The current YOS/COS Infographic has served the BBBS network well for many years and remains a trusted and reliable source of match outcome data. Nonetheless, the Infographic has a few shortcomings that can easily be addressed by a new reporting tool.

Perhaps the Infographic’s largest shortcoming is its incompleteness. The current Infographic only reports results on seven question sets. This is a small percentage of the total question sets that make up the YOS and COS. BBBS agencies must currently rely on custom reporting to get data on the YOS/COS question sets that are not included on the infographic. This can be a complex and time-consuming endeavor. The new YOS/COS reporting tool that will be introduced to the network in the first quarter of calendar year 2021 will report results for all of the question sets included in the YOS and COS, making it much easier for BBBS agencies to quickly pull reliable data on all match outcomes.

In addition to being incomplete, the current YOS/COS Infographic can be very hard for untrained staff members to interpret and understand. The Infographic provides data on several different aspects of the results it reports on, including the percent of matches that have maintained or improved in specific outcome areas, the average baseline and follow-up scores for specific outcome areas, and the statistical significance of reported changes. In order to properly understand the information presented in the current Infographic, staff often need to mentally compile and compare many of the different data elements presented in the report, and this can be a nontrivial and potentially confusing activity. The new YOS/COS reporting tool will be designed to be easy and intuitive to interpret and understand for all BBBS staff members.

Finally, the current YOS/COS Infographic’s statistical formulas could benefit from updating. Many of the formulas and calculations that run in the background of the Infographic are based on historical YOS/COS data. In order to remain as accurate as possible, these formulas should be routinely updated with new values based on the most recent and complete historical data sets. While this is not really a shortcoming of the current Infographic and similar periodic updates will be required for the new reporting tool, all statistical formulas will be updated as part of the creation of the new report ensuring that it provides the most accurate information possible.

While the current YOS/COS Infographic has served BBBS well for many years and is still a reliable source of match outcome data, the new reporting tool will address the few shortcomings of the Infographic – thus ensuring the BBBS network will continue to have robust outcome reporting capabilities well into the future.

If you have any questions about the YOS/COS Infographic Replacement Project, please email the project team by clicking here. We will get back to you as soon as possible.