In line with OJJDP's mission to provide leadership on developing effective strategies for delinquency prevention, OJJDP is currently conducting a long-term, national-level outcome and impact evaluation of the Community Prevention Grants Program in six participating States. Based on input from leading national experts on designing and conducting evaluations of comprehensive program initiatives, the evaluation design draws extensively on existing data sources and data collection instruments to help identify critical success factors for community planning, assessment, and implementation of delinquency prevention strategies. The evaluation also will assess the impact of Federal dollars, and gather and disseminate information on "what works" in delinquency prevention. The evaluation activities include technical assistance to build State and local capacity for ongoing evaluation of local Community Prevention Grants Program initiatives.

Many of the characteristics of the Title V Community Prevention Grants Program that are theorized to be its greatest strengths—its comprehensiveness, locally-determined program components, and dynamic programming—also make the initiative particularly challenging to evaluate. Because these characteristics translate differently in each community, it was necessary that the evaluation strategy provide a framework to capture, across States and communities, both the similarities and the unique contextual and implementation factors. Intended to examine the viability and effectiveness of the Community Prevention Grants Program delinquency prevention model, very broadly, the national evaluation will address the following research questions:

• What is the impact of the Community Prevention Grants Program on community planning, service delivery, risk factors, protective factors, and juvenile problem behaviors?

• What factors and activities lead to the effective implementation of the Community Prevention Grants Program model and to positive program outcomes?

The evaluation also is testing the key theories or assumptions on which the Community Prevention Grants program model is based. The model assumes that Federal assistance will enhance communities' ability to effectively implement the program model, which will lead to more effective prevention planning processes, which, in turn, will lead to the implementation of promising prevention programs and approaches. These programs and approaches are expected to result in changes in community systems, values, or norms, and individual knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors, which will lead to reduced risk and enhanced protective factors. Reduced risk and enhanced protective factors, in turn, will ultimately lead to lower rates of juvenile delinquency and other adolescent problem behaviors.

As illustrated in Exhibit 6, the evaluation design consists of three interrelated levels:

• Level I: A basic profile of Community Prevention Grants Program communities in the participating States and Territories (e.g., number and amount of awards), which will continue to provide a general description of the distribution of Community Prevention Grants Program funds and activities across the country.

• Level II: An assessment of planning, implementation and outcome characteristics in 12 participating Community Prevention Grants Program communities, in 6 States (2 in each State), based on information collected at the community level.

• Level III: An assessment of the efficacy of the Community Prevention Grants Program model through intensive case studies of each of the 12 community's "theory of change" (i.e., the series of actions and responses that link program implementation to intended outcomes).

The evaluation was designed to be responsive to both methodological and resource requirements. The six State sample includes Michigan, Pennsylvania, Nebraska, Vermont, Virginia, and Hawaii. The sample was selected to moderate the cost of the evaluation, maintain adequate statistical power, offer geographic and demographic diversity, and include levels of variation in implementation and outcome factors sufficient to fully investigate the research questions. In addition, despite their differences in approach and composition, the participating States share a strong commitment to the Community Prevention Grants Program conceptual model and a willingness to participate in the evaluation data collection activities.

In the spirit of collaboration and capacity building, the national evaluation was designed to do more than simply answer the research questions. It also was designed to build local community capacity to monitor, and thereby increase the effectiveness of, local delinquency prevention plans. To this end, through participation in the national evaluation, communities gain:

• Evaluation technical assistance and training to build local evaluation capacity.

• Enhanced understanding of how the Community Prevention Grants Program process unfolds in their community.

• Increased insight into the strengths and weaknesses of ongoing community prevention activities.

• Opportunities to modify prevention activities to ensure that their initiative is on track with community objectives.

• Opportunities to document "evidence of success" to use as leverage for other funding opportunities.

• Improved knowledge about "what works" in prevention in their community.

To date, on-going national evaluation activities have included site visits to all six of the study States, which, in addition to data collection activities, include an evaluation technical assistance and support component. In general, the visits have helped the evaluation team to foster a shared understanding of the evaluation goals and objectives with key stakeholders at the State and community level, gain a detailed understanding of the "State context" (e.g., State prevention policy and support for prevention programs through funding, technical assistance, and training), conduct interviews with key State and local stakeholders, and build community evaluation capacity through technical assistance and training workshops. Future activities will focus on continuing to build local evaluation capacity through ongoing technical assistance and training to States and participating communities, and continuing to implement the national evaluation design through on-going local data collection, data management, and analysis of community-level evaluation data. While this multi-year evaluation is only mid-way through the implementation phase, the foundation has been laid for meaningful, ongoing data collection activities with the participating communities.

In the end, the national evaluation is designed to result in:

• An ongoing description and characterization of the Community Prevention Grants Program grants in all participating States and Territories.

• An assessment of the extent to which community risk- and protection-focused delinquency prevention has been implemented in the Community Prevention Grants Program communities, including an understanding of what community planning processes were undertaken, which risk factors were addressed, what prevention activities or strategies were carried out, what target populations were served, and the magnitude and intensity of the services provided.

• An analysis of the changes in target populations and community systems as well as the impact on trends in indicators of risk and rates of juvenile problem behaviors.

• An increased understanding of the processes involved in effective implementation of the Community Prevention Grants Program model and a test of the theoretical links between the risk- and protection-focused delinquency prevention model and community-wide impacts.