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Category: Project

Description: The Health Profession Opportunity Grants (HPOG) Program is administered by the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. In September 2015, ACF awarded a second round of HPOG grants to 32 organizations, including five tribal organizations. These grant awards support demonstration projects that provide eligible individuals with the opportunity to obtain education and training for occupations in the health care field that pay well and are expected to either experience labor shortages or be in high demand. NORC at the University of Chicago is leading a comprehensive implementation and outcome evaluation of the five Tribal HPOG 2.0 grantees. The evaluation examines program implementation and participant outcomes at both the individual and systems level in a manner that is grounded in a community-based participatory research approach. The Tribal HPOG 2.0 evaluation design is descriptive; as such, the results will not attribute causality between HPOG programs and outcomes. The tribal evaluation team designed the evaluation in collaboration with the Tribal HPOG 2.0 grantees and a Tribal HPOG 2.0 Technical Work Group (TWG) comprised of tribal evaluators and subject matter experts to ensure that the evaluation is both culturally responsive and scientifically grounded. The evaluation will provide an in-depth assessment of the HPOG 2.0 programs administered by tribes, tribal organizations, and tribal colleges to 1) identify and assess how programmatic health profession training operations are working; 2) determine differences in approaches being used when programs are serving different sub-populations, including participants with different characteristics and skill levels; and 3) identify programs and practices that seem to be successful in supporting the target population to achieve portable industry-recognized certificates or degrees as well as employment-related outcomes.