The Children's Services Council of Palm Beach County has always insisted on funding quality programming - because that is what our children deserve. All of our funding decisions are based upon data - showing us what children and families in our community need and what programs are working. That's why our Department of Research and Evaluation is hard at work measuring each funded program's current effectiveness while analyzing CSC's long-term strategies.

This information-gathering ensures CSC and its programs are continuously improving. It also allows CSC to be an active advocate for children when it comes to shaping countywide and statewide policy.
 

With all this in mind, the department …

• Facilitates the development and refinement of CSC's Early Childhood Logic Model and Palm Beach County Pathways to Early Childhood Development;
• Ensures that proposed program and strategy designs and program logic models demonstrate valid and measurable outcomes for program effectiveness; 
• Clarifies that each program's logic model nests within CSC's Early Childhood Logic Model;
• Provides an evaluation framework that supports the development and continuous quality improvement in service delivery of funded programs and strategies;
• Conducts evaluation of strategies and programs to determine their success in achieving the stated goals and objectives;
• Assists programs in understanding and interpreting results of evaluation;
• Provides recommendations that inform policy and/or system change.
• Builds capacity to conduct and utilize evaluation;
• Supports strategic planning activities through needs assessments, research reviews, etc.;
• Researches best practices and evidence-based programming.

Our Vision: To advance knowledge and promote informed decision making to ensure optimal development of children through the research and evaluation efforts

Our Mission: To provide information and build capacity of stakeholders; assist with organizational planning: assess the quality, efficiency and effectiveness of CSC funded strategies on the lives of children and families served; and, propose recommendations for strategy enhancements