Our team, who come from diverse disciplines such as public health, social work, public policy and sociology, is driven by a passion for using our skills to evaluate real-world programming and policy. We strive to provide actionable and transformative deliverables to our partners and clients, believing that lessons learned from evaluations can improve programs and the lives they touch.

In 2024, the R&E team examined a diverse set of  interventions using our mixed-methods skill-set to determine their success, challenges and the lessons learned along the way of implementing them. We developed lessons learned for each program to help improve on-going and future work. While our work spans the health and social ecosystem, including health delivery, community programs, and social programs, at its core is our desire to improve the lives of the people touched by these programs. We are committed to providing evaluations that are understandable, accessible, and actionable. 

This year our work included local, state, and nationally focused projects. Key highlights from our work this year include:

Local level projects:

• We initiated the evaluation of WeLIVE, a community violence intervention program led by the Washtenaw County Sheriff's Office and partners, focused on addressing community violence disproportionately impacting underserved communities in our county. Our team finalized the evaluation plan and began implementation, including a stakeholder analysis using a strengths-based approach. We are also collaborating with the Community Violence Intervention Taskforce to prepare evaluation plans for their upcoming summit.
• We continued our collaboration with Children of the Rising Sun to evaluate the Mom Circles program, a peer-led group for mothers of young children in Detroit. This evaluation reflects a significant collaboration with our community partner and focuses on measuring improvements in maternal mental health, self-efficacy, well-being, social connection and parenting confidence brought about by this intensive two year program. With support from the Michigan Health Endowment Fund, we have been working to develop Mom Circles internal evaluation capacity by recruiting and mentoring alumni and individuals from the community to work alongside us in the evaluation activities. We are most proud that our work is featured by our partner as they work to sustain, expand, grow and replicate the program into other communities.

State level projects:

• Our ongoing partnership with the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) on the evaluation of Michigan's Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics (CCBHC) demonstration resulted in a robust set of evaluation findings and lessons learned that our partners are using to improve and shape on-going and future expansion of the model. The results from the first three years of this Demonstration Project in Michigan, which has touched thousands of individuals, shows the promise of this innovative model at increasing access to behavioral health care, improving health outcomes and reducing emergency department visits. This work will continue into 2026 and we are excited to continue to work alongside our partners at MDHHS and those providing the CCBHC services.

National level projects:

• We concluded the evaluation of the Community Routes: Access to Mental Health Care program, funded by Teva Pharmaceuticals and managed by Direct Relief. The grant program works with Free and Charitable Clinics across the country to improve mental health care delivery among underserved populations. In November 2024, we shared a final report highlighting accomplishments and lessons learned from the Community Routes program, which was well-received by our partners and used to develop key performance indicators for on-going work in this space.

Melissa Riba
Research & Evaluation Director