Campus Grant Assessment and Evaluation Technical Assistance

Prevention Innovations Research Center (PIRC) at the University of New Hampshire

https://cola.unh.edu/prevention-innovations-research-center

The Assessment and Evaluation Technical Assistance Team aims to improve the effectiveness of grantee work and the strategies they use on campus to respond to and prevent sexual assault, dating and domestic violence, and stalking. This will help grantees implement more informed strategic planning, be able to implement needs assessment and outcome assessments to track the impact of their work. Assessment information can help grantees, adapt response and prevention strategies so they are culturally relevant to different populations on campus, and ensure sustainability of campuses’ work after the grant has ended.

Technical Assistance (TA) activities include a combination of in-person and virtual technical assistance for grantees, including, but not limited to: a) in-person workshops, including workshops at the Technical Training Institutes (TTIs); b) virtual group (i.e., webinars) and individual technical assistance for grantees; c) website materials for grantees; and d) consultation with other OVW Campus TA providers.

The Assessment and Evaluation TA Team will:

• Build the capacity of grantees to develop logic models and strategic plans for their work across the three years;
• Improve grantees’ ability to conduct a local needs assessment related to sexual assault, domestic and dating violence and stalking and understand of the needs of culturally specific groups;
• Build the capacity of grantees to use needs assessment information to adopt evidence-based response and prevention strategies and appropriately adapt them to fit the needs of their individual campus;
• Increase the number of campuses that conduct process assessments to examine the implementation of programs and practices and identify what adjustments need to be made;
• Increase the skills of grantee teams to communicate assessment results to key administrators and other campus and community stakeholders to help secure resources for sustaining grant activities beyond the grant period; and
• Collaborate with other OVW Campus Program TA providers and grantees to determine that all TA that is provided meets grantees’ needs.

Meet the Assessment and Evaluation Technical Assistance Team:

The Assessment and Evaluation TA Team is coordinated through Prevention Innovations Research Center (PIRC) at the University of New Hampshire. PIRC provides technical assistance to practitioners and administrators on and off college and university campuses to ensure that services, policies and prevention strategies are effective and based on current research on best practices in campus sexual assault and relationship violence and stalking prevention and response.

Victoria Banyard, Ph.D. serves as the Assessment and Evaluation Technical Assistance Project Director and is a Research and Evaluation Consultant for PIRC and a Professor of Psychology at UNH. She worked for two years for the OVW Campus Program on a temporary position during which she provided training to OVW Campus Grantees at TTI workshops, webinars on campus climate surveys and strategic planning and assessment methods. She has extensive experience working with campuses related to assessment of prevention programs, conducting climate studies and building capacity related to strategic planning and assessment.

Jane Stapleton, M.A. serves as the Project Manager and is Executive Director of Practice at PIRC. She has developed and implemented evidence-based bystander intervention prevention strategies and has expertise in using focus group assessment techniques to ensure that prevention strategies resonate with the intended target audience. Her expertise also includes adaptation and translation of campus prevention and response strategies to meet the needs of LGBTQ populations and culturally specific groups.

Wendi Siebold, M.A. serves as an Assessment and Evaluation Consultant and is President and Senior Research Associate of Strategic Prevention Solutions, an independent research, evaluation and training firm. She provides training and consultation for domestic violence and sexual assault coalitions, state health departments, federal funders (OVW, CDC, SAMHSA) and Tribal entities on topics of violence prevention research, program planning and evaluation, the assessment of capacity for prevention, and evaluating a criminal justice response to domestic and sexual violence.

Linda Langford, Sc.D. serves as an Assessment and Evaluation Consultant and was an associate Center director at the Higher Education Center for Alcohol, Drug Abuse and Violence Prevention where she provided training and technical assistance to campuses and their community partners in developing, implementing, and assessing effective prevention efforts. She managed the Center’s evaluation projects, including providing evaluation TA to grantees and campuses and managing internal and external evaluations of the Center’s TA services. She has provided TA services to SAMHSA grantees as an Evaluation and Communications Scientist at the Suicide Prevention Resource Center.