CHILDREN AND YOUTH
CRIMINAL JUSTICE
EDUCATION
SUBSTANCE ABUSE
OTHER MENTAL HEALTH
HEALTH CARE
HIV/AIDS
AGING
Client Satisfaction Survey for Home and Community Based Care
Since 2003, SPEC has been conducting an annual telephone survey with recipients and caregivers in AAA 1-B’s community care management and Medicaid Waiver program. The survey questions are aligned with the U.S. Administration on Aging’s Performance Outcome Measurement Program performance indicators for care management and homemaking services
Measuring Outcomes of Care Management for the Elderly and Disabled
SPEC collaborated with the Southeast Michigan Area Agency on Aging Consortium (SEMAAAC) to develop a system for measuring the outcomes of services provided to frail elderly and disabled adults receiving services through the Home and Community Based Services for Disabled Adults and Elderly.
Sengstock -Hwalek Comprehensive Index of Elder Abuse
Developed in 1982, the Sengstock -Hwalek Comprehensive Index of Elder Abuse is a comprehensive tool for clinicians to use to identify six types of elder abuse/neglect: physical abuse, physical neglect, psychological abuse, psychological neglect, financial exploitation and violation of personal rights.
Design of a Statewide System for Monitoring Services to Victims of Elder Abuse and Neglect
SPEC worked with the Illinois Department on Aging to develop and implement a statewide elder abuse system, including reporting forms and a training program for teaching elder abuse workers about documenting elder abuse and neglect. SPEC also worked with the Department on federally-funded grants to test new models for serving victims.
Performance and Quality System ( PaQS ) for Community and Home-Based Care for the Elderly
Michigan Area Agency on Aging 1-B ( AAA 1-B) collaborated with SPEC Associates to develop a means for benchmarking and monitoring service providers for five key community-based long term care services for frail elderly: home delivered meals, personal care, adult day care, chore services and care management.
Evaluation of Grandparents Raising Grandchildren
SPEC worked with two different agencies to obtain on-going information about the performance of programming to help grandparents who are raising their grandchildren.
Evaluation of a Statewide Program of Shared Housing for the Elderly
SPEC collected information from four innovative programs that matched frail elderly home owners with able-bodied adults willing to exchange caregiving services for low rent housing to assess the program’s cost effectiveness in keeping frail elderly living independently in their own homes.
CHILDREN AND YOUTH
Measuring the Outcomes of Girl Scouting
For more than ten years, SPEC worked with Girl Scouts of the USA to develop ways to demonstrate how girls grow strong through Girl Scouting., including the organization’s first national outcome study, and national outcome studies of Girl Scouting in rural communities and in public housing, as well as Girl Scout programs in healthy relationships and in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM).
Evaluation of Youth Development Commission
SPEC used a model of nonprofit organizational capacity to examine the Youth Development Commission’s work as a capacity building organization serving youth development programs in the Detroit metropolitan area, including its professional development workshops, its regional conference for nonprofits and funders, and its intensive consultation to grassroots youth serving organizations in The Skillman Foundation’s Good Neighborhoods.
Community Needs Assessment for City of Detroit Head Start Program
SPEC is completing a city-wide assessment for Head Start programs in Detroit , including geographic mapping of services and gaps using Census Bureau,2-1-1, and special education databases, as well as focus groups with parents, providers and statewide advocacy agencies.
Evaluation of Rock Financial Junior Achievement Finance Park
SPEC worked with Junior Achievement of Southeastern Michigan to measure the quality and outcomes from high school students’ participation in a financial literacy curriculum and in Rock Financial JA Finance Park, a simulated, real-life personal budgeting experience.
Evaluation of Teens, Crime and the Community
SPEC helped the National Crime Prevention Council to understand and measure the outcomes of its award winning Teens, Crime and the Community (TC&C) program. Data were collected through site visits to cities around the USA that used the program, as well as the collection of student and teacher data about implementation and outcomes.
