Innovative and Exemplary Respite Services Evaluation Initiative

Each year since 2019, ARCH has been seeking and selecting respite services that meet a stringent set of criteria for innovation and excellence. The purpose of the ARCH Innovative and Exemplary Services Initiative is to establish a registry of programs and services to help advance our collective understanding of what respite best practices mean.

In 2023, four respite programs were selected from among a pool of recognized Innovative and Exemplary services that applied for an evaluation mini-grant to design and carryout a 12-month evaluation and to participate in a learning community with technical assistance from ARCH. Each program was awarded a mini-grant to assist them in conducting the evaluation of their respite care services.

The four programs selected to receive mini-grants were:

Agape Respite Care, Inc., Berne, IN
The Center for Volunteer Caregiving, Cary, NC
Claude Moore Precious Time, James Madison University, Harrisonburg, VA
Vanessa Behan, Spokane, WA

The purposes of the Evaluation Project were to:

Identify evaluation measures and processes that show the effectiveness of respite services in improving family caregiver wellness;
Identify evaluation measures and processes that show the effectiveness of other respite-related program elements that directly or indirectly support caregiver wellness (such as person-centered services or staff/volunteer training and support, for example);
Identify performance measures and processes that help respite programs make decisions and improve services in their day-to-day practice;
Show the merit of respite services to stakeholders and funders; and
Create an evaluation model that other respite programs and services may learn from or use in their work.

Over a 12-month period, each grantee followed a step-by-step evaluation process with support and technical assistance from ARCH. Only Agape was not able to complete the evaluation.

Each of the remaining respite services grantees:

Stated their program or service mission and goals.
Created a service map that described all program activities that they believe help them achieve their program mission and goals.
Identified corresponding measurement processes and tools that reflected their goals and outcomes (Logic of Inquiry). Measures linked to CARR’s developing Common Data Elements and included caregiver wellness measures.
Was encouraged to focus on program performance and fidelity in addition to outcome measurement.
Was encouraged to triangulate data through multiple data sources and through the use of mixed methods (enumeration and sampling; observations and/or interviews; document review).

The grantees collected several months of data after developing their evaluation plan. The results are presented in the Evaluation Data Briefs found below. They also presented their findings at the ARCH 2024 Respite Research Summit.