Evaluating a suicide prevention program: a question of impact

Abstract

This paper explores the evaluation objectives of a suicide prevention program known as the Regional Trainers Sustainability Plan. The program aims to train practitioners to intervene appropriately where they come into contact with individuals who show suicide risk. As evaluators we argue for the critical role of impact evaluation in determining how well programs achieve their ultimate objectives, however, in this case our ability to know that suicide prevention has taken place is limited. As a suicide prevention program, performance information about the effect of the program activity was difficult to define and obtain because of cautions about the interpretation and use of measures such as 'how many lives were saved'. As a second-best option, we defined the program in terms of a set of goals that ranged from lower order to higher order. This helped to avoid unrealistic and unfounded conclusions being drawn from the data collected. Organising performance information into a series of levels clarified what the information collected could prove and what it could not prove. This layout also helped to demonstrate links between activities and suicide prevention and, despite an impact evaluation being unobtainable, a level of confidence in the program's worth was gained. However, our paper maintains that this does not replace the value and importance of thorough impact evaluation, given that very little is known about what works in the suicide prevention area.