Making the Case for Domestic Violence Prevention Through the Lens of Cost-Benefit
A Manual for Domestic Violence Prevention Practitioners
(and the State and Local Policy-Makers They Present to)
One Way of Putting the Information Acquired to Work
Various methods of measuring the effects or “outcomes” of prevention education have been designed. The following is an example of the way a prevention education program can measure its impact. This example, using the hypothetical location of Oaktown, California, is based on the work of Transforming Communities in San Rafael, California.
“Healthy Partnerships” is a Violence Prevention Education Program in Oaktown, California. The program’s goal is to build the community’s capacity to prevent violence by replacing attitudes, beliefs and behaviors that perpetuate violence with those that promote safety, justice and equality. One component involves working with middle and high school students:
Staff and trained volunteers show students skills to identify, prevent, and stop abuse, harassment, and assaults.
Students are shown the impact of their behaviors on other people.
Presentations include interactive scenarios and role plays.
Student participants are asked to begin changing their behaviors from the first presentation.
Students complete surveys that help them to notice and document the ways in which they responsibly help prevent, avoid and stop abuse.
The degree to which people are “mobilized” to take action is an indication of the value or benefit of a violence prevention education program. Measuring this “putting the information to work” outcome must be done so that data show not only a change in knowledge/awareness but also the use of that new knowledge/awareness. Once this change in knowledge plus this use of new knowledge can be demonstrated, then the program will have measurable benefits to report.
In addition to increasing awareness about relationship violence, Healthy Partnerships has been able to demonstrate that at least 78% of all participants in the prevention education program were “mobilized” – which means that this 78% did something to respond to and/or prevent emotional, verbal and/or physical abuse as a result of the information provided by the prevention education program.
On the following pages, you will find a “Mobilization Analysis Template” that this prevention program used to come up with the conclusion that “at least 78% of all participants were mobilized.” This template can be adapted to your prevention education program and used to measure learning and mobilization outcomes.