Results-Based Accountability (RBA)

Transcription

1 Results-Based Accountability (RBA) What is Results-Based Accountability (RBA)? Results-Based Accountability (RBA) is a disciplined way of thinking and taking action that is used to improve the quality of life in neighborhoods. In fact, RBA has been used in numerous states and many nations - as well as hundreds of communities - to move from talk to action. In addition to guiding large-scale change efforts, RBA can be used to improve the performance of programs, agencies and service systems. It begins by helping you to identify the results that are desired and works backward, step-by-step, to the actions necessary to achieve your desired result. RBA is a valuable tool and a way of working and thinking that uses plain language and common sense to help people make real differences. RBA also encourages an inclusive process where diversity and the voices of everyone in the neighborhood are seen as assets that can contribute to success. RBA uses a mix of: 1) Common language: Everyone agrees to use the same words and agrees on the meaning of those words. 2) Common sense: Always start with the end the desired result you want to achieve and work your way backwards to figure out the steps needed to achieve that result. 3) Common ground: People must be able to come together and share agreement about what they want to achieve. Key Terms: RBA s Common Language Result: A result is a general condition of well-being for an entire group of children, adults, families or neighborhood, stated in common language. A result describes a positive condition that you and your neighborhood would like to achieve for the people who live there. Examples include: o All children in our neighborhood are healthy. o Our neighborhood is safe. Indicator: An indicator is a measurement that helps your neighborhood track its progress toward achieving its desired result. In other words, indicators help to define what success in achieving the result would look like. Examples of indicators for each of the above result statements include: o Rate of babies born with low birth weight o Rate of violent crime Strategies (sometimes called solutions): A strategy is a set of actions aimed at improving results. Strategies are your best thinking about what works or what improves results - based on what you know from research, evidence and experience. Some strategies focus on a particular target group, such as youth or low-income families, while others focus on larger populations, such as an entire neighborhood.

2 How can you use RBA to measure progress in your neighborhood? RBA offers a method to measure how well various strategies, activities or programs are actually working. For example, is your strategy making an impact? Is it reaching enough people? Is it being implemented effectively? RBA uses performance measures to determine how well a program, agency or service system is working. There are three types of performance measures that can help you to track your strategy s progress and impact: 1) How many people were served/helped or how many activities conducted? 2) How well was the service provided or how well was the activity conducted? 3) Is anyone better off because of the service or activity? For instance, imagine you have developed a strategy to ensure pregnant women have access to pre-natal health care, which evidence suggests helps prevent babies from being born with low birth weight (indicator). You hope this strategy will help you build a neighborhood in which all children are healthy (desired result). The following are examples of performance measures you might use to determine if your strategy is working well. 1) The number of pregnant women in the neighborhood who received prenatal health care. (Number of women served) 2) The number and percentage of women who have access to service providers who speak their native language or for whom translation is available when needed. (How well the service is provided) 3) The number and percentage of babies born with low birth weight rate declines. (People are better off) In addition to tracking your progress, you may also want to set a target or goal for your strategy. Adding a target can help you to track your progress and hold your team accountable. The following are example targets you can use for each of your performance measures: 1) At least 25 pregnant women in the neighborhood received prenatal health care due to the BNCP strategy. 2) Language translation services are provided to least 80% of the women who need translation support. 3) 90% of the babies born to women served in our program are born at a healthy birth weight. Unlike indicators that are typically measured annually, performance measures can be measured more often because program data is generally collected on a more regular basis. Performance measures can be an effective management tool for measuring progress on a regular basis and, when necessary, making timely changes to a program when data suggests that the program is not achieving its goals.

3 Key RBA Phrases The story behind the baseline data is a phrase that relates to what is happening or has happened in the neighborhood that influences the data. For example, if the data suggests that many babies are being born at a low weight, what might be happening to explain this data? Do pregnant women have access to health care in the neighborhood? Do they understand the importance of pre-natal health care? Is transportation a problem? Maybe cost is an issue. By asking residents and other stakeholders about the issue, you will begin to piece together the puzzle about why the data looks the way it does. Turn a curve relates to data that is mapped onto a graph. If the rate of babies born with low birth weight has been increasing throughout the past several years, you will see an upward trend line on a graph (see Figure 1). Reducing the rate of babies born with low birth weight will turn the curve and push that line in an opposite direction (see Figure 2). 25% Fig. 1 Percent of Babies Born with Low Birthweight 20% 15% 10% 5% 0% % Fig. 2 Percent of Babies Born With Low Birthweight 20% 15% 10% 5% 0% Data runs in herds simply means that having a few carefully selected indicators or performance measures that have available data are probably enough to know if your solutions are working. While the neighborhood can think of a dozen ways to measure whether or not children in the neighborhood are healthy, just a few strong indicators will be enough to know if the strategies are having an impact. For example, you might simply collect information about the rate of obesity and the rate of immunizations to get a good sense of whether or not children are healthy.

4 How can you use RBA to improve results in your neighborhood? An overview of the RBA framework includes seven basic questions. The general structure of the BNCP Revitalization Plan aligns with these seven questions. 1. What are your desired results? In other words, what are the quality of life conditions we want for the children, adults and families who live in our neighborhood? 2. What would these conditions look like if we could see them? 3. How can we measure these conditions? Questions # 2 and 3 relate to determining which indicators of progress fit best within your neighborhood context. 4. How are we doing on the most important of these measures? This is the data that is collected to determine where you are beginning sometimes called baseline data and what progress is made over time. 5. Who are the partners that have a role to play in doing better? These are the partners such as cross-sector partners - that you may work with to help develop and implement solutions/strategies. 6. What works to do better, including no-cost and low-cost ideas? This question involves the discussions and research that site teams and partners do to generate ideas about the solutions/strategies that could work in the neighborhood. 7. What do we propose to do? After identifying a desired result, selecting indicators, gathering data and engaging partners in discussion and research about potential solutions, your BNCP team will develop what they propose to do to achieve the neighborhood s desired result. The proposal will be called the Revitalization Plan. Resource Spotlight: Results-Based Accountability (RBA) Making a Difference In Your Neighborhood: A Handbook for Community Decision-Making to Improve the Lives of Children, Youth and Families Read this handbook from the Center for the Study of Social Policy to learn more about how to implement a results-driven community change process in your neighborhood. Results-Based Accountability Implementation Guide Check out this guide to learn more about how you can use RBA to make decisions in your neighborhood. RAguide.org Trying Hard is Not Good Enough Mark Friedman (Trafford Publishing, 2005)

5 Appendix 1: RBA Results or Indicator Quiz This quiz can be used as a tool to help you and your partners think about the difference between results and indicators. Use the quiz to see if you can easily identify the difference between a result statement and an indicator. Is it a RESULT or an INDICATOR? 1) We live in a safe neighborhood. 2) Crime Rate 3) Our neighborhood has an educated workforce. 4) Adult literacy rate 5) Residents in our neighborhood have living wage jobs and income. 6) % of people with living wage jobs and income 7) Families in our neighborhood are healthy. Answers: #1 (R), #2 (I), #3 (R), #4 (I), #5 (R), #6 (I), #7 (R)