Results-Monitoring

Success Story JobsNOW Employment Resource Centre and Assistance Services, Kenora

“The JobsNOW Employment Assistance program in Kenora was a result of the collaboration of four separate organizations that had offered separate employment assistance services for several years.  Along with the talented staff, came very different service delivery processes and documentation procedures that had all worked very well in their time.  The amalgamation of these services however, required a full reassessment of statistics gathering and reporting procedures, forms, etc. 

We found that clients were often confused with the duplication of questions on the numerous forms and applications necessary for funded interventions.  They would often interpret each question differently (thinking that different answers were required), leading to inconsistencies in the application.  Together, all staff assessed each form, application process and documentation method, identified duplication and/or redundancy of questions, etc., and revised the client registration and needs assessment forms, Return to Work Action Plans and subsequent program addendums that were applicable to the full range of programs and services offered by the Resource Centre. This has enabled us to more accurately record and report on program activity and applicable targets, and assist in the evaluation of both for future planning and development.”

Success Story Ontario Literacy Coalition, Toronto

“Program/project evaluation has been really useful to our organization.  It has helped us to really question what we are doing and why we are doing it, and look at the usefulness of it.  There is a need in our field to better understand evaluation (assessment) and not look at it as a negative, but a continuous improvement process.  When organizations think of themselves as a learning organization – where mistakes can be made and they will not be penalized for it, then programs can really thrive and improve.”

Success Story Goodwill Industries, London

"Listening to our customers – through our participant, referral source and employer evaluations, observations and our web-based client tracker system – helps us focus on our results, effectiveness and needs while also providing the base for service evolution, board and funder reports. We try to avoid the trap of seeing these functions as serving the system of others but as essential information tools to help us.  We also engage in community needs identification processes both with others and as an agency and have had two external reviews in the last five years.”