ECO Resources: Working with ECO

The ECO Center staff members are available to provide a limited amount of technical assistance to state agencies through our funding from the U.S. Department of Education. Our services address issues related to measuring outcomes for children ages birth to five with special needs and their families and are available to all state agencies. If you are with a state agency and your agency needs assistance related to this topic, please contact us.

If the amount of technical assistance a state would like exceeds what we are able to do through our general ECO work, state agencies can contract with us for additional individualized assistance. Regional or local education agencies or programs also can contract with us for technical assistance around outcomes measurement.

Examples of assistance we can and have provided through contracts include:

  • On site professional development for regional and local staff on issues related to outcome measurement, for example,
    • Implementing the Child Outcomes Summary Form (COSF) process
    • Understanding the role of good assessment in an outcomes measurement system
    • Analyzing and interpreting child and family data for program improvement.
  • Assistance with designing and implementing procedures for examining the fidelity of implementation of the state’s chosen measurement approach and the quality of the resulting data.
  • Assistance with analyzing child and family data including developing key questions to be addressed and the analyses that will address them.
  • Assistance with interpreting data to identify alternative explanations, the need for any follow up analyses, and the implications for program improvement.
  • Assistance in conceptualizing data systems, especially with regard to articulating the kinds of questions the state wants to address and the kinds of data needed to address these questions.
  • Working with agencies as they work with stakeholder groups on a variety of topics related to outcomes measurement, such as the design of an outcomes measurement system, explaining the need for and purpose of outcome measurement, and interpreting and sharing of data.

These are intended as examples. If you need assistance related to outcomes measurement, contact us and we can talk to you about what kind of help we can provide. If you would like more information about how ECO can help your agency, contact Lynne Kahn at Lynne_kahn@unc.edu or 919-962-2781.