Abstract
Communities are increasingly being required by state and federal funders to achieve outcomes and be accountable, yet are often not provided the guidance or the tools needed to successfully meet this challenge. To improve the likelihood of achieving positive outcomes, the Getting To Outcomes (GTO) intervention (manual, training, technical assistance) is designed to provide the necessary guidance and tools, tailored to community needs, in order to build individual capacity and program performance. GTO is an example of a Prevention Support System intervention, which as conceptualized by the Interactive Systems Framework, plays a key role in bridging the gap between prevention science (Prevention Synthesis and Translation System) and prevention practice (Prevention Delivery System). We evaluated the impact of GTO on individual capacity and program performance using survey- and interview-based methods. We tracked the implementation of GTO and gathered user feedback about its utility and acceptability. The evaluation of GTO suggests that it can build individual capacity and program performance and as such demonstrates that the Prevention Support System can successfully fulfill its intended role. Lessons learned from the implementation of GTO relevant to illuminating the framework are discussed.
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Acknowledgements
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provided funding for this paper through support of Participatory Research of an Empowerment Evaluation System (R06/CCR921459). Work on this paper was also supported by The Department of Veterans Affairs Desert Pacific Mental Illness Research, Education, and Clinical Center (MIRECC). We would like to thank Megan Zander-Cotugno and Kirsten Becker at RAND for their assistance with the data collection and management in this project. We would also like to thank all of those at Santa Barbara Fighting Back and LRADAC in Columbia, without whose participation this project would not have been possible. Any opinions expressed are only the authors’, and do not necessarily represent the views of any affiliated institutions.
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Chinman, M., Hunter, S.B., Ebener, P. et al. The Getting To Outcomes Demonstration and Evaluation: An Illustration of the Prevention Support System. Am J Community Psychol 41, 206–224 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10464-008-9163-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10464-008-9163-2