Measuring the Prevention of Child Maltreatment

Utilizing reliable and valid methods for measuring the effectiveness of strategies to prevent child maltreatment is increasingly important. Most significantly, it is crucial to understand what efforts prevent an at-risk child from experiencing abuse and neglect so that interventions can integrate strategies that protect children. In addition, many entities committing funds for prevention services are demanding outcomes that demonstrate not only an increase in protective factors and/or a reduction of risk factors, but also a clear link to the prevention of maltreatment. Furthermore, many programs are requiring the use of evidence-based interventions in working with families at-risk for child maltreatment. The selection of evidence-based interventions for this population needs to be expanded through rigorous evaluation not only to better understand what works, but also to allow programs more flexibility to choose interventions that best meet the needs of their population.  Finally, many of the interventions considered evidence–based in the prevention of maltreatment have an indeterminate relationship with the actual reduction of child abuse and neglect. 

Thus, this roundtable aims to bring together researchers interested in the measurement and evaluation of the prevention of child maltreatment to share experiences and evaluation strategies. The presenters will share materials and dialog from their participation in a state-wide work group to discuss the evaluation of the prevention of child maltreatment, and invite feedback. Topics will include best practices in developing logic models, assessment tools, methodology, and outcome measures, especially as they relate to partnering with prevention practitioners in the field.   The discussion will begin by examining these topics within the evaluation of preventing child maltreatment at the individual and family levels.  Issues to be discussed include what outcomes to measure, when to collect data, who should collect data, and measures that best capture change in risk and protective factors. Next, the discussion will move to the evaluation of community-wide strategies, including increased public awareness about child maltreatment, reduction in stigma for help-seeking and community collaboration.

Finally, the roundtable discussion will review the evaluation guidelines recently set forth by the CDC for the prevention of child maltreatment that specifically address the challenges of multi-disciplinary and multi-site research.  While the parameters provided by the CDC provide important considerations, much is left to the interpretation of research and practitioner teams.  This offers an opportunity for the round table participants to discuss clarification and approaches to evaluation as they relate to contributing to the evidence-base in the prevention of child abuse and neglect, namely 1) uniform surveillance definitions used across disciplines, 2) case definitions applied consistently across data collection sites and 3) data collection that is timely and on-going.

While the difficultly in evaluating the prevention of child maltreatment is not a new dilemma, the significance of the need to develop innovative and accurate methods to assess the impact of prevention efforts is increasing. This roundtable discussion can provide a forum for researchers to dialog about specific strategies, methods, challenges and promising practices in their experience with the evaluation of preventing child maltreatment.