Many, including researchers, elected officials, parents, physicians, and other community members have raised questions about the impacts of child abuse prevention programs.  Do they really keep children safe?  How do parents benefit from these programs?  Can we prove that a prevention program stopped abuse or neglect from occuring?  Programs report stories of success; parents who have reached an educational goal, families that have made community connections, and children with greater access to the resources that meet their basic needs.  Yet, the anecdotal stories do not speak to the larger population served by the program.  Are all participants experiencing positive outcomes?  How long does that positive impact last?  What outside factors could have influenced these positive changes?  There are many questions to answer.  

The New Hampshire Children’s Trust Fund (NHCTF) is committed to improving evaluation practice for our grantees and other prevention programs across the state.  This includes providing training and technical support for agencies to collaboratively utilize the Family Support Program Outcome Survey, a free survey tool that has been implemented in prevention programs across the nation.  The data collected from this survey gives programs and funders a baseline to examine programs.  Baseline data looks at impacts for families and measures them across programs and geographic locations. 

NHCTF is searching for information that will tell us which programs are making positive impacts for families.  Examining successful methods and curricula promotes best practice in prevention programs.  If program evaluation can identify the elements that are increasing protective factors for families, then service providers can offer families opportunities to engage in the most effective programs. 

With an estimated 305,000 children living in the Granite State, the opportunity for programs to reach out to families abounds. Funders, policy makers, community members, and elected officials often hear about the challenges that families face through tragic news events and requests for help in times of need.  They also need to hear about family support programs that are improving family circumstances and protecting children. 

Collecting survey data is not the end of what we need to do to evaluate our family support programs, but it is the beginning of a conversation about what we can all do to keep children safe and families strong.