The Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation (OPRE) and program offices at the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) are working to extend and deepen evidence capacity. “Evidence capacity” is the culture and infrastructure that allows an organization to build and use evidence to learn and improve. Through the ACF Evidence Capacity Support project, Mathematica and Child Trends are supporting ACF in this work.
This project builds upon OPRE's existing efforts to support ACF's evidence capacity, and follows the principles of the Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act of 2018 (Evidence Act). The project focuses on the learning needs of ACF staff and stakeholders, providing programs with information about their context, reach, implementation, performance, and impact. This project works to strengthen ACF’s ability to use evidence effectively in five areas:
- Evidence culture: the organization routinely uses evidence to support its mission, objectives, program and policy choices, and decision-making.
- Evidence infrastructure: the organization provides data- and evidence-related tools, resources, routines, and processes that help staff build and use evidence efficiently and effectively.
- Engagement: There are systems and processes in place to promote collaboration among and between internal and external groups to enhance evidence building and evidence use.
- Human capital: Staff have the knowledge, skills, and abilities to build evidence and communicate about it, and opportunities to develop further expertise.
- Leadership: Leaders create an evidence culture in the organization. They identify opportunities to generate evidence, allocate time and resources to evidence-related activities, and make decisions based on evidence in a transparent way.
The needs of participating program offices drive the activities of this contract, in partnership with OPRE and the Mathematica-Child Trends team. Potential activities may include:
- Conducting needs assessments to inform learning agendas. This might include gathering information from multiple perspectives on what information is needed, summarizing what is already known about a topic, or facilitating the process of defining and mapping learning priorities.
- Supporting program offices in using data to answer their high-priority questions. This could involve describing current data collection processes; assessing the availability, quality, organization, and opportunity for integrating these data; working with offices to refine data; and analyzing quantitative or qualitative data to inform program management and improvement.
OPRE is recognized as a federal leader in evaluation, establishing methods and models that a wide range of agencies beyond ACF adapt and use. Similarly, we expect that the strategies, materials, and lessons learned from this project can help other agencies and organizations expand their own evidence capacity. This could include federal agencies working to better build and use evidence, particularly in response to the Evidence Act; state and local agencies; program providers; and advocates of evidence-informed practices.
This work is being led by Mathematica, in partnership with Child Trends.
Point(s) of contact: Nicole Deterding