Program Evaluator

TX-HHSC-DSHS-DFPS • Austin, TX

2d

About The Position

DSHS is committed to hiring skilled and dedicated individuals who share a passion for public health to pursue our vision of A Healthy Texas. If you are looking to make an impact and tackle new challenges, we encourage you to consider a career with us.   Employee Benefits: DSHS offers insurance coverage and other benefits available through the State of Texas Group Benefits Plan administered by the Employee Retirement System of Texas (ERS). To learn more about all the benefits available to you as a DSHS employee and other DSHS opportunities for early career pathways, visit the DSHS Careers Page. Review our Top 10 Tips for Success when Applying to State of Texas Jobs.   Brief Job Description: Under the direct supervision of the Manager of the Chronic Disease Epidemiology (CDE) branch, performs evaluation activities for chronic disease prevention and health promotion interventions including but not limited to the Tobacco Control and Prevention and the Alzheimer's Disease Programs. Oversees and provides technical assistance and evaluation consultative services to community chronic disease intervention partners. Responsible for monitoring community intervention projects and for developing evaluation and monitoring tools, summary reports on findings, and other related analyses and reports. Works with CDE staff and across the Health Promotion and Chronic Disease Prevention (HPCDP) Section to identify appropriate evaluation methods and resolve evaluation-related problems, recommend changes, oversee identification and development of new data sources, and collect and analyze data to inform programmatic improvement activities. Works with considerable latitude for the use of initiative and independent judgment.

Requirements

• Knowledge of: Public health, health promotion, and chronic diseases.
• Knowledge of: Evaluation methods and tools, including SMART objectives, performance indicators, logic models, data collection tools, and analytic methods.
• Skill in: Building effective partnerships, effective problem-solving, and communicating clearly and concisely.
• Skill in: Leading group efforts and working in a team environment.
• Skill in: Developing procedures to monitor and evaluate progress in achieving project objectives.
• Skill in: Conveying planning alternatives or recommendations to a variety of audiences.
• Skill in: Using MS Office, statistical software (e.g. SAS, SPSS, Stata, NVivo, Atlas.ti etc) analyzing qualitative and quantitative data.
• Ability to: Plan and manage complex projects.
• Ability to: Provide strong customer service and maintain positive partner relations.
• Ability to: Establish program goals and objectives that support strategic plans.
• Ability to: Create formal contributions to public health science and participate in the peer-review process.
• A graduate degree from an accredited college or university related to public health.
• One or more years of experience in evaluation related work, evidence-based interventions, qualitative data collection, developing surveys, performing data analysis, and data dissemination.
• One or more years of experience developing logic models, conduct survey interviews and/or focus groups and evaluation frameworks, writing evaluation reports, and describing scientific findings effectively.

Responsibilities

• Performs the evaluation of chronic disease prevention and health promotion interventions including but not limited to the Tobacco Control and Prevention and the Alzheimer's Disease Programs, providing direct support and technical assistance for project implementation. Evaluate partnerships and collaboratives with clinical organizations. Coordinates closely with clinical partner organizations, intervention designers and implementers for data planning, identifies data sources, and manages and analyzes qualitative and quantitative data for evaluation purposes. Provides frequent and direct feedback to intervention staff on project strategies and activities. Monitors and evaluates evaluation findings relative to evidence-based chronic disease interventions in clinical and community settings. Develops protocols, project timelines, needs assessments, surveys, and conducts interviews and focus groups. Analyzes data collected through surveys, focus groups and writes evaluation reports.
• Provides expert technical assistance and consultation and coordinates evaluation of the HPCDP section’s chronic disease program interventions. Designs and disseminates evaluation-related support materials such as logic models, reporting templates, and evaluation frameworks. Initiates evaluation planning, development, implementation and reporting of chronic disease interventions in collaboration with HPCDP programs and external organizations. Coordinates closely with CDE and intervention staff for data planning, identification of data sources, and collection of data for monitoring purposes. Assists in writing grant applications by creating evaluation plans and frameworks for proposed programmatic activities.
• Establishes and manages performance monitoring frameworks using well-defined goals, outcomes, outputs, inputs, processes, indicators, data needs, and data sources. Monitors and evaluates overall progress, including long-term sustainability of the intervention. Works with CDE staff to recommend appropriate changes and assist in development of action plans for program improvement.
• Prepares formal contributions to public health science, including conference abstracts and manuscripts for publications. Attends trainings, conferences and workshops to maintain skills and knowledge related to public health science.
• Performs other duties as assigned. Other duties as assigned also include but are not limited to actively participating and/or serving in a supporting role to meet the agency’s obligations for disaster response and/or recovery or Continuity of Operations (COOP) activation. Such participation may require an alternate shift pattern assignment and/or location.

Benefits

• DSHS offers insurance coverage and other benefits available through the State of Texas Group Benefits Plan administered by the Employee Retirement System of Texas (ERS).

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level
• Number of Employees: 1,001-5,000 employees