Healthy Outcomes through Prevention and Early Support (HOPES) is a program funded by the Prevention and Early Intervention Division (PEI) of the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS). Its aim is to strengthen families with young children in order to prevent child abuse and neglect. Services are provided by program sites that use a variety of evidence-based parenting programs. HOPES also requires collaborations at the local level to increase community awareness and capacity around child maltreatment prevention.

Project HOPES was rolled-out in three phases, known as HOPES I, HOPES II, and HOPES III. HOPES I contracts were awarded to eight primary counties and executed in July 2014, with most sites starting work with clients in September 2014. This evaluation covers the time period of fiscal year 2015, September 1, 2014 to August 31, 2015.

A mixed-methods approach for data collection was used to gather information for this evaluation. Online surveys were completed by 110 staffand 132 community members across the eight HOPES I sites. Interviews and focus groups were conducted with 52 parents, 116 staff members and 42 coalition and/or community members. Administrative data from the PEI database was used to examine parent outcomes.

Program sites’ quarterly reports were used to determine coalition involvement, specific event participation, and total number of clients served. Since this was the first year of collecting data for HOPES, community level child maltreatment rates cannot be included in this evaluation. Once more time has passed, an impact on the community rates of child maltreatment will be assessed and included in future annual reports.

This 4-page brief highlights a few key findings and recommendations from the evaluation of the HOPES program for fiscal year 2015. Please see full report for detailed analyses, full list of findings,
and methodological limitations.