Questions to Guide the Writing of Case Studies or Practice Stories
Note: These questions are just a guide. You do not need to answer all of them.

Title of your Change/Program, Policy/Practice:
Intended Focus/Audience/Participants of the Change
(Can include students, staff, community, parents, systems, determinants, better practices etc)

Number of years that you have been working on this change/program/approach:

Estimated number of years required for results to become apparent:

Summary of results from initial, final or ongoing evaluations:





Contact person/information for more information:





A. Why did you develop, adopt or implement this program, policy or practice?



B. Getting Started

1. Why did you decide to focus on this population, this setting, this problem or strength/asset (or aspects thereof) and this general approach?

2. What data did you use to make those decisions about the focus of your program?

3. Who participated in that decision-making process?

4. How did you find out about or develop the evidence-based model or experienced tested approach that you are using?

5. How did you approach the various stakeholders in your process to get started? What mechanisms did you use to ensure the involvement of the intended population, parents, staff, other agencies, decision-makers in your organization, outside or inside experts etc?

6. What were the local drivers that helped or hindered you in getting started (local incidents, local personalities, relationships, directives from other agencies or from within your organization etc

7. Where did you get support for your initial planning activities (donated time from colleagues, external funding, support from your supervisor, etc) How much time was spent in the initial planning stage.

8. Did you agree on a common understanding of the problem? On long-term goals? On immediate steps or actions? Or strategies to increase profile, involvement from others, external or internal funding, increasing your influence ot access to decision-makers?

9. Did you use a published or online planning guide or planning model?

10. At this early stage did you consider what kinds of changes will need to be made to your organization or other agencies/systems in order to ensure that the change will become institutionalized? Did you consider one time or ongoing staff training? changes to job assignments or job descriptions,? increased or re-allocated funding?, changes to organizational structures? changes to organizational routines or regular business practices?

C. The Facts of the Matter

1. What kind of statistics did you gather or analyze before deciding that you needed to introduce a new program, service, approach, practice or policy? (Population data, contextual data, administrative data, previous evaluations and assessments, etc)

2. Did you develop an inventory or assessment of your organizations’ or other current responses to the problems or issues the needs identified in your data?

3. What sources of research evidence did you consult about the various alternatives and programs that your organization should consider? How will you ensure fidelity to that research?

4. Did you consult the intended beneficiaries of the change on their needs and preferences before identifying on the option that you chose OR did you consult them on the possibility/practicality of an option or limited set of options that you had already identified?

5. Did you consult the affected staff on their needs or preferences before identifying an option or did you consult with them on the desirability/feasibility of an option that you had already identified?

6. Did you develop indicators of the changes needed in these factors for success?

a) Changes or adaptations to the social, economic, political, administrative or organizational context

b) Changes needed in the inputs into the system or situation (population, staffing, funding, etc)

c) Changes in the processes (policies, programs, practices, etc) needed

d) Expected outputs (numbers of activities, frequency, participation rates, satisfaction levels etc)

e) Expected short term (2-3 years) outcomes (skills, attitudes, belief and knowledge learning outcomes, health or social behaviours, changes to service levels, waiting times, times allocated for curriculum delivery etc

f) Attributable and measurable long term outcomes in population health, social capital, equity, reductions in negative incidents, increase in positive incidents etc


D. Implementation, Capacity and Sustainability Issues

1. Is your proposed change intended to modify a specific policy, program or practice or are you trying to influence the development of a whole setting (such as a school, workplace, community etc)

2. How did/will you measure and monitor the quality of your implementation efforts?

3. If you are promoting a multi-intervention plan, approach or model, please specify which types of personnel will be involved

a) whole school strategy (ie only educators employed in the schools will be doing the work on a given issue every day. Staff from universities or other agencies may act as consultants but they are not required to be on the work site on any scheduled basis. The activities are only school-based

b) agency-school coordinated programs where the services and activities are undertaken both by educators and personnel from other agencies on a given issue. The activities are both school-based and school-linked.

c) comprehensive approaches, which can address several related issues that affect health, safety or social development and are delivered by several agencies and several levels within several systems.

4. How did you consider the core mandates of schools (academics, safe custody, accreditation/failing of students, vocational preparation of students while fitting your program within the socialization function of schooling? Did you simply try to persuade educators that there will be benefits to learning or did you really try to fit within their core pre-occupations and professional norms such as all students get equal time, orderly conduct/no disruptions to learning, privacy of parents etc?

5. Did you find research evidence or document experience that describes the baseline capacity required for the program or change you are trying to make (eg minimum curriculum time/learning objectives, staffing ratios for nurses, social workers, psychologists etc, )

6. What did you learn about these types of capacities that are usually required for sustainability

a) coordinated ministry, agency and professional policies, procedures and protocols

b) assignment of staff at all levels in systems to ensure coordination

c) Formal and informal mechanisms for cooperation such as written agreements, ongoing committees, joint goal statements, shared priorities, joint budget-making processes etc

d) Ongoing workforce development (pre-service and in-service)

e) Ongoing knowledge development, synthesis, translation, dissemination and exchange to support uptake of new practices and programs

f) Regular monitoring, reporting on progress, results and systems capacities

g) Strategic issue management

h) Explicit and ongoing planning for sustainability


7. Did you consider how local community contexts will affect your planned change? (Disadvantaged communities, aboriginal communities, isolated rural communities, urban, multiethnic communities, affluent communities, religious communities etc

8. Did you consider how the characteristics of education, health and social systems will affect your planned change/program? (eg Open systems are constantly bombarded by competing needs and demands and the front lines in such systems are intended to be responsive to those new demands while the system protects it basic mission and boundaries, eg Loosely coupled systems depend on professional knowledge and vague consensus on broad goals to achieve results rather than command and control mechanisms eg Professional bureaucracies depend on informal social networks, middle managers defending boundaries, non-rational decision-making, routines and other means to make decisions. Eg Working across multiple systems with many agencies will require constant re-negotiation of priorities and project-based activities that will need a shared vision for coherence.

9. What does sustainability look like for you and your planned change/program?

10. Is there any other important lessons/learning from your case study or practice story?