Using Empowerment Evaluation to Facilitate the Development of Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Prevention Programs

Abstract

This article addresses the question, “What factors contributed to successful completion of a needs and resource assessment in local communities, using the empowerment evaluation approach?” Case studies of three successful projects allow the exploration of organizational, community, state, and national factors that contributed to a strong needs and resource assessment, including original data collection, to guide the development of a plan to prevent intimate partner and sexual violence. The overall project was guided by empowerment evaluation principles. Each local community used additional conceptual frameworks, including grounded theory, Kolberg's theory of moral development, gender-role attitudes as operationalized by the rape myth acceptance and Olweis' systemic approach to bullying. Local programs focused on specific populations and collected original data through a variety of methods. For instance, one local agency utilized already existing surveys to assess bullying within their public school setting. Another community assessed the attitudes of male sex offenders and other male community members regarding gender-role attitudes, violence, and risk and protective factors for perpetration. A third community administered a random phone survey, examining attitudes toward rape, other violence against women, and gender roles. Each community integrated the results of their original data collection into their needs and resource assessment. Preliminary information regarding the communities' experience with the completion of needs and resource assessments, using the empowerment evaluation framework, indicate that successful projects used specific theories or frameworks to guide data collection. Positive collaboration with evaluators and community prevention coalitions characterized each community's experience.