The Getting to Outcomes Results-Based approach to Accountability – is it like the CLAHRC NWL approach?
Abraham Wanderson, Professor of Psychology at the University South Carolina-Columbia, talked about his GTO approach to implementing change that’s been used in the US mostly in relation to Public Health interventions such as substance abuse prevention and teen pregnancy prevention, and for youth programmes and result-oriented services.
He describes the GTO approach as ten plain english questions (steps) that “people intuitively understand” and “can be applied at any level from an individual patient to national services”. They can be applied retrospectively to identify whether past programmes delivered against expectations, or propectively to achieve sustainable change for the future.
The questions are:
1. What are the underlying needs and conditions to address? (NEEDS)
2. What are the goals, prioirty populations, and objectives (i.e., desired outcomes)? (GOALS)
3. Which science- (evidence-) based models and best practice programs can be useful in reaching the goals? (BEST PRACTICES)
4. What actions need to be taken so the selected program fits the community context? (FIT)
5. What organizational capaacities are needed to implement the program? (CAPACITY)
6. What is the plan for this program? (PLANNING)
7. How will the quality of program and/or initiative implementation be assessed? (PROCESS EVALUATION)
8. How well did the program work? (OUTCOME EVALUATION)
9. How will CQI strategies be incorporated (CQI)
10. If the program is successful, how will it be sustained? (SUSTAIN)
We all agreed there seems to be lots of overlap with the generalities of the CLAHRC NWL approach, and that whatever the details there’s a lot to be done to ensure that everyone involved in making change has a truly shared understanding of the programme/project aspirations and what is happening in practice in the local context.
I’ll post a link here to key documents when I work out how to do that!
Original Technical Report: Getting To Outcomes™ 2004 Promoting Accountability Through Methods and Tools for Planning, Implementation, and Evaluation by Matthew Chinman, Pamela Imm, Abraham Wandersman, available from the RAND website. http://www.rand.org/pubs/technical_reports/TR101.html
I like the questions. It’s a bit of a cross between the Who, what, how, when, where, with what outcome and PDSA – plan, do, study, act frameworks.