliver effective services regardless of uncertainties. An outcome-based approach can help youth services stay grounded in producing desired outcomes with and for youth through responsive programs, services, and processes that can adapt to changing conditions. Clarifying the relationship between planning, program development, and evaluation, the five simple steps outlined in this book will help youth services staff conduct solid community assessments and integrate OBPE into their work. Inside its pages you will learn a short history of OBPE and its evolution; why it is crucially important to involve youth in all stages of program development, with guidance on navigating challenges; how to think about planning as the need to react quickly, whether due to natural or human-made disasters, changing demographics, or economic swings; the five steps of OBPE, from gathering information about your community and determining the outcomes that will serve your community to crafting accurate outcome statements, developing an evaluation plan, and maximizing the results of successful outcome-based programs; how to visualize the steps needed to successfully plan, implement, and evaluate an outcome-based program, using the template included in the book; ways to share your data to let people know the library’s important role in the community; and additional useful tools to bolster your work, including environmental scan forms and ideas for creating relevant family storytimes.

Planning and assessment are both crucial elements of a public library that functions efficiently and flexibly. So why are they often treated as separate processes? This concise book combines planning and evaluation in a holistic approach, helping public library managers and staff put library resources to work for the community. Based on a series of successful workshops, the workflow presented by the authors is made up of manageable steps for integrating outcome-based planning and evaluation (OBPE) into the routine functions of the public library. Offering step by step guidance that’s transparent and easy to follow, this book introduces the concept of OBPE and explains how it can be a streamlined, effective method of getting library users’ feedback; defines “outcomes” and shows why public libraries should use them to plan and evaluate services;shares methodologies for assessing community needs and interests, including key informant interviews, surveys, focus groups, and environmental scans;demonstrates how to use community assessment data to create outcome statements that not only guide the creation of new library services, but also provide targets for measuring the effectiveness of those services;offers techniques for designing services that directly serve the community while also achieving the outcomes the library has targeted; andprovides tips for sharing the results with stakeholders and maximizing successful outcome-based programs to leverage the library’s role in the community.Featuring plentiful examples of how to proceed through each phase of the OBPE model, this book boils down planning and evaluation into an approachable, easy to understand process for public librarians, library managers, and grant writers.

Finally, a single volume that comprehensively introduces and addresses the most pressing issues and opportunities in young adult (teen) library services. Perpetually in the shadow of service to children, and historically riven by fractious relationships between public and school libraries, young adult services continue to suffer inadequacies and inequities of all kinds. Consequently, this area of specialization remains without the capacity to build the institutional, political, cultural, or professional influence needed to grow and develop beyond ritual and repetition. Young Adult Services: Challenges and Opportunities (COYAS) begins to address these inequities by preparing professionals. In COYAS, LIS youth services instructors, especially those in the United States and Canada, will find a single, broad, and diverse engagement with scholars and acknowledged experts on the most pressing issues confronting YA services today. Students at both graduate and undergraduate levels will benefit from the field-tested topics delivered through accessible treatments. Practicing YA (and youth) librarians will appreciate the support and evidence-based analysis they likely found lacking in their MLIS programs. Earnest youth advocates will value the pursuit of issues beyond cliché and perpetual “crash course” entry-level conversations. In addition, instructors and students will both value the brevity of concisely focused chapters, sectional introductions, as well as the study guide questions that conclude each chapter. Content areas include history and critical engagement with foundational concepts in YA services, current practices regarding challenges and opportunities, as well as forward leaning issues for future development of the field. COYAS will ultimately empower librarians in delivering professional-grade information services to improve the quality of young people’s experience in this important cultural institution.

Emphasizing an inclusive approach to programming that incorporates research-based theories and frameworks, this text will be a valuable orientation tool for LIS students as well as a holistic guide for current children and youth services professionals.

Describes the CATE method for integrating outcome-based planning and evaluation into library programs and services for young patrons, and looks at how it worked at the St. Louis Public Library.

Outcome Mapping: Building learning and reflection into development programs

As families are looking for better ways to educate their children, more and more of them are becoming interested and engaged in alternative ways of schooling that are different, separate, or opposite of the traditional classroom. Homeschooling has become ever more creative and varied as families create custom-tailored curricula, assignments, goals, and strategies that are best for each unique child. This presents a multitude of challenges and opportunities for information institutions, including public, academic, school, and special libraries. The need for librarians to help homeschool families become information and media literate is more important than ever. This collection of essays provides a range of approaches and strategies suggested by skilled professionals as well as veteran homeschool parents on how to best serve the diverse needs and learning experiences of homeschooled youth. It includes information on needs assessments for special needs students, gifted students, and African American students; advice on how to provide support for the families of homeschoolers; case studies; and information on new technologies that could benefit libraries and the homeschooler populations that they serve.

Public Libraries and Their Communities: An Introduction provide an overview of public librarianship today. It covers library organization, policy development, staffing, fiscal organization including funding sources and budgets, the legal framework, relationships with local and state governments, advocacy, services and service development for different age groups and for different groups of users, development of programming and outreach, collection development, promotion and marketing, and current issues and trends. In addition to context and concepts, the book uses many examples from both large and small public libraries to bring principles to life. Examples include real library policies, case studies, strategic planning, organization charts and library budgets. Many think that public libraries are not complicated to run.This book aims to show that public libraries are very complicated and require much skill on the part of the director, staff, and Board of Trustees to meet the needs of their local users.Advocacy and marketing have become important parts of the work of public libraries. Funding is always challenging so public libraries must constantly be making the local government and its citizens aware of the public library – its programs, collections, and services. This book's focus is on how public libraries reach beyond the walls of their buildings and touch the lives of their citizens.Meeting community interests and needs is essential for 21st century public libraries. For students the book offers discussion questions at the end of each chapter. These questions also provide discussion starters for public library staff development.