Sandra LaFleur – Director of Program Development Becky Broughton – Product Training Manager

1. Adopting “Strength of Relationship”Stage I Sandra LaFleur – Director of Program Development Becky Broughton – Product Training Manager Mute *6 and to Unmute #6

2. From What We Do to What we Achieve • Focus on Retention Rate • Enhance SB practices • New outcome measure • Implement Strength of Relationship measure Increase Program Impact

3. Today’s workshop focus: • Development of the SOR • Guidelines and tips to effectively implement • Prepare for using data

4. What is the Strength of Relationship? • An evaluation process designed to capture data on relationship qualities that predict strength of relationship between Big and Little • For Littles: coping, disappointment, safety, importance, and closeness • For Bigs: connectedness, frustration, confidence, and closeness • Tested for validity and reliability • Designed and used by leading researchers in youth development field • BBBS pilot experience

5. Benefits of Strength of Relationship • New data for monitoring the quality of each match relationship, • New info on what your program is achieving in its efforts to nurture strong relationships, • Insights into which program elements are effective and which are not, and • New benchmarks for measuring changes in the quality of your matches over time as you modify program practices, etc.

6. Administering the SOR…

7. AIM and the SOR measure • New SOR surveys – same survey functionality in AIM • E-form of SOR will become available later in 2008 • Responses are scored using a 5-point Likert scale that AIM uses to calculate summary and composite measures of relationship qualities

8. How - Staffing and the SOR • SOR is to be administered by Match Support Specialists. • The SOR survey can be integrated into a regular match support contact, although it alone would not constitute an appropriate contact.

9. To Ensure Validity • Disciplined administration is important: • stick to questions as they’re phrased • stick to timelines, • dialogue about the content of the survey AFTER it is complete • Staff Training is important! • Survey wording is direct! Staff may need to adjust

10. Analyzing your SOR data • AIM reports will provide various data points: • For Big, Little, and match • Individual relationship qualities as well as composite measures • 3 month, annual/EOSY, plus change over time (delta) • Both detail and summary – in both Excel and PDF formats • Benchmark individuals, teams, programs, agency-wide

11. Possible / Expected Program Implications? • More time spent conducting quality match support • Different use of Red/Yellow/Green system in AIM • New/different training for ongoing staff development related to relationship building skills • Others?

12. 2008 SOR Implementation Milestones and Goals

13. Suggested Implementation Plans… • Use materials provided to you by BBBSA. • Proper training and preparation is most important! • Build your timeline and stick to it. • Allow for learning-curve time to make changes, interpret data, adjust with course-corrections, and follow-up. • Many variations based on: • Training of all staff or some (champion) staff to administer SOR? • Conduct on only 100 new matches now or all new matches now?

14. SOR Implementation Materials • Powerpoints for agency use: • SOR Overview - for all staff and for Board of Directors • Adopting SOR, Stage I (this one) – for executive/program leadership training • SOR Implementation Training – for MS team and others expected to use SOR • SOR surveys – hard copies • SOR Implementation Planning Guide – Excel spreadsheet

15. What’s Next from BBBSA? • Self-paced online course SD00119“AIM Strength of Relationships (SOR) Tool” ready with AIM release in mid/late March • Stage II webinar on “Performance Management with SOR” – scheduled for after AIM release • National conference workshop: “Early Lessons in SOR Implementation”

16. Questions?