Community-Campus Partnerships and Community-Based Program Evaluations

Lynne M. Borden & Steve Marks & Margaret Stone

Communities today are often called upon to meet the diverse needs of their community members. In fact, however, community efforts to solve the problems of children and families are not new. For example, in the 19th century, Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr's “Settlement House” approach brought together university researchers and community members. This work foreshadowed current efforts based on an applied developmental science (ADS) framework. The ADS framework calls for systematic attempts to ameliorate or prevent problems and to promote positive healthy behavior through collaboration between scientific and community partners (Lerner, 2002). Program evaluation is one important opportunity for such collaboration. In the past, the evaluation of a program was all too often based on the feelings of the participants and staff, rather than data collected through systematic evaluation. However, it is clear that without high-quality program evaluations, it is difficult to know (a) whether the program is having ...

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