A comparison of how families and their service providers rate family generated quality of service factors.

This paper presents a method which was utilized to obtain family consensus around the criteria which should be used to evaluate family support programs. Twelve family members of persons with developmental disabilities were selected in each of six different sites to participate in a group process to identify the factors which distinguish quality family support programs. Content analysis of the results of the six meetings resulted in a final list of 15 quality factors. Two hundred and sixty one families and their family support coordinators (N = 65) were asked to rate the importance of each factor on a 10 point scale. Analysis revealed that there was high agreement between families and their coordinators on the importance of all 15 factors. The applicability of the method used to obtain family consensus regarding evaluation criteria for community mental health agencies is discussed.