Improving quality assurance when implementing and evaluating an evidence-based intervention in a community setting: Safe Start Promising Approaches Initiative

APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Joie D. Acosta, PhD¹, Yvette Lamb, PhD¹, Lisa Jaycox, PhD², and Dana Schultz, PhD². (1) Association for the Study and Development of Community, 444 N. Frederick Ave., Suite 315, Gaithersburg, MD 20877, 310-519-0722, Ext. 110, jacosta@capablecommunity.com, (2) RAND Corporation, 1200 South Hayes Street, Arlington, VA 22202

The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) is conducting the four-phase Safe Start Initiative to create a holistic approach to prevent and reduce the harmful effects of exposure to violence on young children by improving access to, delivery of, and quality of services to children and their families. The second phase, Safe Start Promising Approaches (SSPA), funded 15 sites to implement evidence or theory-based interventions for violence in a variety of community-based settings. The RAND Corporation is evaluating these interventions using either a randomized control or a comparison group selected on similar characteristics. The Association for the Study and Development of Community (ASDC) and the Safe Start Center are providing evaluation and program technical assistance to sites, respectively. RAND, ASDC, and the Safe Start Center collaborated to develop a continuum of quality assurance to provide sites with a range of strategies to improve the quality of their implementation based on the level of their resources and degree of rigor. Examples of how the 15 intervention programs improved their quality of implementation at each stage of the continuum are organized around four components of quality assurance (1) Standardized intervention training and materials; (2) Ongoing supervision and feedback; (3) Quality assurance monitoring; and (4) Agency/organizational support. The lessons learned are likely to inform the implementation and evaluation of other evidence-based interventions in community settings and thus improve our ability to implement, monitor, and evaluate interventions to reduce the harmful effects of exposure to violence on young children.

Learning Objectives:

Identify appropriate terminology to describe quality assurance and distinguish between quality assurance and fidelity within the evidence-based interventions in a community setting.

Discuss how to improve quality implementation and evaluation of evidence-based interventions in a community setting through a four stage continuum of quality assurance.

List examples of quality assurance strategies that fall into one of four components of quality assurance

Standardized intervention training and materials (e.g., clinician manual); (
Ongoing supervision and feedback (e.g., on-site consultation); (3)Quality assurance monitoring (e.g., protocols and checklists to monitor quality of implementation); and (
Agency/organizational support to ensure both resources and accountability are available to monitor quality assurance (e.g., budget support for quality assurance monitoring).
Apply the continuum of quality assurance to a multiple-component (therapeutic intervention, case management, and hospital support) evidence-based intervention in a community setting.

Keywords: Violence Prevention, Quality Assurance

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No
Any institutionally-contracted trials related to this submission?

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

Increasing Family Violence Prevention Efforts through Targeted Strategies for Children and Families

The 135th APHA Annual Meeting & Exposition (November 3-7, 2007) of APHA