186798 How Do You Evaluate Community Prevention Coalitions?: Design of the Evaluation of Drug-Free Communities Support Program

Wednesday, October 29, 2008: 12:48 PM

Mary Kay Dugan, MA , Battelle Centers for Public Health Research and Evaluation, Seattle, WA
     
The Office of National Drug Control Policy funds the Drug-Free Communities Support Program and its evaluation. The Program is designed to build community capacity to prevent substance abuse among our nation's youth through Community Anti-Drug Coalitions. As part of the larger session on Evaluating the Effectiveness of Community Substance Abuse Prevention Coalitions: Findings from the Evaluation of the Drug-Free Communities Support Program, this particular presentation will provide an overview of the design of the program evaluation. The specific objectives of the evaluation are to: (1) Assess whether the program has made an impact on reducing the substance abuse outcomes at the community, state, and national level; (2) Assess whether Drug-Free Community Coalitions have increased the capacity and effectiveness of coalitions; and (3) Identify specific factors that contribute to Coalitions' ability to prevent substance abuse. This presentation will also introduce key components of the evaluation which will be discussed in greater detail in other panel presentations.

Learning Objectives:
1. Understand how to use evaluation to determine the effectiveness of Community Prevention Coalitions, such as those supported by the DFC program. 2. Discuss appropriate indicators of coalition impact and overall success of nationwide coalition efforts. 3. Learn innovative evaluation techniques to address the challenges associated with capacity building initiatives and evaluations of community prevention coalitions.

Keywords: Coalition, Drug Abuse

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: Ms. Dugan currently serves as the lead evaluator to the Office of the National Drug Control Policy's (ONDCP) Drug-Free Communities (DFC) Support Program National Evaluation. ONDCP conducts the Drug-Free Communities Program to build community capacity to prevent substance use among the nation's youth. As the evaluator, Ms. Dugan is reponsible for designing and implementing an evaluation to support effective monitoring of this national program. The participating coalitions' capacity, strategies and outcomes are being evaluated to understand the nature of effective coalitions as well as their developmental levels as delineated by a theory-based typology. Ms. Dugan has over 20 years of experience as a program evaluator for national cross-site evaluations of public health programs including substance abuse prevention and treatment programs.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

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.

See more of: Substance Abuse Prevention Strategies for Adolescents
See more of: Alcohol, Tobacco, and Other Drugs