Baby U Program Evaluation

Client: City of Cambridge
Topic Area: Children, youth, and families
Service: Participatory Evaluation

Baby U is a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based parenting program that provides education and support to parents of young children. The program goal is for all children to be academically, socially and emotionally prepared to enter kindergarten. ICH has been the evaluator for Baby U since 2009. Initially, ICH helped build consensus among 14 stakeholder agencies around program goals and success metrics, and developed tools and systems for Baby U’s ongoing data collection and management. Over the years, ICH has utilized qualitative interviews, focus groups, and survey methods to evaluate the impact of the Baby U program, and recently administered a major survey effort with Baby U alumni to evaluate knowledge and strategies retained by parents after transitioning from the intensive main program to the alumni association, which offers more limited services. Baby U has used ICH’s evaluation data to justify continued funding support from the City of Cambridge, identify improvements to the program delivery format and curriculum content, and develop targeted recruitment strategies.