Evaluation of Youth Crime Watch
SPEC conducted the first national study of Youth Crime Watch America projects within schools and in community-based organizations by building a theoretical model of the program, testing the validity of the model, and surveys with a sample of best practice programs around the U.S.
Social Skills Training Program Implementation and Evaluation
In 1983, SPEC was awarded a grant from the Michigan Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention to develop and evaluate a program to teach seven different social skills to delinquent youth in residential care.
Evaluation of YouthBuild Detroit
SPEC evaluated a federal grant to the City of Detroit , Employment and Training Department for its YouthBuild program, aimed at teaching high risk young adults building trades so that they can become employed in the construction and building trades.
Teen Pregnancy and Parenting Program Evaluation
For five years, SPEC worked with Lula Belle Stewart Center to evaluate its program to provide care to pregnant and parenting teens, and to provide prevention education to parents and their adolescent children.
CRIMINAL JUSTICE
Evaluation of Community-Based Sobrietor Program
SPEC evaluated the impact of the Michigan Department of Correction’s pilot program that studied the impact of an in-home breathalyzer system on reducing alcohol use among tethered offenders being released from the Community Residential Program (CRP) in Wayne County, Michigan.
Evaluation of Geographic Positioning System (GPS) for Tracking High Risk Offenders
SPEC is evaluating the implementation and outcomes of a program of the Michigan Department of Corrections that uses GPS technology to track the whereabouts of high-risk parolees.
Evaluation of PUSH-OFF Program of Wayne County Prosecutor's Office
SPEC evaluated the impact on drug sales of this innovative program to arrest the buyer of drugs and confiscate the buyer's car until a hefty fine was paid.
Evaluation of STOP II Drug Treatment Program for Michigan Parolees
SPEC worked with the Michigan Department of Corrections to measure the outcomes of a program to mandate substance abuse treatment and testing among the parolee population ..
EDUCATION
Evaluation of Lumina Foundation for Education’s Making Opportunity Affordable Initiative
SPEC Associates has created an international, multi-disciplinary team of experts in higher education research and policy, in systems thinking in evaluation, and in evaluating inter-organizational collaboratives that is keeping a keen eye on the foundation's Making Opportunity Affordable (MOA) initiative as it unfolds during its learning year. SPEC is offering evaluative reflections on the return on learning that MOA can offer to others interested in improving the productivity of higher education.
Evaluation of Roadtrip Nation
SPEC is the official evaluator for Roadtrip Nation’s new high school curriculum that engages students in a search for their passions and guides them through an exploration of their career and occupational interests using a video archive of hundreds of interviews that tell the stories of individuals who have chosen to live their lives and pursue careers defined by their passions.Evaluation of Marygrove College’s Institute for Art Infused Education
SPEC scanned the literature, talked to experts and worked with the IAIE Steering Committee to create a program logic model and evaluation plan, and then worked with the college to collect survey and observational data, and to obtain standardized test scores from the Detroit Public School system to examine the outcomes of this artist-teacher team effort to infuse art into the teaching of core literacy curricula in Detroit elementary schools.Evaluation of VSA arts Start with the Arts Pre-school Curriculum
SPEC searched the empirical literature on teaching literacy using art and on inclusion of children with disabilities in early childhood development programs. SPEC also conducted an exploratory study of current professional development related to VSA art’s “Start With the Arts” pre-school curriculum. The research was used to inform efforts to update this curriculum and related resources.Evaluation of Marygrove College’s Onstage! Community Education Project
SPEC worked with staff of the college’s Institute for Music and Dance to design an evaluation system that could be used on an on-going basis to continually track and assess the quality and outcomes from art and art-education provided to community members. We then trained college staff in how to tailor outcome assessment to each program, and how to use the statistical program we developed to analyze the report on the results.SUBSTANCE ABUSE
Point of Change SAMHA Grant Evaluation
SPEC provided evaluation services for this outreach, treatment and after care program aimed at identifying and helping chemically dependent people living with HIV/AIDS living in the central core of Detroit. The evaluation followed the GPRA prescriptions of the US Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration.Outreach and Pre-Treatment Program Evaluation
SPEC worked with the national evaluators as the local evaluator of Latino Family Services federally funded program to provide outreach and pre-treatment services to indigent, chemically dependent adults living in Detroit 's Southwest side.
