Chapter 5

Home abandonment prevention program

1. Planning

A planning system must involves all institutional levels, including active participation of the target population, in the development of the vision, perspectives, solution alternatives and evaluation. This will guarantee the continuity and sustainability of the processes.

The YMCA of Bogotá has general a three-year strategic plan and more specific detail for each one of its programs. Yearly it designs an operational plan that directs its work.

The yearly plan includes defining general and specific objectives, activities, result indicators, verifying means, and a yearly budget.

2. Monitoring and evaluation

Within the system created to carry on a project, the subsystem of monitoring and evaluation is the key of the project's success.

Monitoring verifies whether the plan is being carried out or not. Evaluation, on the other hand, indicates verifying whether the work developed is actually fulfilling the need or if the planned purposes are effective, efficient, significant and lasting.

It is convenient to keep both concepts together because they are tightly related:
Monitoring is the supply for evaluation, though they might not always be carried on at the same time. Monitoring will always be dependant on evaluation.

It is not convenient to conceive monitoring and evaluation as separate processes from the progress of the project. They are actually simultaneous actions. They are not parallel processes with sporadic intersections along the project. On the contrary, they are processes that belong to the project's progress itself.

It is not possible to assure a proper progression of a project with out a simultaneous process of monitoring and evaluation. Quite the opposite, there is high risk to end up doing something totally different from the initial plan.

The simultaneous process is vital because it allows opportunities to make appropriate and timely decisions about the way the project has been handled. Otherwise, corrective action could not be taken on time and wrong decisions are likely to be made.

The monitoring and evaluation systems should be considered as part of the whole process.

"Evaluation is defined as estimating the products, results, effects, and social impact on the level and quality of life of its beneficiaries" (OIT 1989)

"Technically, evaluating a project, program, or plan, implies to determine the degree of advancement or shifting of the objectives." Likewise, evaluation "is a critical analysis process of all the activities and results of a project in order to determine the appropriateness of the methodology and the validity of the objectives, the efficiency using the resources and the impact with respect to the beneficiaries." 31

Having the discipline to write and systematize experiences represents a valuable contribution to the growth and improvement of social sciences in general and specific projects in particular.

Various approaches are suggested about systematization, and it is worth pointing them out to make sure the concept is understood.

When evaluating the different suggestions for systematization, it is possible to group them in three main categories:

1. One which suggests to describe an experience in an organized and coherent way in order to make it known;
2. One which tries to make a theoretical analysis about an experience; and
3. One which intends to produce scientific knowledge about an experience, it is to say, turn it into a research object.

No matter what the approach, definition or process of systematization might be taken, it always seeks to transcend an experience and go beyond the immediate and daily activities of those who, some way or another, contribute to social development.

Looking at an experience from a distance, and assuming it as a learning experience - learning as object of theoretical approach and knowledge problem- will allow to return to it in a qualified way.

Writing this document about the prevention model of the YMCA of Bogotá is exactly a systematization exercise in which pervious exercises have been taken into account. Those previous exercises were made in different stages of the process and have provided it with growing enrichment.

The YMCA has got some handbooks that guide action in the following areas:

• handbook on comprehensive growth: to develop formation processes for children, youth, and adults.
• Handbook to work with families in extremely poor conditions with previous history of children abandoning their home or in risk to do so. It includes the theoretical and methodological approach that the YMCA applies to develop its work with families.
• Handbook on the model of prevention of school drop out.

Having that material at hand has helped the spread of experiences and training of staff and volunteers who get involved with the project.

4. Research

As it is noticeable throughout the progression of the Home Abandonment Prevention Program, research has played a major role. Research has contributed to:

• Acquire new work approaches according to the needs of the target population;
• Design methodological models after applying research strategies-intervention; and
• Create evaluation studies that have facilitated the validation and restructuring of projects and programs
  Research sets a big difference concerning validity and possible replications of a project.

For all the previous reasons we consider vital to allocate some resources and give priority to research processes.