The Child-centred Family Law Strategy,
Summative Evaluation

1.  INTRODUCTION


1. INTRODUCTION

The Child-centred Family Justice Strategy[7] (hereafter referred to as the CCFLS or the Strategy) is a five-year initiative introduced in 2003 and scheduled to sunset March 31, 2008. In order to meet Treasury Board Secretariat requirements, the Family, Children and Youth (FCY) Section of the Department of Justice was to complete formative and summative evaluations. The Formative Evaluation was conducted early in the Strategy, with the Summative Evaluation scheduled for completion near its end.

Presented in this report are the key findings of the Summative Evaluation of the CCFLS conducted in 2007 on behalf of the Evaluation Division of the Department of Justice.

1.1. Context and Purpose of the Summative Evaluation

In contrast to formative evaluations, which focus on using research findings to improve program delivery and implementation, summative evaluations focus on the assessment of outcomes, impacts and cost-effectiveness of a program or initiative after it has been implemented and delivered. The Summative Evaluation of the CCFLS is based on the revised CCFLS Results-based Management and Accountability Framework (RMAF), logic model and evaluation framework that was developed by the FCY Section in 2006.

The stated purpose of the Summative Evaluation is twofold. The primary goal is to assess the extent to which the Strategy was successful in achieving the intermediate and final outcomes identified in the RMAF specifically the relevance, design and delivery, outcomes and cost-effectiveness of the CCFLS. The secondary purpose of the evaluation is to examine how well the performance measurement mechanism worked to ensure that performance measurement data were systematically collected, a recommendation resulting from the Formative Evaluation. The results generated through the evaluation will inform decision-making and future directions of Department of Justice activities in family law.

Research activities undertaken for the evaluation include qualitative and quantitative methods. Evaluation activities commenced in March 2007 and were completed in October of the same year. The complexity and broad scope of the CCFLS presented some research challenges for the evaluation (addressed in Section 3), but reflects the context in which the Strategy was developed and implemented.

1.2. Organization of the Report

The remainder of the report is organized as follows:


[7] The original title for this initiative was the "The Child-centred Family Law Strategy" . It changed to "Child-centred Family Justice Strategy (CCFJS)" in 2003 to better reflect all activities of the initiative, such as funding to the provinces and territories, communications, public legal education, research, etc., and not just amendments to the law. All the formal documentation refers to the Strategy as CCFLS, which will be used throughout this report.