Projects that are in progress
The Colorado Lab will serve as the coordinator of Family First rigorous evaluation efforts on behalf of the State to ensure strategic investments in evidence-building for services/programs positioned to meet the needs of Colorado’s children, youth, and families.
The Family Support through Primary Prevention (FSPP) project is intended to reduce child maltreatment and improve family well-being for Colorado families ages prenatal to 5, with a focus on the first year of life. The Colorado Lab serves as the skilled evaluator to build evidence for the primary prevention strategies prioritized by FSPP partners.
CQI for the delivery of evidence-based services that are part of the Family First service a continuum ensures that Colorado children, youth, and families are, in fact, receiving the services that have been shown to drive positive outcomes. State Intermediaries engage in in depth CQI for their services. A dashboard offers a statewide view of adherence to evidence-based models for the array of services in Colorado’s Title IV-E Prevention Services Plan.
SB21-118 created an Alternative Response pilot program for Adult Protective Services. The Colorado Lab is partnering with CDHS and up to 15 urban and rural counties to develop and evaluate an alternative to a full investigative approach that will allow county departments of human services to respond to lower-risk reports of mistreatment or self-neglect of an at-risk adult.
This project will provide intelligence to the new Department of Early Childhood regarding early childhood program participation and guidance about creating a common identifier to track program participation in the future.
The Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation program supports caregivers of children ages six and under—including families, teachers, and program administrators—in developing strategies to foster social emotional development and mental health of children in their care. This project is working to support the program in building evidence, including defining the program’s essential elements, developing a strategy to support fidelity, and building data infrastructure.
The Colorado School Counselor Corps Grant Program (SCCGP) is intended to assist local education providers to access effective school counseling in order to increase graduation rates, decrease dropout rates, and increase rates of matriculation into institutions of higher education. SCCGP has shown promising results in achieving all of its stated goals over the past 10 years of implementation. The goal of this project is to develop a plan and prepare to conduct a rigorous evaluation of program effectiveness and measure the program’s ROI.
The successful creation of early care and education workforce data assets in Phase I led to an extension of Colorado Lab’s partnership with the Department of Early Childhood through the Federal Preschool Development Grant. This second phase of work will support the rebuild of the early childhood workforce registry data system and will fill in data gaps including postsecondary pathways of the workforce as well as a comprehensive look at wages and compensation.
The COVID-19 crisis has had an enormous impact operationally, educationally, and economically on P-12 school districts, charter schools, and institutions of higher education, as well as students, parents, and families. The Lab is supporting federal fund awardees in moving their programs along the steps to building evidence.
The goal of this project is to inform policies and practices aimed at preventing youth homelessness. It builds on a pilot project, “Characteristics of Former Foster Youth Receiving Homeless Services” by expanding innovative administrative data linkages to more systems that serve youth experiencing homelessness.