Evaluating an innovative integrated training for child and youth services: Lessons learned

Area of Science:

• Child and Youth Services
• Staff Training and Development
• Program Evaluation

Background:

• Effective staff training is crucial for the success of child and youth services agencies.
• Agencies need robust methods to evaluate the impact of staff development initiatives.
• Tracking training effectiveness ensures continuous improvement in service delivery.

Purpose of the Study:

• To report on the development and piloting of a system for tracking staff training effectiveness.
• To measure training outcomes at four distinct time intervals: baseline, 6, 12, and 18 months post-training.
• To assess the influence of enhanced staff training on youth outcomes within the agency.

Main Methods:

• Development and implementation of a novel tracking system for staff training effectiveness.
• Data collection across four time points to monitor training impact over 18 months.
• Utilized best practices in staff development to inform system design and evaluation.

Main Results:

• The developed tracking system successfully measured and described post-training outcomes for staff.
• Consistent positive trends in staff performance were observed across the four measurement intervals.
• The system provided valuable data for understanding the longitudinal effects of staff training.

Conclusions:

• The piloted tracking system is effective in evaluating staff training outcomes in a child and youth services setting.
• Sustained training and follow-up enhance staff's internalization of concepts and intentionality in youth care.
• This approach supports data-driven improvements in agency operations and positively influences youth outcomes.