Using Evidence to Improve the Quality of Our Programs

CASA Child, Adolescent, and Family Mental Health upholds the highest ethical and scientific standards in research involving children.

 

All staff, students, and physicians are encouraged to participate  in research activities. This provides CASA with extensive expertise in research and program evaluation.  The proficiency of our staff and students is used frequently to support the scientific decisions and clinical interventions used here at CASA. Our staff, physicians, and Board of Directors are highly committed to continuous quality improvement. Together, we have developed performance indicators that assist in monitoring and evaluating the services that are provided at CASA. These indicators are used to obtain information about the processes, outcomes, and satisfaction of the families who receive CASA services.


In order to provide continuous evaluation of CASA Services, several strategies were designed specifically to measure program goals. In general, these strategies are pre-post measures, administered before patients start their treatment and after they finish their treatment or transfer to another program. The pre-post measures can measure items like parental stress, social skills, and parent-child relationships.


The Health of Nations Outcome Scale, Child and Adolescent version (HoNOSCA), measures mental health status, and is administered to every child at CASA upon admission and discharge. Additionally, to directly measure behavioral change we use Goal Attainment Scaling as part of our measurable treatment plans. Goal Attainment Scaling allows us to determine the extent to which our therapeutic measures are resulting in positive behavioural change in the child’s individual, home, and school environments, meeting the stated needs of families coming to CASA.


In addition to these measures, satisfaction surveys are routinely administered. This allows CASA to stay relevant to the needs of our children and families. This year’s survey (Oct-Nov 2010) showed an overall satisfaction level of 96%.

 

Forging Partnerships to Advance Child and Adolescent Mental Health

Externally, interdisciplinary and collaborative research is encouraged in order to promote growth in knowledge and current CASA treatments. CASA values collaborative linkages with many organizations, including for example:

 

  • Alberta Alliance for Mental Illness and Mental Health (AAMIMH)
  • Alberta Centre for Child, Family & Community Research (ACCFCR)
  • Alberta Children and Youth Services
  • Alberta Health Services
  • Alberta Health and Wellness
  • Alberta Hospital Edmonton
  • Covenant Health
  • Glenrose Rehabilitation Hospital
  • Head Start and Early Head Start Programs
  • Institute of Health Economics
  • Mental Health Clinics
  • Mental Health Commission of Canada (MHCC)
  • Mental Health Learning and Teaching Clinics
  • Royal Alexandra Hospital
  • Stollery Children’s Hospital
  • University of Alberta

 

All research findings are shared with other service providers, researchers, and the public for the overall benefit of infants, children, adolescents, and their families.

 

 

Funding

Funding, both internal and external, is an important part of CASA‘s research and evaluation requirements. Internal funding comes from the core-operating budget and community donations to the CASA Research Endowment Fund.

 

The CASA Research Endowment Fund was established in 2002 through the CASA Foundation and is used to support research and evaluation activities at CASA. External funding also comes from research and evaluation contracts with other organizations, government agencies, non-profit foundations, and from peer-reviewed grants awarded to CASA researchers.