by Jorge Andrews

Report writing can be a frustrating endeavor, especially if you have to do it alone. 

To help projects master the Final Evaluation Report (FER), TCEC hosted the first-ever FER Clinic in late April and May 2021. A small and brave cohort of evaluators and project staff convened over Zoom to discuss, collaborate, and improve on their FERs. Eight Local Lead Agencies participated, with attendees ranging from novice to very experienced, representing small and large counties alike.

During this clinic, we specifically targeted LLAs, whose final evaluation reports are due in December 2021. The FER Clinic allows peers to develop their FERs as a group, with TCEC staff on hand to provide guidance. The clinic focused on keeping a low participant to facilitator ratio, resource sharing, and peer to peer feedback and interaction.

The TCEC FER clinic is available to all CTCP-funded projects, with priority going to projects currently writing their final evaluation reports. The second round of FER Clinics will prioritize local lead agencies as they complete their FERS for the 2017-2021 scope of work.

Currently, capacity for the TCEC FER clinics will be limited to no more than 12 participants; however, if demand for the clinic is high, TCEC may increase the number of clinics offered. TCEC does plan to create more FER Clinics for competitive grantees as they cycle into their FER writing process in the future.

All participants were asked to complete a satisfaction survey after the final day of the clinic. We are excited to share some of their comments! While the FER clinic does require an online application to participate, 88% percent of respondents found it to be a straightforward process.

The pre-packet and pre-clinic info emails were great at preparing us for what was to come.

100% of participants found that the collaborative space provided by the clinic was valuable in improving their FERs.

I was very happy with how the clinic was run and happy for the opportunity to collaborate with others and to get tips from colleagues and from TCEC! I learned a great amount during the clinic.

All of the participants who participated said that other projects would benefit from attending the TCEC FER clinics.

With the success of the first TCEC FER Clinic, we are happy to say we are gearing up to do it again! The next TCEC FER Clinic will be taking applications starting Tuesday, July 6th. We will once again be limiting the number of participants to keep the low facilitator-to-participant ratio.

Once accepted, participants will be asked to join the Zoom call from 1:00-3:00 PM on the following days:

1. Monday August 16
2. Monday August 23
3. Monday August 30
4. Thursday September 2

A huge thank-you to our first cohort participants-- we had a great time hosting this clinic, and will be improving the experience based on the feedback we received. Be on the lookout for application information for the next FER Clinic!