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Evaluating Program Effectiveness

Evaluation has become a critical element of child abuse prevention program sustainability, as funders and policy makers increasingly ask for evidence of the impact of the programs they fund. It is equally important for programs to conduct evaluation activities as part of their ongoing quality assurance efforts.

• Steps in evaluating prevention programs
  Explore the key steps in evaluating a child abuse prevention program.
  
  
• Logic Model Builder
  This user-friendly tool takes the user through the process of developing a logic model. The Logic Model Builder helps users identify the data they need to measure, as well as specific data collection resources to measure progress and identify outcomes.
  
  
• Examples of evaluating program effectiveness
  Examples of national and community-based evaluations of selected programs.
  
  
• Making an economic case
  Establish the value of preventing child abuse and neglect and gathering information on cost and outcomes of programs through economic analyses.
  
  
• Related resources: Evaluating program effectiveness
  Additional resources on evaluating program effectiveness.
  
  

Prevention programs need to continue to move toward an outcomes-based approach to evaluation. This kind of program evaluation provides program administrators, policymakers, and service providers with insight into whether programs work and for whom. Rather than relying upon anecdotal evidence or intuition, programs are able to link services with performance measures and outcomes. The results can be used to revise or refine specific approaches, policies, and practices to ensure better outcomes for children and families.

Unique challenges for child abuse prevention programs
Child abuse prevention programs can be particularly difficult to evaluate because they are successful, by definition, when something does not happen in the future. In other words, if a program to prevent child abuse and neglect is successful, incidents of abuse and neglect will not be observed in participating families. This is further complicated by the fact that it is not possible to assert that incidents of child abuse and neglect would have been observed in these families in the first place.

Because prevention programs create special challenges, evaluations of such programs demand very thoughtful designs if the exercise is to be useful to program managers, policymakers, line staff, and the families they serve.

	Related Information Gateway Topics Systemwide: Service improvement/systems reform - Improving practices

Updated on September 18, 2008