For many years, I have concluded that low success rates can still indicate that that a program or intervention works well. Some examples to help keep in perspective the fact that nobody ever gets it right 100% of the time ...
a) The best college baseball player this year his the ball 41.2% of the times he was up. He failed to get a hit 58.8% of the time. He will get a contract in excess of $10,000,000 per year when he turns professional later this summer. In the past 40 years, no professional baseball player has hit the ball 40% of the time over a season although it was fun to watch George Brett and Rod Carew try.
b) I planted about 25,000,000 wildflower seeds in my meadow last fall and this spring (yes 25 MILLION by the counts on the bags). At any time this spring, as various types come into bloom, there are probably 5,000--10,000 flowers in bloom in the meadow. 10 thousand of 25 million is still one heck of a lot of wildflowers and extremely pretty. But it is a low percentage of success.
c) It takes the average drug abuser about 12 tries in various types of programs to stay drug-free. Seeing somebody who has been drug-free for 10 years and the effect it has had on the user and his/her family is a privilege.
d) Working relationships among agencies need to be renewed every 2-5 years as staff change. Cooperating human service agencies are the most effective way of providing services.
Hit a ball and fail 60% of the time, plant 25 million seeds and watch 10 thousand come up, provide somebody 12 chances to kick a drug habit and rebuild a life, retrain agency staff every few years and watch the service system work ... victory can be snatched from defeat.
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