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Evaluating Your Program

The National Strategy for Suicide Prevention stresses the importance of evaluating suicide prevention programs. NSSP says that evaluation can help programs strive to be safe, ethical, feasible, appropriate for their audiences, and cost-effective, as well as effective. Even programs using interventions that evaluation research has shown to be effective should evaluate and monitor their activities. There are a number of factors that can cause even an evaluated, evidence-based program to be less than effective in particular situations. These could include applying the program to a group for whom the program is not effective (because of their age or culture, for example) or lack of appropriate training for the staff. Evaluation data that show that YOUR program works are also valuable for garnering the resources and support needed to sustain your work. These resources will help you evaluate and monitor your program.

Websites

American Evaluation Association (APA)
An international professional association of evaluators. Resources available on their website include the following:

Beyond Data
A web-based resource created by the Department of Family and Consumer Sciences at North Carolina State University that focuses on understanding needs assessments and evaluation. It includes an Information Bank describing a number of different data collection methods, sample data for each of these methods (and an interactive quiz to help users understand how to draw implications from data), and reporting and presenting data so it can be understood by others.

Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) Evaluation Web Site
This website provides a variety of resources for evaluating criminal justice and other types of programs. The site includes information on logic models, performance measures, program monitoring, data collection and analysis, process and impact evaluations, evaluation planning, and how to choose an evaluation team.

Community Toolbox
A website created and maintained by the Work Group on Health Promotion and Community Development at the University of Kansas, in collaboration with AHEC/Community Partners in Amherst, Massachusetts. The Tool Box includes practical guidance for the tasks necessary to promote community health and development. Each section, including the sections on evaluation and assessment, includes a description of the task at-hand; advantages of performing this task; step-by-step guidelines; examples; checklists of points to review; and training materials.

Evaluation Center at Western Michigan University
The Evaluation Center offers a wide range of on-line evaluation resources, including:

Juvenile Justice Evaluation Center Online
A project of the Justice Research & Statistics Association, funded by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, U.S. Department of Justice. This website includes publications about evaluation; instruments and scales to measure psychological issues, substance abuse, and other issues; the JJEC Logic Model for designing evaluations; a glossary of evaluation terms, and links to websites relating to evaluation and juvenile justice.

SAMHSA's Prevention Platform
A website created by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) for those working on issues of substance abuse prevention. It includes tools and resources in the areas of assessment, capacity, planning, implementation, and evaluation. Evaluation resources found on this website include a comprehensive tool for designing a process or outcome evaluation, a measures and instruments repository, and a number of tools for managing evaluation data.

Web-Based Courses and Workshops

Are You Making Progress? Increasing Accountability Through Evaluation
This workshop provides participants with the knowledge and skills necessary to initiate the process of evaluating school prevention efforts. Although designed by the National Training and Technical Assistance Center for Drug Prevention and School Safety Coordinators for middle schools, much of the information is useful for other school-based and community-based programs. In this workshop, participants:

Center for Substance Abuse Prevention's (CSAP) Prevention Pathways: Online Courses
These courses offer a basic introduction to evaluation to prevention professionals and members of the public. They are designed for people not familiar with the basic concepts of program evaluation. Pathways currently offers three evaluation courses:

  1. Evaluation for the Unevaluated: Program Evaluation 101
  2. Evaluation for the Unevaluated: Program Evaluation 102
  3. Wading through the Data Swamp: Program Evaluation 201

Publications Available Online

Framework for Program Evaluation in Public Health
Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports, 48 (RR11). September 17, 1999. A practical tool designed to summarize and organize essential elements of program evaluation. The framework comprises steps in program evaluation practice and standards for effective program evaluation. Adhering to the steps and standards of this framework will allow an understanding of each program's context and will improve how program evaluations are conceived and conducted. The emphasis is on practical, ongoing evaluation strategies that involve all program stakeholders, not just evaluation experts.

Getting to Outcomes 2004: Promoting Accountability Through Methods and Tools for Planning, Implementation and Evaluation
M Chinman, P Imm, and A Wanderman. Santa Monica: Rand Health, 2004.
This manual presents a ten-step process that enhances practitioners' prevention skills while empowering them to plan, implement, and evaluate their own programs. It was specifically designed to help agencies, schools, and community coalitions improve programs aimed at preventing or reducing drug and tobacco use among youth. The manual includes text and worksheets and can be applied to any type of prevention programming. It includes chapters on needs and resources assessment; goals and objectives; choosing best practice programs; ensuring program "fit;" capacity, planning, process, and outcome evaluation; continuous quality improvement, and sustainability.

Guide to Project Evaluation: A Participatory Approach
Ottawa: Health Canada, 1996.
This guide provides easy-to-use, comprehensive framework for project evaluation. The guide includes information on the defining key evaluation questions, delineating key evaluation steps, writing project goals and objectives, outlining success indicators, collecting and interpreting data, and using evaluation results.

Program Manager's Guide to Evaluation
Washington, DC. Administration for Children, Youth, and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, no date.
A basic guide to evaluation for program managers, which discusses why and how programs should be evaluated, as well as how to report evaluation results

National Center for Mental Health Promotion and Youth Violence Prevention Evaluation Briefs.
These short publications offer concise summaries of very specific evaluation topics. The three publications in this series include Evaluation:

Designs and Approaches (PDF)
Hiring an Evaluator (PDF)
Managing an Evaluator (PDF)

Suicide Prevention: Prevention Effectiveness and Evaluation.
Washington, DC: SPAN USA, 2001.
A booklet designed to help readers understand the need for and language of evaluation.

User Friendly Handbook for Mixed Method Evaluations
Arlington, VA: National Science Foundation, 1997.
This handbook is based on the recognition that experienced evaluators have found that the best evaluation results are often achieved by using mixed method evaluations, which combine quantitative and qualitative techniques. It contains a discussion of the differences between quantitative and qualitative evaluation methods and how the two can be used together to provide a comprehensive perspective on a program's success.

W.K. Kellogg Foundation Evaluation Toolkit
This toolkit contains a number of online publications about evaluation. These include the following:

Writing@CSU Writing Guides: Empirical Research
These "online textbooks" created at the Writing Center at Colorado State University provide detailed coverage of a number of important issues relevant to evaluation and other types of quantitative and qualitative research. Publications in this series include Reliability and Validity; Generalizability and Transferability; Introduction to Statistics; Experimental Methods and Design; Ethnography, Observational Research, and Narrative Inquiry; Case Studies; Survey Research; Content Analysis; and Rhetoric and the Presentation of Research.