Needs Assessment of Women in Substance Abuse Treatment - Oakland County Health Department
SPEC obtained information from women in correctional facilities and agencies that served them about the kinds of treatment they believed would help them recover.
Substance Abuse Prevention and Treatment Needs of the Lesbian/Gay Community
SPEC helped Affirmations, Inc. to identify the extent of alcohol problems exist among the gay and lesbian population in the metropolitan Detroit area.
Measuring the Outcomes of Prevention Programming for Children of Chemically Dependent Parents - Maplegrove Program of Henry Ford Health System
SPEC worked with Maplegrove staff to develop a way to gather information from very young children about what they learned and how they changed their behaviors because of what they learned from the program.
OTHER MENTAL HEALTH
Evaluation of Dialectic Behavior Therapy in a Residential Treatment Community
SPEC is evaluating a Flinn Foundation funded grant to Rose Hill Center to test the application of this treatment modality, designed originally as a long-term community based therapy for persons with borderline personality disorder, to the short-term, residential program for adults with chronic and persistent mental illness.
Transfer of Patients from Clinton Valley to Caro Regional Mental Health Facility
In 1986, SPEC interviewed patients who were transferred from Clinton Valley Regional Mental Health Facility to Caro due to the closure of the hospital.
Geropsychatric Services Unit
In 1990, SPEC worked with the Geropsychiatric Services Unit within Botsford Hospital to develop a model to measure the outcomes of this acute care intervention.
Research Design Consultation for Intensive Community-Based Treatment for Dually Diagnosed Adults
SPEC assisted St. Joseph Mercy Hospital to conduct research on a new outpatient treatment program to help patients dually diagnosed with schizophrenia and drug addiction.
HEALTH CARE
Evaluation of Child Health Network Immunization Project (CHNIP)
SPEC was part of the evaluation team assessing the quality of the implementation of this Center for Disease Control and Prevention project to improve the immunization rates and well-child visits of Detroit 's infants and toddlers.
Evaluation of Parents Plus program for Medically Fragile Infants
In 1993, SPEC developed a data management system for Caregivers, Inc. and its project to provide in-home care to medically fragile infants.
Needs Assessment of People with Disabilities
In 1992, SPEC worked with a local Easter Seals chapter to develop a survey that could be used to assess service needs of the disabled adult population.
Synthesis of Health Indicator Data on the City of Detroit
The City of Detroit Health Department contracted with SPEC in 1999 to synthesize the data that the department collects and produced a user-friendly report on available health indicators.
HIV/AIDS
Evaluation of a Medical Adherence Training Program
SPEC is building and implementing an evaluation model for this short-term didactic program that aims to increase people living with HIV/ AID’s compliance with medical testing and appointments.
Evaluation of Statewide HIV/AIDS Hotline
In 1993, SPEC developed a telephone "mystery shopper" methodology, modeled after the National Cancer Institute's quality assurance system, to measure the quality of the statewide HIV/AIDS hotline services.
Evaluation of Care Management Services for People with HIV/AIDS
In 1995, SPEC created a questionnaire and conducted a telephone survey with people receiving care management services from the AIDS Consortium of Southeast Michigan.
Evaluation of HIV/AIDS Prevention Program for Women of Reproductive Age
In 1993, SPEC helped Neighborhood Service Organization to develop pre-post test that could be used to test knowledge gain among women participating in an educational program.
Case Study of HIV/AIDS Testing and Counseling in a Soup Kitchen
In 1995, SPEC used ethnographic observations and focus group interviewing to capture the opinions of homeless people about an HIV/AIDS testing and counseling service offered by the Visiting Nurses Association within a soup kitchen.