This guidebook is intended as a resource for all people interested in learning more about the success of programs that aid women victims of violence under the Federal Violence Against Women Act.
After discussing reasons to participate in evaluations and participatory approaches to conducting evaluations, this guidebook explains logic models of evaluation, including how to develop and use them. A chapter describes how to tailor an evaluation to specific needs of an organization and how to work with evaluators, followed by a chapter that discusses how to use evaluation results to improve a program's functioning and performance, promote the program, and avoid being misunderstood. A technical discussion of evaluation design is relevant to those who must design an evaluation or who intend to work closely with an evaluator to select an appropriate design. One chapter addresses short-term and long-term victim outcomes and would be relevant to any project that provides direct services to victims. Another chapter offers a variety of dimensions that could be used to describe current status and changes in any of the following: one victim service, a "full-service" victim support and advocacy agency, and/or the network of victim services available in a locality. Other chapters address system changes/outcomes for the criminal and civil justice systems, potential outcomes and measures to assess community-wide system change, ways to measure improvements in community attitudes toward violence against women, and ways to think about measuring increased perceptions of fairness and justice in the legal and court systems. Remaining chapters provide measures for the impacts of training activities, measures of impact for projects that are developing or installing new data or communication systems, and special issues regarding evaluations of projects on Indian tribal lands.