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Session Title: Evaluating Department of Justice Faith and Community-Based Initiatives That Serve Victims of Crime

Panel Session 379 to be held in Mencken Room on Thursday, November 8, 1:55 PM to 3:25 PM

Sponsored by the Government Evaluation TIG

Chair(s):

Carrie payday loan  Mulford payday loan ,  United States Department of Justice,  carrie.mulford@usdoj.gov

Abstract: This panel will provide an overview of two National Institute of Justice evaluations of Department of Justice faith-based and community organization (FBCO) initiatives targeting victims of crime. The first is the evaluation of the Office on Violence Against Women's Rural Domestic Violence and Child Victimization Enforcement Grant Program Special Initiative: FBCO Pilot Program that provides funding and technical assistance to 54 organizations that serve domestic violence victims in rural areas via three intermediary organizations. The second is the evaluation of the Office for Victims of Crime's Helping Outreach Programs to Expand II Program that funds 28 organizations that serve urban underserved victims using a single national intermediary. Both presentations will focus on the value added of using an intermediary model to provide funding and technical assistance to small faith-based and community organizations. The evaluators will also discuss the challenges of designing and implementing evaluations of Federal FBCO initiatives.

Evaluating Department of Justice Faith-based Programs: An Overview Carrie payday loan  Mulford payday loan ,  United States Department of Justice,  carrie.mulford@usdoj.gov Dr. Carrie Mulford will provide an overview of the grant programs that are being evaluated under the Department of Justice's faith-based initiative. The two evaluations that make up this panel came out of a congressional mandate that the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) conduct evaluations of the faith-based and community organization (FBCO) initiatives of the Office on Violence Against Women (OVW) and the Office for Victims of Crime (OVC). The first presentation will give a brief overview of OVW's Rural Pilot Program and OVC's HOPE II Program. Due to the politically sensitive and high profile nature of the initiatives and the mandate for evaluation, the evaluators of these programs have faced unique challenges in developing and implementing their evaluation designs. This presentation will also highlight some of the ways in which the political climate has affected the evaluation efforts.

Evaluation of the Rural Domestic Violence and Child Victimization Enforcement Grant Program Special Initiative: Faith and Community-based Pilot Program Andrew payday loan  Klein payday loan ,  Advocates for Human Potential,  aklein@ahpnet.com Dr. Andrew Klein will present on the Rural Pilot Program Evaluation. The Rural Pilot Program involves three intermediaries - one regional (3 Idaho counties), one statewide (Wyoming) and one national. This presentation will focus on research findings around two issues. After describing the three intermediary agencies selected by the Office on Violence Against Women, the intermediaries will be compared in terms of each one's success at recruiting faith and community based organizations in rural America to deliver services to victims of domestic violence. Secondly, the presentation will discuss some of the issues involved in reaching out to 'faith-based' organizations, including both definitional issues as well as the perhaps inherent tension arising from the differences in philosophies and orientations of the faith and secular domestic violence advocacy communities in their understanding of and delivery of services for domestic violence victims.

Helping Outreach Programs to Expand II (HOPE II): Faith-based and Community Organization Program Evaluation Carrie payday loan  Markovitz payday loan ,  Abt Associates Inc,  carrie_markovitz@abtassoc.com Dr. Carrie Markovitz will present on the HOPE II Evaluation. The HOPE II evaluation focuses on the ability of a single national intermediary to improve the capacity of small FBCOs as compared to a comparison sample of organizations that did not receive funding. Dr. Markovitz will discuss the inherent difficulties in evaluating capacity changes among organizations of varying sizes, sophistication, and aspirations. She will also discuss the grant design, specifically the 'intermediary model,' and the evaluation's findings on its effectiveness in building capacity. Dr. Markovitz is the project director for the HOPE II evaluation and she has extensive experience evaluating faith-based and community organizations. Dr. Markovitz currently contributes to two additional evaluations of government faith-based initiatives.