EXPLORING THE LINK BETWEEN SERVICE QUALITY AND OUTCOMES Parents ’ Assessments of Family Support Programs

Relationships among consumer-generated quality factors, satisfaction, and outcome measures were examined for family support services provided by Michigan’s public mental health system. Parents focused on structural and procedural aspects of program accessibility and attended less to program administration issues. Parents who gave the services the highest quality ratings also were the most satisfied with services, saw the services as more effective, had fewer family problems, and rated their time and child-related resources as more adequate. Implications for evaluation practice are discussed. Program evaluation has long served as a way to inform public decision makers about problems and programs. Whether the results of the evaluation are used to measure the execution of public policy or for accountability, both process and outcome evaluations are necessary to fulfill the information needs of public administrators (Chelimsky 1990). Process evaluations usu-ally answer questions about what and how programs are delivered and are often used to monitor program implementation (Scheirer 1987, 1994). The recent growing emphasis on performance-oriented, outcome-based program management has led program managers to ask for regular assessments of pro-gram results, for example, outcomes (Affholter 1994), in addition to process evaluations of program implementation. The challenge to evaluators is to link program processes with outcomes. The development of a program theory offers a means of constructing a sens