Building organizational capacity to prevent intimate partner violence: Evaluating key outcomes

Background: Intimate partner violence (IPV) results in serious health and social consequences for victims, families and communities. As evidence emerges on effective IPV prevention strategies, state and national partners have increased their focus on building an infrastructure to support and deliver such strategies. The DELTA PREP Project engages state domestic violence coalitions in building organizational and state capacity to support prevention efforts. The objective of this presentation is to report on changes in coalitions' organizational capacity to support primary prevention and their prevention efforts in the state and community. Methods: We included data from all 19 state coalitions engaged in the initiative. To assess which types of changes and prevention efforts were completed across the coalitions, we analyzed data from the project's Online Documentation and Support System. We reviewed progress reports and conducted phone interviews with coalition staff and leaders to better understand the context and challenges for such changes. Results: Coalitions proposed 68 organizational changes across 6 dimensions of organizational capacity: staffing, leadership, structures and processes, and partner, resource and member agency development. We will discuss the characteristics of organizational changes and challenges coalitions faced implementing these changes. We will also discuss the coalitions' state and community prevention efforts, and the ways organizational changes supported these efforts. Conclusions: Capacity-building initiatives should consider which aspects of organizations and specific changes are key to improve an organization's ability to engage in IPV primary prevention efforts. One important measure of improved capacity is assessment of how organizational changes support prevention efforts.