Section 1: Importance of Evaluating Community-Based Health and Wellness Programs

San Francisco Parks and Recreation staff and children play with bubbles at an adaptive learning program at Eureka Valley Recreation Center.

PHOTO COURTESY OF SAN FRANCISCO RECREATION AND PARKS

Purpose: In this section, you will learn the reason why evaluation is a vital part of community-based programming and the importance of having an evaluation plan.

Learning Objectives

Whether you are expanding the scope of your community-based health and wellness programming or refining ongoing programming, evaluation is an important component for documenting progress, outcomes and lessons learned. While evaluation as a practice follows the same basic steps no matter the topic, there are important considerations when evaluating a health program. To describe the topics covered in this framework, we will first start with three grounding concepts: • Define health and wellness.

• Understand the importance of program evaluation. • Learn the six stages of program evaluation.