When choosing between two evils, I always like to try the one I've never tried before.
— Mae West

CSAP's Northeast CAPT's Feasibility Tool is a set of worksheets that you can use to objectively select programs that match your organization's capacity. It can help you avoid the trap of selecting “favorites” or programs that may have a good reputation but don't necessarily fit your identified needs or your organization's ability to implement them. The tool is organized around the six dimensions of feasibility described yesterday; each worksheet looks at one dimension.

Today's session will walk you through the steps involved in completing the tool. We assume that before you use this tool in your community, you will have completed a needs assessment that included the following:

1. Identifying a target population and the need(s) you plan to address (e.g., middle school students at risk of substance use)
   
   
2. Specifying goals and outcomes you would like to achieve that are logically linked to the needs they will address (e.g., preventing/reducing substance use by improving students' problem-solving skills; improving academic performance; increasing school attachment)
   
   
3. Identifying one or more evidence-based prevention programs appropriate for meeting your goals and objectives (e.g., Across Ages, Teenage Health Teaching Modules).

We also suggest that you complete the tool as part of a group. Given the multiple dimensions of feasibility, it is doubtful that you will have all the answers yourself. Bring to the table people from your agency, your target population, and the community or setting where the program will be implemented. This process can be time intensive, but will help you avoid pitfalls down the road.

Finally, you will need to have collected detailed descriptive information about the program(s) you are assessing. For now, though, you have all of the information you need.

• To begin, please print a Sample Resources Worksheet.
• Next, print the Feasibility Tool (six pages, total).

How to Complete the Worksheets
Completing the Feasibility Tool is fairly straightforward. Just follow these steps:

• Step 1. Select a Program. As we mentioned above, you can use the tool to assess the feasibility of implementing a specific evidence-based prevention program or to compare the fit of several programs. In either case, you will need to complete a separate set of worksheets for each program you are considering.

• Step 2. Select a Worksheet. Since resources are easiest to conceptualize, it's usually best to start with the Resources Worksheet.

• Step 3. List the Program Requirements. Using the program information you have collected, fill in the blank cells in the column labeled Program Requirements. For example, in the sample worksheet, in the subcategory labeled Availability of Space, we entered the following information: 3 meeting rooms: 1 for parents, 1 for kids, 1 for daycare.

Completing the Program Requirements column will also help you identify critical knowledge gaps—areas where you need to collect more information before comfortably moving forward.

• Step 4. Determine Capacity. Still on the Resources page, fill in the blank cells under the column labeled Capacity. This information should reflect your organization's current capacity to meet the related program requirement. For example, does your organization have three meeting rooms available, or will three rooms be readily available when the program is implemented? In the sample worksheet, we entered the following information: “2 meeting rooms.”

• Step 5. Compute a Scale Score. In the column labeled Scale Score, enter a number from 0 to 1.0 (don't forget the decimal point) that reflects how feasible it would be to implement the program, based on the degree of fit between program requirements and your organization's current capacity. A score of zero means it would not be feasible to implement the program; a score of 1.0 means it would be extremely feasible. In the sample worksheet, we entered a scale score of .6, reflecting a marginal fit between the program's space requirements and the space available at the organization. Make sure to compute a separate scale score for each item listed under Program Requirements.

• Step 6. Compute a Feasibility Score for Each Cell. This score is computed by multiplying the scale score by the point value in the same row. In the sample worksheet, the scale score of .6 was multiplied by the point value of 14, for a “feasibility score” of 8.4.

• Step 7. Compute a Feasibility Score for the Entire Worksheet. Do this by adding up the feasibility scores for each item. For the Resources page, the maximum score will be 14 x 13 = 182.

After you have completed these steps for the Resources page, do the same for the other five worksheets. Note that these worksheets do not contain a column for Program Requirements, since most programs do not impose specific, clear requirements for these domains in the way they do for resources. For these pages, complete the Capacity column with brief descriptions of the organization's capabilities, or conditions in the community. Then, in the column labeled Scale Score, enter a number from 0 to 1.0 (don't forget the decimal point) in each cell that reflects how feasible it would be for a practitioner to implement the program, given its characteristics.

Once you have completed all six worksheets, compute a total “feasibility score” for all of the worksheets, combined. The minimum possible score is 0; the maximum is 1,000.

How to Use the Feasibility Score
At this point, you may feel like you're simply plugging in a lot of numbers. But your final feasibility scores can be very revealing. For example:

• A high feasibility score indicates that it would be relatively easy to implement the program with fidelity (as it was designed).
  
  
• A low total feasibility score indicates that it would be difficult to implement the program unless the organization's capacity and/or local conditions improve, and/or the program is changed or adapted. Thus, even if this program sounds great on paper, it may not be the right one for you—given your current capacity and/or circumstances.
  
  
• A comparison of their total feasibility scores could help you choose among evidence-based programs. Programs with higher overall scores would be a better fit than programs with lower scores.

The scoring system can be used to identify specific areas where you have adequate or less than adequate capacity to implement a specific program. It can also reveal more widespread problems. For example, if you were to look at the same item across worksheets completed for different programs, and you find that the same item receives consistently low scores, this may suggest that the lack of capacity (or inhospitable local conditions) is more generic than program-specific. In this case, your organization may need to increase its capacity in this area in order to implement any appropriate program.

Examining groups by dimension (e.g., resources) may also reveal high or low capacity in broad areas. Again, these capacity scores may vary depending on the program being considered, or they may be constant across several programs, suggesting that few programs can be implemented well until capacity or local conditions are improved.

Letting the Tool Work for You
There are several ways to adapt this tool so that it better fits the views and assumptions of your organization. For example, the current tool assigns equal weight to each of the six dimensions. Working from a total possible score of 1,000, we divided the points for each dimension equally—resulting in 167 points for each. However, you can easily change this weighting system to reflect your organization's beliefs about the relative importance of the dimensions.

The same is true for the items (sub-categories) within each dimension. As is, the tool weighs each sub-category equally—we divided 167 by the number of category items in that dimension to arrive at the point value. However, you can adjust these point values to better reflect your views on the relative importance of each item. For example, the buy-in of key leaders may be critical to program success in one community but less critical in another, where space limitations weigh more heavily.

Finally, you can add additional categories that may not be on the tool but are important to you. For example, if you work in a school that is involved in education reform efforts, you may want to assess the degree to which a prevention program links to academic achievement. You can also move categories around. For example, the subcategory “Cultural Competence” exists under the Target Population category, but could also be considered a part of many other dimensions; you may want to add the category “Access to Linguistically Appropriate Program Materials” to the Resources worksheet and/or “Access to Appropriate Evaluation Instruments” to the Evaluability page.

Prior to completing the worksheets, have a discussion with those involved in the decision-making about these programs to decide whether you want to make changes to the weighting system or add additional categories.

Other Potential Uses of This Tool
The Feasibility Tool can be used in a variety of ways, such as the following:

• To describe your capacity to implement a proposed program to a potential funder
  
  
• To engage organizational leaders, community leaders, and/or members of the target population in the decision-making process and to increase their understanding of prevention
  
  
• To highlight areas where capacity will have to be increased in order to meet model program requirements

The tool can also be used to evaluate program fidelity and/or identify areas where program adaptation may be necessary. Tomorrow's session will address the issues of fidelity and adaptation in detail.

Please proceed to Activity 3: Try It, You'll Like It!