Nothing as Practical as Good Theory: Exploring Theory-Based Evaluation for Comprehensive Community Initiatives for Children and Families

The topic on the table is the evaluation of comprehensive cross-sector community-based interventions designed to improve the lot of children, youth, and families.’ These types of initiatives draw on a history of experience, from the Ford Foundation’s Gray Areas Program in the early 1960s continuing through the federal programs of the President’s Committee on Juvenile Delinquency, the large Community Action Program of the War on Poverty, the Model Cities Program, community development corporations, services integration programs, and others. Most of the government programs incorporated requirements for systematic evaluation; for foundation-supported programs, evaluation was more sporadic and informal. None ofthe programs was satisfied that it had achieved either maximalprogrdm benefit from its efforts or maximal evaluation knowledge about program consequences from the evaluations it undertook. In recent years a new generation of comprehensive community initiatives (CCIs) has been funded. Supported in large part by private foundations, the initiatives aim to reform human service and collateral systems in geographically bounded communities. They work across functional areas-such as social services, health care, the schools, and economic and physical redevelopment-in an effort to launch a comprehensive