by Sarah Hellesen

2021 marks the start of a new contract for TCEC, and we’re excited to continue bringing our love of all things evaluation to our local lead agency partners around the state. And you may have noticed, it’s been a busy year so far! Here are some important things for LLAs to take note of:

TCEC Hosts Inaugural FER Clinic

Ready to master FER writing once and for all? TCEC is hosting our first-ever Final Evaluation Report (FER) Clinic for a select cohort. Thank you to all who applied! We hope to hold more of these clinics in the future, but if you can’t make it this time, we still have resources to help you on our website.

Communities of Excellence (CX)

GrEEN TEA members developed a sample CX participant satisfaction survey, and it's available in both English and Spanish to copy into your LLA's SurveyAnalytics account.  Feel free to make changes or just use your own.  But to make your life easier, make sure you at least ask question number 9, which directly relates to the objective language.  Thank you to GrEEN TEA for taking that extra step, oh and by the way they also helped provide guidance and sample questions for the extension key informant interviews, too.

Here's a tip!  You can actually begin writing the background section of your future FER, which asks you to describe why you chose the objective and how the community was involved in the selection process.  CX is a major way for the community to help shape our tobacco control work, so writing it up now while it's still fresh means your future self will thank you!

6-Month Extension KII Resources

If you missed our webinar on the Extension KIIs, check it out here! The purpose of these key informant interviews is to provide LLA project staff with information that will help inform activities in the next Scope of Work, as they will look a little different with the upcoming End Commercial Tobacco Campaign. These KIIs will explore people’s opinions on these goals in your communities.

As a reminder, there is NO statewide analysis, so there are no required questions, and there are no required types of key informants to be selected. Read more about these KIIs in our guide.

Resources for Evaluation Planning

March 17th was the live presentation Evaluation Planning for the LLA guidelines trainings.  If you need a refresher, check out the recording or let us know if you have questions.  A unique feature of LLA plans is that you can get direct help from CTCP and statewide TA providers, so make sure you reach out and get help with your workplans!

TCEC has been working with CTCP and local program evaluators to revise the Evaluation Guide.  For some context, the last time the guide was released in 2007, it came with a CD-ROM!  It will soon be available on our website so that you can search for the information you need.  Join us for a webinar on Thursday, April 15th at 10 AM as we point out the various features of the guide and show you how to use it.

Thank you to the many people that contributed to or helped review and improve the guide.  We couldn't have done it without you! For other evaluation planning resources, check out this page on our website.

Our Statewide Coordinating Centers are promoting the sharing and use of data for priority populations.  TCEC is partnering with them to collect voluntarily submitted data collection instruments and protocols as well as data or data products to be made available to you all in a searchable database.  We'll also work together to provide overall guidance for collecting demographic data, so stay tuned for more info!  In the meantime, you can search for survey questions used in statewide surveillance systems or data collection instruments previously used by local projects that can be adapted for your community.

As always, TCEC is here to help! Contact us anytime through our Help Desk at tcecTA@phmail.ucdavis.edu.  We look forward to serving as your evaluation TA provider for the next five years.