Building and measuring an effective online prevention community of practice: PreventConnect's sexual violence and domestic violence prevention practitioners learn from each other online

Communities of practice bring together people who share common professional learning goals. PreventConnect is a national community of practice that transcends geographic limitations by bringing practitioners together online to improve violence prevention practice, share resources, and work together to build a vibrant peer network. Through web conferences, blogs, social media, wikis, podcasts and email groups, prevention practitioners have worked together to advance their professional skills since 2005. While evaluation of communities of practice is still developing, a recent assessment of PreventConnect proposes bold measures and innovative methods to explore how its online activities are contributing to a national movement. Through a web based participant survey, video testimonials, and interviews with end-users of PreventConnect and other national leaders in prevention, the evaluation showed how this community of practice facilitated improvements in violence prevention practice. In particular, it explores how PreventConnect increased organizational policies and procedures related to primary prevention efforts, increased local primary prevention community efforts, and increased collaborative among the community of practice.