Books for Babes - An Evaluation of the Pilot Project

In June 2000, the Rotary Club of Auckland Inc commissioned and funded an evaluative report of the Books for Babes pilot program in 1999 and 2000.

Interviews were conducted with key stakeholders of Books for Babes to establish evaluation objectives and goals and ensure cultural appropriateness of the research process. The evaluation arose from a University of Auckland 1999 Stage Three student project, and evolved into its current form following the introduction of a contract researcher to the project in June of that year.

Ethical principles were used, including participant involvement, progress reports, obtaining explicit authorisation from all involved, and always ensuring the people involved understood the procedures.

During the research the aims evolved as follows:

1. To quantitatively assess if an increase in both book numbers and parent-child reading interactions occur in the homes through the families involvement with the project
2. To quantify interactions with outside sources (eg library attendance) and to qualitatively record issues related to library useage
3. To assess the families first language, and the preferred language of the books
4. To assess and evaluate decision makers and program providers perceptions and interpretations of effectiveness of the project
5. To assess and evaluate project participant's perceptions of the value of and support for the project
6. To identify areas of improvement

The report had some interesting findings. Click here to download the evaluation paper (MSWord doc - 304kb).

Statistician Concludes That Money Is Well Invested

At a thank-you function held in June 2006, Peter Mullins, a statistician by profession and an enthusiastic supporter of Books for Babes, gave an enlightening summary of the progress of the project to date.

“The programme has grown considerably,” he said, “and I have a couple of charts here that show this growth (see below). Some of the growth is structural: the programme now gives out five books over a period of 13 months, where previously three books were given over 15 months.

“The pleasing aspect,” he enthused,“was the number of children enrolled is also growing significantly.”

Click here to download the newsletter with the remainder of this article.