HOPES FY2015 Evaluation Findings
The Texas Institute for Child & Family Wellbeing was contracted by the Texas DFPS Prevention and Early Intervention Division (PEI) to conduct an evaluation of the Healthy Outcomes through Prevention and Early Support (HOPES) program. This latest report provides the comprehensive HOPES 2015 evaluation.
HOPES seeks to address child abuse and neglect prevention in Texas by implementing community-based and evidence-based interventions for families with children between the ages of 0 to 5. Services are provided by program sites that use a variety of evidence-based parenting programs such as Parents as Teachers, SafeCare, and Triple P. HOPES also requires collaborations at the local level to increase community awareness and capacity around child maltreatment prevention.
The evaluation of the HOPES program used a mixed-methods approach, including interviews with 52 parents, 116 program staff members, and 42 coalition/community members, as well as participant data and online survey responses from 242 individuals. Findings from the evaluation focus on program impact and reach, early childhood coalition functioning, and implementation challenges faced by program sites.
Overall, findings suggest the HOPES program successfully increased protective factors in families and assisted communities in child maltreatment prevention. However, researchers also identified certain areas of improvement. A particular challenge unique to the HOPES program is the need to integrate evidence-based programs with supplemental services to meet the needs of families with multiple risk factors.