MCHB Conference Webcasts
2005 EMSC Annual Grantee Meeting
April 12-13, 2005
MICHAEL ELY: Thank you. And I just want to reaffirm what Jane said that we are going to be making every effort to help grantees in this process. And I want to just go through with you very briefly a couple of the things that will be available to you over the next several months to hopefully mitigate some of your fears, because this really isn't as bad as it seems. Although it's very important and we need to, we want to help make this as uniform and as seamless for you as possible. So I'm going to very briefly talk about five things that will be available to you. One is an implementation manual, webcasts, some grant writing workshops, the grant guidance itself and then individual technical assistance.
There will be an implementation manual produced which will accompany the performance measures which the Lewin Group will finalize with help from both the NRC and NEDARC. Among other things, this will contain general instructions for implementing each performance measure. Definition of terms: I know that several of you have had to work on surveys and other types of tools where, perhaps, the terms weren't very clear and it wasn't clear if one state was answering the same way another state was; and so we'll make every effort to define terms where reasonably possible so hopefully everybody is on a very level playing field.
Necessary information you will need to respond to each performance measure, suggested data sources. Again, this has come out largely through the three beta tests but there will be information on data sources that will be mostly for your state to be able to gather information to respond to the performance measure and data collection forms. We're not sure at this point exactly where those will be available and when they will be available but data collection forms will be available to, again, standardize the way in which grantees are looking at these performance measures and are gathering similar types of information.
So the implementation manual will be available in July and by web or e‑mail or some other source. Secondly, there will be a webcast available, which is designed exclusively to address the performance measures. And understanding them and how to implement them. This will be hosted by the National Resource Center and it will be largely made, presentations will be made from the Lewin Group. The date for this is July 26, 2005 , two to three eastern daylight time, and since again these performance measures are targeted to partnerships, all partnership grantees will be very much encouraged to participate in this.
And more information will be forth coming as this gets closer and the details are available. Grant writing workshops, as you know, as many of you might know, NEDARC has developed some grant writing workshops over the past two or three years. Mostly which focused on research, the writing of more research oriented grants for EMSC.
But this year we decided that it would be a good idea to have a couple of basic or partnership‑oriented workshops one is because we have the performance measures and we felt there would be a good need to be able to talk about that in the grant writing workshop. So we devoted a portion of the time will be used to discuss how the performance measures can be implemented into the writing of your grant and how you'll need to address the performance measures in the actual writing of your grant.
We also felt like these types of workshops would be good since we have so many states coming up for a new cycle beginning next year and that we have, we've got a number of new grant, new project coordinators.
So we have two workshops designated for this purpose, both of which will be in August 1 in Salt Lake on the 18th and 19th and then in Washington D.C. on the 30th and 31st. We're anticipating it will be able to accommodate up to 20 people at each of these workshops. So you can go to our website at nedarc.org and register and get more information on them. In addition, there's a display in the back which has information on our workshops. So please pick up a pamphlet and you can read more about those, but we encourage folks to understand the workshops which again will have information specifically on integration of performance measures.
The guidance itself, as Jane mentioned, will be available sometime hopefully this fall, though we don't know for sure when that will be but it will reaffirm the purpose of the performance measures and have a description again of what is required and what will be, what folks will need to put into their grant applications this year. As Jane mentioned you will not have to put into the grant application this year the actual data for the performance measures.
But there will likely be a requirement of describing how you will go about getting that information and there will be a time line in there when you need to report that. First is baseline data which will be sometime in 2006. And, again, if the forms are developed which they likely will be, they will be part of the grant guidance.
And, of course, individual technical assistance. We like to think that folks will call either the National Resource Center or NEDARC for any questions for anything but specifically with reference to the performance measures. We're available to help and are eager to help with any questions that folks might have. And again we will be very actively involved in the development of standardized tools, reporting forms, surveys where necessary, where it will be applicable for performance measures.
So that all grantees have the same instruments to help them gather information on the performance measures. And our goal, once again, is to make this effort as clear and straightforward for you all as possible. So with that, Jane and I would be happy to answer any other questions that haven't already been asked.