Before You Begin Implementation: Evaluation
Implementation involves a thoughtful, well-designed evaluation process. This can help schools and organizations identify needs, assess progress, and demonstrate the value and effects of the program to the community, families, and funders. Most funding agencies now require an evaluation plan as part of the grant process.

We recommend developing a plan to include evaluation early in the process of program adoption. Since evaluation can be a complex undertaking, working with experienced consultants from your school district or local university can be very helpful.

Program evaluation involves systematically collecting information about needs, processes, and outcomes related to a chosen program. These data can then be used to define goals, measure progress, and plan improvements.

Needs Assessment
Best conducted before selecting a prevention program or before program implementation. It provides evidence of specific school or organizational needs and informs effective planning. See below for more information on needs assessment.

Conducting a Needs Assessment

Needs assessment is best conducted before selecting a prevention program or before program implementation. It provides evidence of specific school or organizational needs and informs effective planning.

Needs assessment is also a helpful first step in identifying program outcomes for outcome evaluation and can provide a baseline to which yearly program results are compared. If grant funding is sought, needs assessment can also provide a data-driven rationale for funding.

Data often used in needs assessment include:

• Discipline referral, suspension, and absentee data.
• Prevalence of risk and protective factors using student surveys (such as state health surveys) and/or local and state statistics (such as juvenile justice data).
• Academic achievement data.
• Demographic information (for example, student and staff turnover).
• Information about programs already being implemented in the school.
• Information about school and community resources.
• Surveys or interviews of those who would be involved in and affected by program implementation (for example, classroom teachers and playground and lunchroom personnel).

Needs assessment includes the investigation of the school and community context in which the program will be implemented. Knowledge of context allows you to plan prevention efforts that are a good match for your local needs—socially, politically, and economically.

Click here for Early Implementation and Needs Assessment tools.