RESPOND IN ONE PARAGRAGH!!!
Evaluation is a very important part of success for a program. As the program director, one must initiate this in order to stay in touch with the process and progress. The four types of evaluations that are important to cover are outcome, process, formative and cost (Lewis et al., 2012). The four aspects each of these evaluations cover are goals, capacity of activities, areas of development and financial benefits and costs (Lewis et al., 2012). I believe one of the most important aspects is quality of the program over quantity. As a director I believe it would be important to gather as much data as possible and from multiple avenues. For example, it would be important to hear perspectives of the employees and family served. Even though numbers should not mean more than everything it still helps to see the number of activities as it portrays growth for an overall program. In order to build evaluation into the ongoing processes I believe communication is the most important. Therefore, having monthly and quarterly check in meetings with individuals and the team can help with evaluation in the long run. Evaluation should not be neglected for long periods of time. Having smaller evaluations throughout the year seems to be better than one larger evaluation. For example, in my work as an early interventionist we would be preparing for audits from the state. This adds up to a year worth of paperwork for many families. Therefore, in order to help the team each month all supervisors would evaluate that months worth of paperwork for missed signatures, correct dates and proper order of pages. This led to a much easier evaluation at the time of audit. I would definitely operate in this sense if I were a program director.