Just the Issues, Ma’am: Standardized Measures in the Effective Practices Initiative
Published in The Roundtable, vol. 2, no. 2 (p. 5)

When the Alliance first began designing a national initiative to address the pressing need of members to identify outcomes for their efforts, we toyed with calling it "Best Practices." I argued against this term on the basis that we lacked the quality and depth of information to conclude that one particular method of providing a service is clearly and consistently best.

We lack this knowledge in part because we do not measure success the same way from site to site, nor from program to program. It turns out this circumstance embodies some truths at least as much as it reflects a lack of central organization or inconsistency. In other words, there are good reasons why practitioners have been unable to standardize outcome measures across programs, or even in replications of a single program model across sites.

Here are some issues that need to be met head on:

• The intent behind standardizing outcomes

We must answer clearly what is the need, what purpose is served, and whose purpose is served.

• The use of standardized results

Are superficially comparable results likely to be misused or misinterpreted? Will they be a powerful policy weapon?

• Incorporation of context

Do standardized measures allow a proper role for context? Does a measure of "severity" accomplish this?

• Level of effect

Since most programs are designed to have effects at different levels — individual, family, neighborhood — can a single type of measure (e.g., level of individual functioning) subsume or capture these distinct results? Do we need several levels of standardized outcomes?

• Lessons of history

What does the history of standardization in other professions teach us? An example would be the system of Uniform Crime Reports initiated by the FBI in the 1930s. Has it improved the effectiveness of police departments or policing in general across the nation? Has it provided a good gauge of crime?

• Ongoing agency participation

What motivates participation in a standardized outcomes reporting system on the part of an agency which winds up in the bottom quartile?