Directorates
·	Director General's Office
·	Data Development
·	Strategic Evaluations
·	Partnership and Continuous Evaluations
Publications
·	Evaluation Reports
·	Evaluation Briefs
·	Labour Market Development Agreement Series
·	Lessons Learned Series
·	Evaluation Tool Kit Series
·	Evaluation Forum Newsletter
·	From Theory To Practice

On behalf of Taking Charge! it is a pleasure to respond to the summative evaluation.

It should be noted that the evaluation was conducted during the 2 years after the programs' inception. This is important in that, as a relatively new organization Taking Charge! was continuing to evolve and was not more established as assumed in the evaluation framework. In spite of that shortcoming and some inaccurate conclusions resulting from that model, the evaluation is considered by management to have been a useful exercise. It has provided a milestone by which we are able to measure the success of our efforts over that two-year period and provided an opportunity to confirm many of our operating assumptions. Since the evaluation there has been significant accomplishments in our operations so that we are now more fully developed.

There is general agreement in the report that Taking Charge! was successfully delivering a very valuable and much needed service. The summative evaluation report concludes that Taking Charge! in only its first two years was able to demonstrate "the importance of specialization and offering services to the economically disadvantaged." I agree!

But Taking Charge! is a unique program and it continues to evolve as we seek innovative approaches to individual needs. As such, I must disagree with the reports' conclusion that: "by offering a broad spectrum of services we have limited our ability to partner with community organizations". It is my belief, that it is by accessing that broad spectrum of services that we have been successful in finding innovative solutions, which has allowed us to meet the needs of our clients.

The board of directors and staff were instrumental in creating an organization that represented every aspect of the community from social programs, daycare to business. This community based perspective and valuable first hand experience working with single-parents contributed to the success of Taking Charge!

I am confident that Taking Charge! will continue to meet the needs of single parents and I would like to thank Prairie Research for assisting us in that effort.

Rosa Walker
Executive Director