Evaluation of Family Help Trust - New Zealand Family Violence ...

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two data collection periods. In all cases, these ratings were made by theFamily Help Trust social worker on the basis of there contacts with the family,questioning of the Mother of Baby (MOB) and observations of the mother.Examination of changes in a variety of indicators over these twelve monthsserves as a basis for evaluating the initial effectiveness of Family Help Trust.Data Gathering Systems: All outcome data is now based around two majorinterviews with families.• The first, called the Intake Interview contains over 100 backgroundquestions and is administered to families immediately after serviceconsents have been obtained.• The second, administered within a two-week period of the intakeinterview, is called the Progress Report and asks over 450 questions.The Progress Report is repeated every six months.For the purpose of the present evaluation, the six-month Progress Report wasnot available for analysis. After the interview schedule was finalised, aconsultant was contracted to develop an appropriate database.2.3 Data AnalysesAnalysis will be conducted using a series of t-tests and repeated measuresANOVAS for continuous data and the chi squared test of independence (orFisher’s Exact Test when the expected frequencies are small) for discretedata. Much of the data collected by Family Help Trust is dichotomous (yes orno answers) and in this instance, McNemar’s Test will be utilised. This test istypically used in a repeated measures situation, in which each subject'sresponse is elicited twice, once before and once after a specified eventoccurs. The McNemar test determines whether the initial response rate(before the event) equals the final response rate (after the event). This test isuseful for detecting changes in responses due to experimental intervention (inthis case twelve months treatment with Family Help Trust) in before-and-afterdesigns. Analysis of all data will be conducted using SPSS 11.5 statisticalanalytical software. The before and after measurements are compared and36
measures of statistical significance can assist in ascertaining if the differencesmay be due to an actual change or may be due to chance variation. While theestablishment of statistical significance has some role in the present analysis,the small sample size and low rates of occurrence of some important factorsmeans that the present analysis will also focus on clinically relevant trends inthe data. That is, changes on multiple measures of a construct (such asdifferent aspects of mother’s health, for example) that are in the samedirection but are not statistically significant will still be useful to acknowledge.2.4 Limitations of the research methodologyThere are several limitations to the present outcome evaluation that should beconsidered when interpreting these results. As discussed above, theevaluation involved using a prospective Time 1 - Time 2 single sample designwith no control group. This design limits the robustness of the findings toexclude other possible factors, other than the contribution of Family HelpTrust, leading to changes found. In addition, it was not possible to corroboratemuch of the self-report information for consistency with data from othersources (for example, reports of domestic violence or drug use).A number of threats to the integrity of the results found in the presentevaluation are discussed below, along with efforts undertaken to addressthese threats.In subsequent chapters, various statistical procedures are used including testsof statistical significance. In order to justify any conclusions drawn from thesetests, the study design must have adequate statistical power. Wheninterpreting the results of any test of statistical significance two types ofdecision errors may occur:i) rejecting the null hypothesis when it is in fact true (Type I error)ii)accepting the null hypothesis when it is in fact false (Type II error)37
Page 1 and 2: "Programs may need to reconsider 'u
Page 3 and 4: ForewordIt gives me pleasure to pro
Page 5 and 6: Table of ContentsForeword..........
Page 7 and 8: AcknowledgementsMany people and org
Page 9 and 10: Executive SummaryFamily Help Trust
Page 12: The wellbeing of children matters t
Page 20 and 21: (Bilukha et al., 2005). “The Task
Page 22 and 23: suggests that the most effective pa
Page 24 and 25: eflected in fewer subsequent pregna
Page 26 and 27: experiences by saying: “One of th
Page 28 and 29: In summary, despite increased inter
Page 30 and 31: enefits in the areas of maternal he
Page 32 and 33: families that consented have been g
Page 34 and 35: In 1995, Family Help Trust, as part
Page 36 and 37: families have multiple risk factors
Page 38 and 39: iii)Outcome evaluation, discussed b
Page 40 and 41: their resources and exploit any eva
Page 42 and 43: In summary, an evaluation of the ef
Page 46 and 47: Type I errorWith such a large numbe
Page 48 and 49: Along with the problem of low numbe
Page 50 and 51: iii)‘social desirability’ and
Page 52 and 53: to ensure the results of this evalu
Page 54 and 55: history of offending. An outline of
Page 56 and 57: Examination of Table 3.2 shows that
Page 58 and 59: Table 3.4 shows that the majority o
Page 60 and 61: From Table 3.6, it is apparent that
Page 62 and 63: partners, should this variable be o
Page 64 and 65: An examination of Table 3.10 indica
Page 66 and 67: CHAPTER 4OUTCOMES AT TWELVE MONTHSW
Page 68 and 69: • “do you have a washing machin
Page 70 and 71: • In the past six months, has you
Page 72 and 73: aseline had CYFS involvement at twe
Page 74 and 75: at least to some extent, due to inp
Page 76 and 77: From Table 4.4 it can be seen that
Page 78 and 79: From Table 4.6 it can be seen that
Page 80 and 81: target families may be due to a rep
Page 82 and 83: 4.3 SummaryChapter 4 has provided a
Page 84 and 85: CHAPTER 5DISCUSSIONThe purpose of t
Page 86 and 87: services, Table 5.1 shows a compari
Page 88 and 89: 5.4 Comments on Selected Areas of P
Page 90 and 91: dental services are currently not a
Page 92 and 93: Case 2Referral from obstetric socia
Page 94 and 95:
Perry (2004) emphasised that a key
Page 96 and 97:
eported cigarette smoking by others
Page 98 and 99:
ecause a) mothers would be busy wit
Page 100 and 101:
ehaviours such as criminality and s
Page 102:
Appendix I Risk Factors for Referra
Page 106 and 107:
Chaffin, M. (2004). Is it time to r
Page 108 and 109:
Evaluation Unit Ministry of Social
Page 110 and 111:
Ministry of Health. (1994). Report
Page 112:
Shirley, I., V., Adair, & Anderson,
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