Evaluation

TA Center

In September 2020, the Administration on Disabilities (AoD) within the Administration for Community Living (ACL), awarded The Lewin Groupand TASH (Lewin/TASH) a five-year contract to support the establishment of the Disability Employment Technical Assistance Center (referred to as the “TA Center”). To ensure continuous improvement and measure the impact of TA on AoD grantees, the TA Center’s team conducts an ongoing evaluation of activities. Part of the evaluation plan is a summative assessment that reports on the TA activities conducted and associated grantee impact for each funding period. The summative assessment documents activities conducted between September to July for the years indicated.

2022-2023 Report

Annually, DETAC conducts a summative evaluation to provide continuous feedback on TA efforts and measure progress toward outcomes. DETAC evaluates the reach and effect of its activities by analyzing data on utilization of TA activities, satisfaction, intended, or actual action taken as a result of the TA, and the impact of such action.

This evaluation report covers the period of August 2022-July 2023. The full evaluation report is available here.

2021-2022 Report

A Year in Review: Highlights from the 2021-2022 Disability Employment Technical Assistance Center Summative Evaluation

Each year the Disability Employment Technical Assistance Center (“the TA Center”), looks back on its accomplishments and progress toward outcomes through a summative evaluation. This year is no different with the TA center demonstrating tremendous impact across its five channels: National Community of Practice, Results & Innovation in Systems Excellence (RISE) Peer Action e-Learning Communities, On-Demand TA, Resource Development, and Website and Resource Clearinghouse. These channels focus on systems change, innovation, and collaboration to address needs and areas of interest related to disability employment. Key areas of interest this year include financial independence; technological innovations; cultural competency; diversity, equity, and inclusion; knowledge translation and diffusion; and the ongoing impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Highlights include:

An average of 372 people attended each of 12 webinars with 97% satisfaction
Over 60 subject matter experts engaged in TA activities
38,427 website views
5 RISE communities with 100% engagement and 96% satisfaction

The TA Center demonstrated progress toward outcomes in areas such as increased knowledge and capacity to implement evidence-based practices, collaboration with partners, commitment to advance competitive, integrated employment, public policy reform and systems change, and commitment to share learnings with colleagues. As a result, grantees took action to build knowledge, discuss challenges, and identify strategies for implementation. For example:

92% of webinar participants reported an increase in knowledge
95% of webinar participants and 96% of RISE participants committed to implement one or more key learnings to advance competitive integrated employment
96% of webinar and RISE participants committed to share information learned with colleagues

Looking forward, the TA Center will continue its momentum into the 2022-2023 year by expanding its presence to conferences and events throughout the nation.

Full evaluation report

The full evaluation report is available here.