Implementation Readiness and Measurement Within Complex Community Settings

• In Event: Addressing Needs of Communities and Individuals: Findings from the WestEd Justice & Prevention Research Center

Abstract

A myriad of research and evaluation studies on violence prevention and other types of community-based interventions have been conducted over the last several decades. Despite the growth of this evidence, there are still considerable gaps in the what we can say about the efficacy and impact of interventions in complex community settings. The strength of evidence varies considerably by field, and there have been considerable advances in the violence prevention and policing fields in the 21st century; however, a persistent issue in the community-based evaluation literature is our lack of available information on the quality of implementation. Few studies to date have collected sufficient data to measure implementation or to examine the impact of specific program components. The current paper presents information gathered from a variety of sources, most notably including in-depth interview with five multidisciplinary experts, on the challenges they've experienced in working with program stakeholders to document implementation readiness, and to imbed evaluation measurement into the evaluation process. The paper is organized around five central themes - impetus of implementation; organizational dynamics; collaboration complexities; setting challenges; and shifting focus to how and why - that emerged during the interviews and concludes with recommendations for the field.

Authors

• Trevor Fronius, WestEd

• Sarah Guckenburg, WestEd

• Anthony Petrosino, WestEd

• Hannah Persson, WestEd

• Pamela MacDougall, WestEd

• Patricia Campie, American Institutes for Research