The links below contained detailed information for the upcoming 2017 Safe States Alliance Annual Meeting, taking place September 12-14, 2017 in Aurora, Colorado.
Please note:
- A total of five concurrent sessions will take place during the Annual Meeting, and there will be up to five breakouts occurring simultaneously during each of those concurrent sessions. Within each breakout, there will be up to four presentations that take place.
- This online system does not allow us to embed the individual presentations within each breakout. Please note the session presentations listed under each Concurrent Breakout title for associated content.
- The on-site mobile app WILL embed these sessions for ease of use.
- A printable, detailed agenda can be found on the 2017 Annual Meeting website.
- If you have any questions, please contact info@safestates.org
- All session times and locations are tentative and subject to change. Safe States will continue to update these details as changes take place.
Evaluating Coalitions for Sexual Violence Prevention
Learning Objectives
In this session, participants will:
- Discuss how coalitions can be partners in sexual violence prevention
- Outline strategies for evaluating coalition work
- Apply lessons from the NYS team’s coalition assessment to their own organization’s evaluation efforts
Statement of Purpose
Coalition building is one of the four approved community change strategies for Rape Prevention and Education (RPE) grantees, but evaluating the work of coalitions is challenging. This session will highlight one state’s efforts in evaluating coalitions and committees that include sexual violence prevention as part of their scope of work.
Methods/Approach
Methods/Approach: In June 2016, staff from the RPE Program (RPE Director, RPE Evaluator) and the Core Violence and Injury Prevention Program (Principal Investigator, Data Analyst) committed to expanding their work in injury and violence program evaluation. Analyzing coalition work was one promising direction for this, especially given the expanding emphasis on community change approaches for sexual violence prevention. The team attended the Injury and Violence Prevention Evaluation Institute meeting in Atlanta, and developed the Coalition Assessment Tool (CAT) with assistance from Safe States Alliance, American Public Health Association and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention staff.
Results
Results: The final version of the CAT includes questions for participants on coalition purpose, coalition membership, including organizational/community affiliation, roles and responsibilities within the coalition and the group they represent, and coalition processes. It also captures whether the coalition is working on primary prevention of sexual violence, and if not, identifies barriers to implementing this work. The CAT went live for RPE program partners in April 2017.
Conclusions & Significance to the Field
Conclusion/Significance: Assessing coalition work will help the Rape Prevention and Education and Core State Violence and Injury Prevention programs engage more effectively with coalitions and committees around sexual violence, including improving primary prevention work with these partners, identifying best practices of high functioning coalitions, and minimizing barriers to primary prevention programming. It is expected that the CAT will identify new partners to include in future prevention work. This instrument, and its findings, represent an opportunity to understand and expand novel approaches to sexual violence prevention.
Presenters
Leah Wentworth, New York State Department of Health
Biography
Leah Wentworth is the Research and Evaluation Manager for the Sexual Violence Prevention Program at the New York State Department of Health, and an adjunct professor at the University of New England in the Graduate Program in Public Health. She has ten years of experience in managing and evaluating public health and injury prevention programs, and has worked in both state and local government. She has coordinated suicide prevention, sexual violence prevention, and older adult falls prevention evaluation projects. She is currently Principal Investigator on a research study assessing the impact of a strengths-based curriculum on preventing violence perpetration among adolescent boys.
Leah has a B.A. from the University of Massachusetts—Boston in Community Planning, an M.P.H. in Health Policy and Management from the University of Massachusetts—Amherst, and a Ph.D. in Occupational and Environmental Health from the University of Iowa.
Sharisse Carter, New York State Department of Health
Biography
Sharisse Carter is the program coordinator for the New York State Rape Prevention and Education Program (RPE). RPE aims to implement sexual violence prevention strategies at the community level throughout New York State.
As a public health professional, Sharisse believes in a comprehensive approach to sexual violence prevention and strongly advocates for evaluation of community level strategies in the field.
Prior to involvement in RPE, for four years Sharisse conducted community-based participatory research (CBPR) in her hometown affected by water and soil contamination. In addition to CBPR, she continuously collaborated with community-based organizations to enhance the presence of coalitions and promote community change in relation to environmental health.
Sharisse obtained a Master’s degree in Public Health from Hofstra University and a Bachelor’s degree in Women’s Studies from Stony Brook University.