Susan Zaid, M.A.
Director
Susan Zaid brings more than 25 years of experience in program evaluation, applied social science research, and capacity building evaluation technical assistance in the areas of home visiting, early childhood systems coordination, maternal and child health, two-generation approaches, prevention services, and child welfare. She contributes in-depth knowledge of maternal and child health programs and early childhood systems to several projects and has direct experience supervising and managing day-to-day operations of large-scale capacity building support and evaluation projects.
Zaid has a comprehensive understanding of maternal and child health data—including home visiting federal and model-specific requirements—that she applies to help develop evaluation and technical assistance resources, reports to Congress, and actionable recommendations to funders and clients. Through her work on federal projects, she understands the Office of Management and Budget clearance requirements and has led the development of clearance packages, including developing supporting statements and federal register notices and estimating burden.
Currently, Zaid serves as the JBA lead for the Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV) Technical Assistance Resource Center—directing the project’s MIECHV Evaluation Coordinating Center— where she supports the delivery of performance measurement, continuous quality improvement, and evaluation TA. Zaid also serves as the senior advisor for large-scale projects like the Early Childhood Systems Technical Assistance and Coordination Center and the MIECHV Innovation Technical Assistance Center. Zaid also directs the evaluation of the Utah Home Visiting Pilot Program to explore innovative service delivery strategies and assess the effectiveness of four home visiting models across multiple counties.
Previously, Zaid was the project director of the Family-Level Assessment and State of Home Visiting project. Responsibilities included ensuring overall quality and timeliness of project deliverables, serving as a point of contact for federal staff, providing guidance for project tasks, monitoring task activities by project staff and consultants, and facilitating meetings with the project team and federal staff. Zaid was also project director of the Design Options for Home Visiting Evaluation project and the JBA lead on the Support for MIECHV Program Awardees to Build Capacity for Performance Measurement and Continuous Quality Improvement project. In that role, she provided capacity building support to a cluster of grantees with varying levels of capacity. The project provided tailored technical support to meet needs in diverse areas such as evaluation, performance monitoring, continuous quality improvement, and selection or refinement of data systems to assist with data collection and management. Recently, Zaid evaluated a foundation’s grantmaking strategy and provided actionable recommendations for refinement.
Zaid has evaluated programs in the areas of home visiting, two-generation approaches, foster care, adoption, child abuse and neglect, and family preservation. She is proficient in designing surveys, developing data management systems and protocols, developing data collection interview tools and protocols, conducting interviews and focus groups, performing cost analyses, and facilitating engagement. Zaid also has experience designing and monitoring adherence to implementation plans for programs and facilitating practice-based application of evaluation findings.
Zaid received an M.A. in sociology from the University of Houston.