Attendance Patterns: Maximizing Impact and Engagement

Keeping track of attendance in the services provided by CET and HOPES is an important part of learning about their effectiveness. No matter how strong the evidence that a service improves functioning, it can only be effective if people participate. So, we’ve been very pleased by the high levels of attendance in CET and HOPES components. Between 70% (HOPES) and 80% (CET) of those enrolled have participated in their weekly CET and HOPES group sessions (in-person) since the pandemic; when makeup sessions for those who miss a group session are included, the average rate of participation rises to about 87% weekly for both CET and HOPES. Withdrawals have been very limited after the start of the interventions (16% at CET sites and 27% at HOPES sites), but with much variation between sites. At our CET sites, more than three-quarters have also been participating in cognitive remediation sessions, but there’s quite a bit of variability in the modality of those sessions, from 100% to just one-quarter in-person. At our HOPES sites, the percentage of those participating in the individual monthly sessions in-person also varies widely, from 89% to 0. When a community support person participates in these monthly HOPES individual sessions, they do so remotely 70% of the time. While we believe that group sessions should be held in-person if possible—using make-up sessions when people can’t make it, we also encourage flexibility in the modality of participation in the non-group program components. It’s all about maximizing impact and engagement!

Russ and Kesh

Dual Principal Investigators
Project SUCCESS