Career Profile for Brian Dates

Brian attended Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan from 1965 to 1970, studying first, Chemistry, and second, Psychology, receiving his B.S. degree with a major in psychology. He attended Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan from 1974 through 1977, receiving his is M.A. degree in Applied Developmental Psychology.

Brian was Program Director for the Boys’ Club of Royal Oak, Michigan from 1970 through 1973. He was the Project Director for an alternative school for pre-delinquent youth from 1974 to 1976. In 1977, he became the Research Associate for the Continuum Center for Adult Counseling and Leadership Training at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan, where he worked until 1981, coordinating research under National Institute of Mental Health and Administration on Aging grants which funded the training of paraprofessional counselors and indigenous helpers.

While at Oakland University, Brian began a small psychology practice in an outpatient clinic. He moved to full-time private practice, specializing in working with patients with catastrophic and/or chronic illness, and in 1981, assumed management of the outpatient clinic. Brian continued in independent practice until 1994. During this time, he evaluated several programs contractually, including a project for adolescent sexual abusers; an alcohol and substance use educational program for children, adolescents, and their families; and a re-entry program for women leaving prison.

In 1994, Brian became Director of Quality Assurance at Southwest Counseling Solutions (SWCS) in Southwest Detroit. During his tenure until his retirement in 2017, he evaluated programs funded by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) in the areas of Systems of Care for children, Treatment for the Homeless, Services in Supportive Housing (also coordinating the evaluation of the same program model for another local organization serving persons who are homeless), and Collaborative Arrangements to Benefit Homeless Individuals. He served on a SAMHSA workgroup to identify screening instruments for alcohol and substance use and as one of ten experts in programs for the homeless to design the evaluation of SAMHSA’s portfolio of programs for persons who are homeless. He also provided technical assistance on behalf of SAMHSA to programs having implementation and/or evaluation difficulties. Brian provided evaluation services to a number of other programs. He evaluated the performance of Michigan State University relative to their National Science Foundation grant to implement a STEM curriculum in pre-school education. He has also has evaluated programs for integrated healthcare, implementation of a program to serve frequent users of inpatient and emergency room services, implementation of an effort in a medical setting to provide screening and brief intervention for substance abusers, and a program to provide training and opportunities for community-based entrepreneurs.

Brian has been active in both the American Evaluation Association and the Michigan Association for Evaluation. He served on the Board of Directors of the latter organization from 2001 to 2015, holding all four officer positions. In 2017, the Michigan Association for Evaluation honored Brian with the Lifetime Achievement Award. He has been Treasurer of the Board of Directors for a local nonprofit program evaluation corporation since 2009.

Brian has taught at several institutions. From 1978 through 1995, he taught Assessment in the Department of Human Resources Development at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan. From 1998 through 2004 Brian taught Program Evaluation in the MSW program in the School of Social Work at the University of Michigan – Ann Arbor. Since 2010, he has taught Performance Measurement and Management, Program Evaluation, and Research Methods and Statistics in the graduate program in Public Administration at the University of Michigan – Dearborn.

Since his retirement from his position at SWCS, and in addition to his teaching, Brian has been providing consultations in the areas of performance measurement and management, quality improvement, research design and data analysis, and program evaluation.