Each week we contribute tips to the ether of innovation in the Human Services and Education Sectors
Empower your org by distributing program assessment tasks
In this short video, we describe two ways to disperse program assessment responsibilities throughout your org. The four benefits of this approach empowers your staff team.
Tip 1: Build an assessment plan that has roles for all staff at all levels.
Challenge to you: When refining assessment plans or building new ones, ask the following questions: “Who can we include?” “For which assessment-related processes or activities can we pull-in more staff to participate?” Here are two examples of assessment plans. The first plan delineates the involvement of a range of staff members. The second plan is careful and detailed, but it does not indicate who is responsible for various tasks. The format of the assessment plan can accidentally keep assessment murky (e.g. example 2). Empower everyone to contribute to the forward movement of your org with an assessment plan that explicitly includes staff and their roles to play.
Tip 2: Ensure all job descriptions for your org have one or more lines about assessment responsibilities.
Challenge to you: Embed assessment responsibilities in current and newly written job descriptions. This transparency supports staff members, your Board, and sector in knowing exactly the expectations for managing program assessment. This also communicates to individual staff members that the org prioritizes quality assurance and that everyone has a role to play. Here is a list of short statements about program assessment tasks that can be copied and pasted into job descriptions.
Overall Benefits to Distributing Program Assessment Tasks:
- More “hands on deck” creates a collaborative work environment.
- More “hands on deck” encourages year-around assessment activities which also lightens the workload when reporting time arrives.
- Distributing program assessment tasks demystifies the assessment process for everyone in the org.
- Front line or direct service staff have insights about improving programming and processes, and distributing assessment tasks will formally invite them to share their wisdom and play a role in the advancement and refinement of the org and its programs.
We love to hear about examples and experiments that you’re undertaking to engage in distributing program assessment tasks in your org. Please share them with us at contact@achoringassessment.com
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Weekly Assessment Tips: a Vlog that supports assessment in the Human Services and Education Sectors
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