MODULE 1
EVALUATION OF THE
CITIZENSHIP AWARENESS PROGRAM – CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION CANADA
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/resources/evaluation/cap/index.asp
The
Citizenship Awareness Program (CIP) was evaluated with an outcomes based
evaluation. It was designed to ask
whether the Federal Citizenship program was relevant to new and existing
Canadians and what the performance of the organization was in reaching this
population (effectiveness, efficiency, and economy).
This
program evaluation was done with a variety of data collection tools including
interviews, site visits, ceremony exit surveys, new citizen surveys,
administrative data review, and a literature review. Within this data collection, the questions
the evaluators sought to answer were based on relevance and performance goals
such as:
·
Is citizenship promoted among all Canadians?
·
Is the value of citizenship promoted in citizenship
and Immigration Canada policies?
·
Is the promotion of citizenship shared equally
between federal, provincial and local governments?
·
Is citizenship literature distributed equitably and
widely among new and existing Canadians with language barriers removed?
·
Are citizenship ceremonies promoted among all
Canadians and reaching a wide audience?
·
What is the value placed on citizenship in
Canada?
·
Do promotional activities increase a sense of
belonging among Canadians?
The outcomes were prioritized in this study based on these
questions.
In
determining whether the outcomes of this program were reached, the evaluators
turned to a variety of data collection tools.
In their final report, it was determined that there was a need to
promote citizenship to maintain the value of becoming a Canadian citizen. This study also indicated that very little is
known about how promotional activities to draw attention to the benefits of
citizenship in Canada are viewed in the Canadian public. The value of ceremonies was highlighted in
the conclusion of this report.
The
flow chart (Figure 2-1) on page 23 of this document effectively highlights the
steps of this model. There were “Activities”
such as set direction, a plan, monitoring of the plan and a report. “Output”
sources were the priorities of the Citizenship Program, research, strategic
policies, performance measurement, and performance data. “Outcomes” were immediate such as
recommendations for citizenship promotion, and staff training and intermediate
such as the knowledge that the clients have knowledge of the responsibilities
and privileges associated with Canadian citizenship.
Data
was gathered in interview format with five groups including citizenship
representatives at NHQ and Regional and Local offices, citizenship judges,
partners and stakeholders, and representatives from other government
departments. Documentation was collected
either by telephone or in person and was qualitative (value responses) and
quantitative (all, most, many, some, few) in nature. Academic and technical literature was reviewed
to determine the actual need for a citizenship program in Canada and the
federal government’s role in the program once established. There were bar graphs to display information
like the Citizenship Take-up Rates over a 25 year period in Canada (Figure 3-1;
p. 31) as well as Reasons for Becoming Canadian Citizens (Figure 3-2; p. 56). Clients were all new Canadian citizens.
The final
analysis of the data was divided into four categories:
·
Participation in CIC promotional activities
·
Knowledge of citizenship rights and
responsibilities
·
Impacts related to applying for Canadian
citizenship
·
Program Management
·
Resource utilization
The last section briefly describes the recommendations for
the Citizenship Awareness Program.
I think
that this was a very effective model for evaluating this program. There was an indented outcome of this program:
Is Canadian citizenship valued, recognized and promoted among federal,
provincial, and local governments?
Strengths of this outcomes based model for evaluation were that there
was a clear government directive at a federal level to ascertain the
effectiveness of a program and a large gathering of data to support the need
for such programming. Potential areas
of weakness in using this model could be that a cost measure could be
overlooked in the effectiveness of this program as no cost measures were
determined. Also as a process, were
there personnel that were hired on the basis of providing citizenship services
that were not under scrutiny?