Our organizational philosophy evolved over many years of working with clients representing broad spectrums of the community: schools, non-profits, private corporations, product developers, faith-based and community-based service organizations, attorneys, law enforcement, and public entity federal, state, county, and municipal agencies.
Philosophy 1 Meet high ethical standards and principles worthy of the client, participants, and funding source.
Most of our projects involve the collection and handling of highly sensitive, confidential, and personal information including information from vulnerable populations. Whether information comes from employees, prospective employees, children and students, parents and families, schools and local governments, mental health or substance abuse treatment clients, or plaintiffs and defendants, our systems are designed to protect and preserve our clients’ and their constituents’ best interests, integrity, privacy and protections under the law. Toward that end we adhere to the ethical standards and practices expected by the American Psychological Association, the American Evaluation Association, and other professional associations related to our industry.
In furtherance of our philosophy, Rain & Brehm is registered with Chesapeake Research Review, Inc., an institutional review and ethics board. Our procedures and protocols meet 45 CFR 46 Office of Human Research Protections regulations, as well as U.S. Department of Education Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment (PPRA) regulations.
Philosophy 2: Consultant and Client function synergistically as a team.
We conduct our projects, large or small, with the client. We rely on the client to provide input, frame questions, and explain what they hope to gain and learn from the process. We guide the client from the project’s beginning, during its implementation, and to the end using process methods designed to ensure information sharing and feedback. We keep the client informed of the progress the project experiences, as well as its setbacks. We recommend strategies to improve the program, correct course, or modify approaches. In this way, the client maximizes the ability to leverage information and data findings to make well-informed, sustainable decisions during and after the project ends. We encourage our evaluation and research clients to employ Process as well as Outcome evaluation, no matter the size of the project. Combined, these two elements provide opportunities for project staff to understand the Who, What, When, Where, How and Effectiveness of a service or intervention delivery.
Philosophy 3: Embrace “lessons learned.”
Every project produces lessons learned, whether it is the best way to effectively deliver a school-based curriculum, implement a community strategy, effect hiring decisions, recruit participants, pursue new initiatives or pursue new areas of investigation and analysis. We encourage our clients to embrace and celebrate lessons learned with as much vigor as they embrace and celebrate positive findings. Applying lessons learned to future endeavors provides great opportunity to build the organization’s state-of-the-art capability and capacity.
