Building capacity to prevent intimate partner violence

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, states have increased focus on building their infrastructure to support and deliver such strategies. The DELTA PREP Project engages state domestic violence coalitions in building organizational capacity to support prevention efforts at the state and community level. This presentation reports on changes in coalitions' organizational capacity to support primary prevention and related prevention efforts. Methods: We included data from all 19 coalitions. We analyzed data from the project's online system to assess organizational changes and prevention efforts completed across coalitions. We interviewed 9 coalitions in Year 2 to examine key determinants of improving organizational capacity, and to further explore the link between their increased organizational capacity and their state and local prevention efforts. Results: Coalitions documented over 200 organizational changes across 6 dimensions: staffing, leadership, structures and processes, partnerships, resources, and member agency development. In addition, coalitions proposed 43 prevention efforts across 5 types: programs, policies, state collaborations, public education and media coverage. We will describe the eight factors coalitions identified as determinants of their organizational changes to improve prevention capacity and how capacity links with state and local prevention efforts and outcomes. Conclusions:Capacity-building initiatives should consider which aspects of organizational capacity are most influential to an organization's ability to engage in IPV primary prevention efforts. Such analysis helps focus resources and demonstrate the link between building prevention capacity and implementing prevention efforts.